The response was swift. I’ll be there.

Nita tucked her phone in her pocket and took a long breath.

Kovit stared at his hands, clenching and unclenching his fists, his expression a strange mix of hope and fear, pain and anticipation.

“Are you okay?” Nita asked.

“It could be a trick.” His voice scraped slightly. “To lure me in.”

She shrugged. “But they’re not luring you in. They’re luring me in. And I’m not going to give you up.”

“You could be charged for hiding a zannie.”

“I could lie my way out of any charges by saying you were threatening me, and they’d have no way to prove otherwise.”

He laughed softly, but the sound vanished swiftly. His voice was tight. “What if she can’t do anything?”

Nita leaned forward and put her hands on his shoulders. “Then she can’t do anything, and we’ll find another way.”

He held her gaze for a moment, then his mouth quirked in a little smile. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

She grinned. “I’m prepared for all eventualities.”

“Really?” He raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms. “Nita. Please don’t tell me your backup plan is to blow up the INHUP building here.”

Nita blinked. “Uhhh.”

“Because that wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t get rid of the data, and there’d be a lot more innocent casualties than even I’m comfortable with.”

She rubbed an arm and lied, “I never thought about blowing it up.”

He stared at her, a mildly disbelieving look on his face.

“Okay, once,” she admitted. “Maybe twice. But not seriously.”

“So, these plans you have don’t involve blowing anything up?”

She tossed out one of her plans. “Nope.”

“Uh-huh.” His look was skeptical. “Sure.”

She flushed. “Look, I’m trying to think of backup plans. In case this meeting with your sister doesn’t go well. Or even if it does go well, and she fails.”

“I know.” He hesitated for a moment, and then said, “What if you used those INHUP names you sold to Adair and started leaking them to the press?” He grinned. “No reason you can’t sell them a second time.”

She blinked. “The press?”

He nodded. “If you make links with reporters, if you give them reliable information and get them stories, you can maybe start tarnishing INHUP’s name. And the more people start digging, the more they’ll find out.” He met her eyes. “There’s more than one way to destroy something. Sometimes public perception can be as dangerous as dynamite.”

Nita smiled slowly, liking the idea the more she thought it through. “That’s very clever. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because there’s no violence,” he teased.

She cracked a smile. “Maybe.”

She pulled out her phone. “I should get started now—”