Juliette felt the press of his fingers on her wrist. She wondered if he noticed her pulse beating a cacophony under his touch.
“For crying out loud,” she said darkly, shaking his grip loose so that his fingers entwined with hers instead, blood mixing on skin, pulling him away from the mouth of the alley. “You are so dramatic.”
Just as the workers rounded into the alley and loosed their ammunition, Juliette and Roma disappeared through the narrow back passages and merged into the city.
Thirty-Two
Blockades were already forming on the streets, an attempt to close the Concessions before the havoc traveled here, too. Roma and Juliette reached their intended destination in the nick of time, turning onto a thin street before British soldiers could rope it off. Every window they hurried past had its curtains drawn tight. The sounds of gunfire followed on their heels. Fighting would soon arrive in the vicinity.
“Quick,” Juliette whispered, opening the door to the safe house. After accepting that he was going to keep playing vigilante, she had warned Marshall to keep his temporary residence unlocked when he was not there—to ensure that it seemed unoccupied if any Scarlets were to come looking—and she was relieved to find that he had listened. This was the closest Scarlet location. She figured there was no harm in taking shelter here, especially when it was outside proper International Settlement territory, hovering at the edges of Zhabei.
Just as Roma hurried in and Juliette bolted the door, there came shouting from the British soldiers at their makeshift barricade. Their voices coursed down the street, bringing a hush upon the apartments as every resident inside waited for chaos to erupt.
“Are the windows boarded?” Roma demanded.
Juliette didn’t answer; she only waited for Roma to beeline for the windows and pull at the curtains, breathing out in relief when he found them to be nailed shut with wooden panels.
“The darkness didn’t give it away?” she muttered, bringing her lighter to a candle on the table.
The first echoes of shooting began outside. Perhaps Juliette should have tried to get home instead, tried to organize the Scarlets to fight back. Somehow, she had a feeling it would not make a difference. For the first time, the gangsters were not only outnumbered but vastly overpowered.
Roma pulled the curtains shut tightly. He waited there for a moment, then turned around, folding his arms and leaning up against the boards. There was nowhere really to sit: Marshall had made the place cozy, but it was still as small as a crawl space. One chair, propped near the stove, and a mattress on the floor, the blankets resembling a nest atop it.
Juliette opted to lean up against the door. They remained like that, on opposite ends of the room, unspeaking.
Until Roma said: “I’m sorry.”
Juliette’s eyes widened a fraction. For whatever reason, there was anger roiling in her belly. Not anger at Roma. Just anger—at the world.
“Why are you sorry?” she asked quietly.
Slowly Roma inched away from the window. She watched as he trailed his fingers across the surface of the table and found no dust, a hint of fascination flashing in his eyes before his gaze flickered to the coat hanging on the wall. It seemed Roma had come to the realization that this was where Marshall had been living.
Roma took another step across the room. In answer to her question, he gestured at the blood on her hands.
“He was still your cousin, Juliette. I’m sorry.”
Juliette closed her fists, then tucked them under her arms, folding her posture. Her head was a storm. She had fired on her cousin. Fired on his men—her own men—Scarlets, all of them. Still, she couldn’t quite regret it. She would live with this forever, live with her cousin’s blood on her hands, and in the dark of night when no one could hear her, she would cry her tears and mourn the boy he could have been. She would mourn the other Scarlets just as she mourned the White Flowers she had destroyed in the blood feud, and even more so, because their loyalty should have been their protection, and yet Juliette had turned on them.
She didn’t regret it. She hated it, and she hated herself. But standing there, in front of her, was the reason for everything she had done, and to look upon him alive and well was enough to push back the loathing she had for the blood on her hands, for the city that had made her into this monster of a person.
“This kindness is disconcerting,” she managed. “Whatever turmoil exists in my heart, I deserve it.”
Roma sighed. It was a vast sigh, one that might have formed smoke had he huffed just a tad harder.
“You are a liar, Juliette Cai,” he said. “You lied to me until I wanted you dead.”
Juliette couldn’t bear how soft his voice had grown. “Because I could not risk the consequences. I could not risk my own cousin taking your life because I was too weak to let you go.” She loosened her fists, feeling the dried blood itch in the lines of her palms. “And yet he pursued your death nonetheless.”
Roma inched forward once more. He was careful, careful even to look at her, afraid that she might bolt. “You think so intently of protecting me that you did not consider whether I wanted to be protected. I would have rather died knowing you are as you are than lived a long life thinking you cruel.”
“I am cruel.”
“You are not.”
Juliette swallowed hard. How quickly he forgot. How quickly he tried to convince himself otherwise. “Your mother, Roma.”
“Oh, please,” he said, “I already know.”
He . . . what? A tremor hastened through the room: Juliette staring at Roma and Roma staring right back. “What do you mean?”
“I know how these things work, Juliette.” Roma tore a hand through his hair, exasperated. His dark locks became so mussed that the longer strands fell loose over his forehead, and all Juliette could think was that this stone-cold, perfect image of a boy was at last giving way for the real one underneath. “I know we were a risk to each other from the very beginning. And I know you far better than you think I do.”
“Do you?” Juliette challenged.
But Roma wasn’t buying her pity party. He folded his arms. “In what world would you have sent men after my mother, no matter how upset you were? You didn’t know her. She had no personal gain to you, and if I never knew that you did it, then it wasn’t to spite me, either. No, you told someone. In a fit of recklessness, you gave her address, however you found it, and then the blood feud did the rest of the work.” Roma strode two, three steps more, stopping at arm’s length in front of her. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Juliette looked away, her eyes prickling with tears. Somehow, he had found the heart of the matter and told it so generously that it seemed undeserved.
“You’re not wrong,” she managed.
Roma nodded, his shoulders straight and assured. By flickering candlelight, he appeared all the more sturdy, like nothing could phase through his bravado. Only as Juliette tried to blink away the emotion threatening at her eyes, she peered at Roma and found that he was struggling to do exactly the same.
“We live,” he said, “with the consequences of our choices. I know that better than anyone, Juliette. I am the only one in this entire damn city who feels exactly as you do. You should have known that I would understand.”