BooksBarbecue
Back When Villains Rise
Chapters (52)
  1. Copyright
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Forty-Four
  47. Forty-Five
  48. Acknowledgments
  49. Read More from the Market of Monsters Series
  50. More Books from HMH Teen
  51. About the Author
  52. Connect with HMH on Social Media

Nita considered, remembering Mirella, fierce and angry and full of hatred for all the people who’d wronged her. Nita recalled the way she spoke of Kovit, the violence that dripped from her words, and she thought of the video she’d watched. Kovit hadn’t just hurt Mirella once. He’d done it often, who knew how often, before Nita came. She didn’t think Mirella would ever forgive Kovit. Nita didn’t blame her.

“No,” Nita said. “I don’t think it would have changed anything.” She looked down at the email. “Do you want me to tell her who her savior was?”

Kovit stared at the email for a long moment, then shook his head. “No. If it won’t make her recant her statement, there’s no point.”

Nita lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t want her to think you feel guilty?”

“Why should I care what she thinks of me?” He sounded genuinely baffled. “If you think that me pretending to feel guilty will make her switch to our side, I’ll play whatever tune you need me to. But I see no point in making her believe I feel guilty when I don’t and there’s no benefit.”

Nita let her fingers fall. Sometimes Nita thought Kovit might actually feel some sort of guilt for his actions, especially after he’d sent the warning to Mirella yesterday. But then she would be reminded starkly that he really didn’t, and all her thoughts about that were just Nita projecting, wishing he felt guilty because it would make everything a little less terrible.

“All right,” Nita said, and didn’t press further.

Kovit sat down on the bed and then lay back, staring at the ceiling. “I should have killed her.”

“We’d be dead too, then,” Nita responded absently, flipping through the phone she’d taken from Henry. “She’s the reason we made it to the docks at Tabatinga after the market blew up. She unwittingly saved your life.”

He didn’t respond, and Nita didn’t expect him to.

Nita went to the cloud where she’d first seen all those videos Henry had been blackmailing Kovit with. There were hundreds of them, spanning years. She didn’t know if the whole file, en masse, had been shared with INHUP, but this looked like all the recordings he’d ever taken. Which gave her an idea.

“Look, right now, Mirella isn’t important.” Nita turned to him. “She’s a revolutionary in a fringe part of the world most people don’t know or care about. People are already online calling her accusations lies to get attention for her cause. What’s important is INHUP, which will release videos of you soon. What’s important is that we control the narrative they’re trying to build.” Nita’s voice was firm. “They need time to make sure everything is in order before releasing the videos. We don’t.”