Nita made sure her voice was gentle, not judging, even though she was judging just a little. “You can’t avoid Gold forever. And you need to talk to her. We need to figure out to do about her. We can’t keep her here, but until we know what she’s going to do, we can’t just let her go either.”

“I know.” He rubbed his temples and sighed heavily. “I know.”

Nita put a hand on his shoulder. “Go talk to her. You were friends, once upon a time.”

Until Gold realized that the anonymous boy she’d befriended in the chatroom was Kovit and betrayed him. Nita could understand if Gold hadn’t known the person she’d been interacting with online was a bad person and then discovered he tortured people for fun. That was justified rage. But Gold had known the person she’d been sent to spy on was part of her mafia family. She’d known he was very much not a good person. She just hadn’t known he was a zannie.

Even when Kovit made friends with people as horrible as he was, prejudice got in the way.

Kovit looked away. “Yeah. Once upon a time.”

But he took the pizza and went down the hall toward Gold. Nita watched him until he went through the door, and then took a deep breath and picked up her box.

She stood in front of the pastel blue door to Fabricio’s room. There was a strange feeling of déjà vu prickling her skin and stilling her steps. She remembered the last time she had brought Fabricio food. He’d been chained in a dog kennel in her mother’s apartment, and blood had soaked the side of his face where her mother had hacked his ear off.

He’d looked at her, and he’d begged her to help him. And Nita, foolish, naive Nita, had.

And everything had gone wrong.

She swallowed. She wasn’t the same girl she was then. She was smarter now, more ruthless. And this time, Fabricio wouldn’t manipulate her into ruin.

Squaring her shoulders, she opened the door.

Fabricio was slumped in his chair, still bound. He lifted his head when Nita came in. His face was striped a crusty pink from where his tears had mixed with blood and then dried. His blue-gray eyes were broken and scared, and they stared at her with a vacantness that made her shiver.

“Hello, Fabricio.” Nita stepped into the room and held out the box of pizza. “I brought you some food.”

He whimpered softly as he straightened his body. “I suppose you think of that as a good deed.”

“Not really. But I can’t have you dying yet.”

His voice was bitter. “That’s right. You need me to break into my father’s office so you can steal his company’s information.”