“Martin kept me locked in an apartment. I had access to the internet, but though I could view things, I couldn’t comment. I couldn’t do anything. And while I had complete control over the Tácunan Law computer system, it’s locked. There’s no internet. No one can hack in if you’re not connected. So one day, when he brought me into the company for something, I logged into the system and just stole some random information that had been marked as valuable. It was in a separate file. I figured I could sell it online for money.”

“Information on my mother?”

He hesitated. “On your father, actually. Apparently your dad used to work for Tácunan Law. Did you know that?”

Nita hadn’t, but it was certainly plausible. He’d been a legal consultant as long as she could remember, he had to get that legal expertise from somewhere.

“Anyway, so it had information on your father. His current address, current clients, all sorts of things like that. Your mother was only tangentially mentioned.” He swallowed, eyes flicking to her and then away. “I didn’t have access to the internet, so I bribed one of my jailers. I said we’d split the profit fifty-fifty if he posted the information for sale online.”

Fabricio’s smile was bitter. “He did. But of course, I didn’t get a penny of it. It all went straight to his bank account.” He laughed, cruel and angry. “Though it didn’t help him in the end. He died before he could use that money. It was only a day after he got paid that your mother showed up at my apartment and killed my jailers, including him.”

Fabricio’s mouth twisted. “The rest you know. She kidnapped me to blackmail my father into taking the information on your father down, not realizing my father was already dead and I was responsible for the information leak.”

And in the meantime, Andrej had bought that information on her father online, and then killed him in his quest for vengeance.

Fabricio was just as responsible for her father’s murder as the man who actually killed him.

Nita thought she’d feel anger, that her rage at Fabricio would bubble back up, so large it would devour her whole. But she didn’t feel mad. She just felt tired. No, not tired. Relieved. She finally had her answers, she’d finally figured out the start of the domino chain that had ruined her life, and she could feel her shoulders relaxing a little, her body loosening.

She had her answers.

They didn’t come with anger. They didn’t come with pain. They came with clarity, perfect, wonderful clarity. Nita would murder Fabricio for everything he’d done, of that she was sure. But she wasn’t angry at him anymore. It was just one more inevitability, one more thing to do on her checklist.