“Okay. Try again then. Keep your fist tight.”
Alisa tried again. And again. And again. No matter what she did, her blocks were flimsy and her efforts at striking Roma when he pretended to grab her were soft and wobbly.
“Why don’t we stop here?” Roma said eventually.
“No!” Alisa exclaimed. She stamped her foot down. “You haven’t taught me how to hit. Or shoot! Or catch a knife!”
“Catch a . . .” Roma trailed off, flabbergasted. “Why do you want to—you know what, never mind.” He shook his head. “Alisochka, no one learns how to fight in one day.”
Alisa folded her arms, storming over to her bed and collapsing in a flurry of movement. Her sheets flew up and settled down around her like a white aura.
“I bet Juliette learned to fight in one day,” she grumbled.
Roma froze. He felt his blood flash hot, then cold, then somehow both at once—a simultaneous broiling fury paired with a frozen fear just at the mere sound of her name.
“You shouldn’t want to be anything like Juliette,” he snapped. He wanted to believe it. If he said it enough times, maybe he would. Maybe he could look past the illusions she glimmered with, look underneath the wide eyes she blinked at him even as she spilled blood at his feet. No matter how brightly she shone, Juliette’s heart had turned as charred as coal.
“I know,” Alisa muttered, matching Roma’s tone. She was grumpy now because it sounded like Roma was grumpy at her, and Roma swallowed his anger, knowing it was misdirected. It prickled at him that he had become so easily irritable, and yet he couldn’t stop himself. The red-hot urge to be terrible was always pulling at his skin, easier to slip into than ignore.
Roma rolled up his sleeves, checking the clock on her mantel. Alisa seemed content to have a little brooding moment, so he walked over and poked her belly. “I’m needed elsewhere. We can pick up another time.”
“Okay.” Another low grumble, her arms folded tightly. “Don’t die.”
His brow lifted. He’d expected Alisa to protest, to ask again why he needed to be on the streets and watching their territory lines. But all these months singing the same tune had tired her out.
“I won’t.” He prodded her again. “Practice your stances.”
Roma left her room, closing the door behind himself. The fourth floor was quieter than usual, void of the thumping that had been heard earlier. Perhaps they too had tired of trying to learn to throw a knife.
I bet Juliette learned to fight in one day.
Damn Juliette. It wasn’t enough that she had to occupy his thoughts, sunken into his very bones. It wasn’t enough that she had to appear in the city everywhere he needed to go, trailing him like a shadow. She had to come into his home as well, graced across White Flower lips like the final frontier of her invasion.
“Where are you off to?”
Roma’s stride didn’t stop as he came off the stairs. “That would be none of your business.”
“Wait,” Dimitri demanded.
Roma didn’t need to. Nothing was preventing him from treating Dimitri Voronin however he wished, turning the tables until the whole house was dizzy, because Dimitri Voronin had gotten comfortable as the favorite, and now Roma had decided he wanted the whole Scarlet Gang dead after all. So many years spent trying to balance being the heir and being good, and with one snap of his fingers, the goodness gave way for violence, and Lord Montagov had liked the look of it. Being a White Flower was about playing the game. And Roma was finally playing.
“What is it?” Roma asked dully, making an exaggerated show of slowing down and turning around.
Dimitri, who was sitting on one of the plush green couches, stared forward curiously, his fingers tapping on the back of the couch, one foot resting against his other knee.
“Your father wants your audience,” Dimitri reported. He flashed an easy smile. A lock of black hair fell forward into his face. “Whenever you’re ready. He has some matters to discuss.”
Roma’s eyes darted up, following another outburst of sound from within the house, the ceiling shifting and trembling from some second-floor commotion. It might even be coming from his father’s office.
“He can be patient,” Roma said.
With Dimitri’s gaze still pinned on him, Roma pulled the front door open and swept outside.
Seven
Here, here, and here.”
Kathleen circled parts of the map, slashing the fountain pen hard. The city map was practically fraying, one of the many coarser copies that Juliette owned, so she only eyed the markings thoughtfully as they bled red, soaking through the thin paper and onto her vanity table beneath. She and Kathleen were both jammed on one backless velvet seat, trying to peer at the map together. This was her own fault for never installing a proper desk in this bedroom. She only ever splayed herself on her bed. How often had she needed to use an actual hard surface?
Kathleen made a final marking. Just as she set her pen down, one of the map corners started to curl upward, but before the paper could roll into itself and smear the ink, Juliette snatched one of her lipsticks from a box on her vanity and set it on the corner to keep the map down.
“Really?” Kathleen asked immediately.
“What?” Juliette shot back. “I needed something heavy.”
Kathleen simply shook her head. “The fate of the city rests upon your lipstick. The irony is not lost on me, Juliette. Now—” She shifted back into business mode. “I don’t know if it’s worth shutting down operations in these parts just to prevent a strike, but the next one will hit somewhere here. The labor unions are only going to keep blowing things bigger and bigger.”
“We’ll warn the factory foremen,” Juliette confirmed. She lifted a thumb to the map, trying to gauge how far away the locations were from one another. As her hand hovered over the southern part of the city, over Nanshi, she faltered, sighting the road where a certain hospital was.
If the protesters that day hadn’t stormed the hospital, Juliette wondered if there could have been another way out.
Wishful thinking. Even if they had all backed away without a fight, Tyler would have shot her in the head the moment she reached for Roma’s hand.
“Juliette.”
The bedroom door flew open. Juliette jerked in surprise, ramming her knee hard against the vanity table. Kathleen, too, sucked in a fast inhale, her hand flying up to the jade pendant around her throat as if to check if it was in place.
“Māma,” Juliette breathed when she turned to face the doorway. “Are you trying to scare the living daylights out of me?”
Lady Cai gave a small smile, opting not to respond. Instead, she said, “I’m off to stroll Nanjing Road. Would you like anything? New fabric?”
“I’ll pass.”
Her mother pressed on. “You could get a new qipao. Last I checked, you only fit two in your wardrobe.”
Juliette barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Some things never changed. Lady Cai might voice it rarely now that Juliette was at the ripe age of nineteen, but she still detested those flashy, loose Western dresses her daughter so loved.
“I’ll truly pass,” Juliette replied. “I love the two in my wardrobe far too dearly to acquire a third.”