Fabricio’s gaze bored into her. “Do you know what it’s like to have a fingernail ripped off? Do you have any idea how many nerve endings are in there?”

“Actually, I do.” Nita could count them if she wanted to. Her own fingers tingled, as if waiting for her to do so. “It’s not an insignificant number.”

He blinked, his mouth slightly open. Clearly Nita hadn’t responded the way he’d expected, but he recovered quickly.

“Nita, please. You’re not a sadist. I know this. I remember how much it bothered you when your mother took my ear.” He began to cry. “Please stop hurting me.”

Nita stared at him, at his blood and tears and soft whimpers as he begged for her to have the conscience she used to, the same one she’d had when he met her.

But she didn’t.

Nita wasn’t that girl anymore.

The gory details still bothered her—they’d probably always bother her, she didn’t think she’d ever escape that, no matter what she’d told Kovit—but she didn’t feel sympathy for Fabricio anymore. She could see the points on his manipulation plan, each reaction, each word a calculated effort to pull on her strings and make her do what he wanted.

“Sorry, Fabricio. That ship sailed.” Nita knelt so she was eye level with him. “You’re going to have to learn how to manipulate the new me.”

He met her eyes, his face damp with tears. “No, Nita. You’re the one who needs to learn how to manipulate me. Because you suck.”

“Pardon?”

“You’ve given me nothing to convince me to work with you. You’ve sicced your pet monster on me—”

“Kovit’s not a monster.”

Fabricio laughed then, short and sharp. “That’s what you want to argue over? That? To me? Right now?”

She clenched her jaw shut.

“As I was saying.” His voice was cold. “You’ve sicced your pet monster on me, you’ve threatened me if I fail. But what fucking motive do I have to succeed? Why should I help you?”

“To not die.”

He laughed, sharp and bitter. “I’m going to die the minute I get back to Buenos Aires.”

“Why?” Nita asked.

He looked away. “That’s not important. What’s important is that I’m dead either way. So why the fuck should I help you when you’re just going to torture me?”

His hands twitched as he said it, breaking the scabs and causing blood to drip from his fingertips onto the floor in a steady thud-thud-thud. Nita forced her eyes away, but she couldn’t stop hearing the sound, the plop as the droplets hit the carpet.