He shrugged, clearly uncomfortable with having shared the video. “It didn’t happen often. Henry didn’t bring me more children. He realized I got difficult with them. I think he thought I’d get over it in time. He taught me a lot. He really was a great mentor.” He paused a heartbeat, before clarifying, “Most of the time.”

Nita didn’t argue with him. Kovit had murdered Henry to save himself, and if he wanted to cling to the illusion that his childhood had happy moments instead of acknowledging that it had been ruled by an abusive, controlling monster, then she wasn’t going to break his image.

She wasn’t exactly one to talk.

She tried not to think about the parallels to her own upbringing. Her mother never forced her to torture people. But her mother did leave the bodies of small animals in Nita’s bed when she disobeyed her parents, broke Nita’s body to teach her how to heal it, crushed all her dreams, all her hopes of leaving, created an aura of terror that still made Nita flinch whenever she thought about disobedience.

Kovit closed his eyes. “I can see your face, judging me.”

“I mean, he was pretty awful from what I saw.”

Kovit was silent a long moment. His breathing was deep and slow, and when he finally opened his eyes, he admitted, so softly that she could barely hear him, “You’re right. He was awful.”

Nita was silent, watching.

“He betrayed me. He manipulated me. He murdered my friend.” Kovit squeezed his eyes shut tight for a moment and ran his hands over his face. “But I can’t seem to stop this rose-tinted view of him from creeping back in. I can’t seem to stop feeling shitty for having killed him.”

Nita sat beside him and sighed. “Brains are weird like that. It’s common to gloss over the bad things, or think it wasn’t all that bad after it’s over. It’s not like you can actually go back and look and see what the reality was anymore.”

“Yeah. I guess.” He looked at her, head tilted. “Is there anything you still romanticize that way?”

She went to shake her head, but paused, thinking. Her conversation with Andrej had brought a lot of ugly questions into her mind, and the one she’d avoided facing was what all of this said about her father.

Her father. Who loved her. Who cared for her.

Who’d helped her mother murder the head of INHUP. Who’d passed a law to create the DUL. Who Nita hadn’t really, truly seen since she was a child. Who was wholly and completely her mother’s person. And for all that in Nita’s mind he stood up for her, the truth was, he never went against her mother. He was calming and could sometimes mediate. He loved Nita and would do things with her.