His smile was bitter. “I know.” His gaze was steady. “You held up your side of our deal—you killed the man ruining my life. I’ll get you the information you want. I don’t give a fuck about this company, I never have. When this is over, I’ll never go back. It can go down in a ball of flames for all I care.”

Nita almost flinched at the sheer hatred in his voice but kept herself still. “So long as we understand each other.”

He started walking again. “We do.”

They continued down the port, but Nita wasn’t reassured. Fabricio had proven himself an incredible liar and manipulator, and she couldn’t trust which of his emotions and reactions were real, and which were designed to maximize her sympathy, tug on her trust, manipulate what she wanted.

Kovit tilted his head so his sunglasses met her eyes, and she knew he understood. He was wondering the same thing.

Nita wanted so much to just rip the information out of Fabricio’s brain, to strip it out in pieces and consume it like French fries, so that she could do this herself, so that she didn’t need him. But as people said, if wishes were unicorns, most of the world would be dead.

Now that Nita thought about it, she wondered if that was actually a real saying or just something her mother had made up. She’d never heard anyone else use it. Speaking of her mother, since Fabricio was finally shedding some of his lies, she might as well ask him some questions she still needed answers to.

Maybe he’d even tell her the truth.

She picked up her pace slightly so she was walking beside him, her legs moving a little quicker to keep pace with his longer strides.

“Can I ask you something?” Nita’s voice was softer than she expected.

Fabricio blinked. “All right.”

“Before, back in Bogotá, you told me my mother kidnapped you because she wanted to blackmail your father, but you didn’t know why. That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you turned eighteen last week. A week after my mother kidnapped you. That’s a pretty big coincidence.”

His shoulders slumped slightly and he nodded. “Yes, it was a lie.”

“I thought so.” The water glinted in the light of the setting sun, orange tinted. “So, why did my mother kidnap you?”

He sighed, long and hard. “Because I was stupid and desperate and made a mistake.”

“What mistake?”