Воронин
Juliette choked out a laugh. Half gasping, half guffawing, she was almost struggling to catch her breath when Roma pulled her back gently, easing her grip off Rosalind’s necklace before she could rip the chain off and strangle her cousin with it.
“Don’t judge me,” Rosalind said. Her eyes flickered between Juliette and Roma. “Not when you clearly did the same.”
“The same?” Juliette echoed. She couldn’t stand here anymore. She pushed off the table and marched to the other side of the room, gulping in air.
If Juliette had thought hard enough, perhaps she could have worked it out sooner, could have stopped this. She had always known: Rosalind was angry—angry at the world, at the place she had been given. But what she wanted was not to change her place; it was to find something that made her place worth it.
Juliette turned to Rosalind, her eyes stinging. “I decided to love a White Flower,” she managed, each word slicing at her tongue. “You helped a White Flower set destruction onto this city. It is not the same!”
“I loved him,” Rosalind said. She denied none of it. She was too prideful to deny it once she had been caught. “Tell me, if Roma Montagov had asked, wouldn’t you have done it too?”
“Don’t speak about me as if I’m not right here in the room,” Roma interrupted before Juliette could answer. His tone was stern, if only to disguise how shaken he was. “Juliette, sit down. You look as though you are near fainting.”
Juliette folded herself upon the floor and dropped her head into her hands. Wasn’t Rosalind right, in a way? However it had happened, she had loved Dimitri enough to betray her family, feed him information to whatever ends he wanted. Juliette had loved Roma enough to kill her own cousin in cold blood. Rosalind was a traitor, but so was she.
Marshall cleared his throat. “Just to be sure that I am following,” he said. “Dimitri Voronin . . . is the blackmailer? And you are his lover—”
“Not anymore,” Rosalind cut in.
Marshall took the correction in stride. “You were his lover, both his source for Scarlet information and his”—he trailed off, thinking briefly—“what? Monster keeper?”
Rosalind turned her head away. “Untie me, and I will give you answers.”
“Don’t.”
The command came from Kathleen, who had remained quiet until now. The ceiling light flickered, and underneath it, Kathleen’s eyes looked utterly black.
“You owe us that much, Rosalind,” Kathleen said. She tossed the paper onto the table; by now, Kathleen had scrunched up the list so much that it was nothing but a tiny ball, bouncing off the surface and flying to the floor. “I won’t tell you how deeply you have betrayed us. I think you know. So speak.”
Slowly, Juliette put a hand on the floor and started to get back onto her feet. “Kathleen—”
Kathleen spun. “Don’t defend her. Don’t even think about it.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Juliette straightened to her full height, dusting off her hands. “I was going to ask you to take a step back: Rosalind is about to stand.”
Just as Rosalind shifted, Benedikt lunged forward and yanked Kathleen toward him, stopping Rosalind from bowling her sister over with the chair’s leg and making a run for the door. Heavens knew how she expected to escape her bindings even if she got to the door.
“Yes, fine!” Rosalind snapped, finally reaching a breaking point as her chair came back down with a defeated thump! “Dimitri wanted to take over the White Flowers, and when one of his associates came in contact with Paul Dexter’s remaining monsters, I went along with his plan to destroy this city. Is that what you want to hear? That I am weak?”
“No one ever said you were weak,” Marshall replied. “Merely foolish—as the best of us have been known to fall prey to.”
Roma waved for Marshall to stop speaking.
“Backtrack,” Roma said. He looked over his shoulder briefly and exchanged a glance with Juliette. “What do you mean, take over the White Flowers? Paul Dexter’s last note went to someone in the French Concession—how did Dimitri even get ahold of it?”
If Rosalind had her hands free, this would have been the time she placed a delicate palm to her forehead, smoothing down the long wisps of hair around her face. But she was bound, subject to interrogation by family and enemy, and so she only stared ahead, her jaw tight.
“Your search through the French Concession would never have led anywhere,” Rosalind whispered. “In the event of my death, release them all. It was an instruction to the servants at a different property Paul owned in the Concession, on White Flower territory. When they didn’t pay rent, Dimitri stormed the place and found the insects before they could be released.” Her eyes closed, like she was remembering the scene. No doubt she would have been called upon to examine their findings; no doubt she must have seen to the fates of the servants, perhaps a simple bullet to shut them up, perhaps thrown into the Huangpu River so no one could follow Paul Dexter’s last trail.
“Lord Cai will kill you for this,” Kathleen said quietly.
Rosalind blew a harsh breath through her nose, feigning an amusement that didn’t land. “Lord Cai hardly has the time. Don’t you wonder why Dimitri thinks he can stage a coup? Don’t you wonder where he got the nerve?” Her gaze shot up, landing right on Juliette. “The Scarlets and the Nationalists are working together to purge the city of Communists. As soon as the Kuomintang armies are ready, they will open fire on the city. Dimitri is waiting. He waits for that moment, and in the struggle, it will be him who comes in like a savior with his guns and money and allied Communists, driving the Nationalist effort back. It will be Dimitri who rises just as the workers are at their lowest, and he will give them hope, and when he is the prize force of the revolution, he will have the power he wants.”
The safe house fell quiet. All that could be heard was faint shouting outside, as if soldiers were nearing. Quickly, Marshall walked to the window and peered through the cracks again. The others in the room remained where they stood, ignoring everything beyond their four walls.
For whatever absurd reason, Juliette’s mind went to the assassin who had come after the merchant at the Grand Theatre. There was no greater scheme; there never had been. It was merely Dimitri trying to stir trouble with Roma’s tasks. It was merely Dimitri, intent on taking the White Flowers for himself.
“Where did you hear this from?” Benedikt asked in horror. “Why would you have information about secret Scarlet plans when even Juliette does not?”
Another laugh. Another dry, bitter sound that held no humor.
“Because Juliette is not a spy,” she replied. “I am. Juliette did not lurk in the corners listening to her father. I did.”
Juliette’s pulse was beating so hard that the skin of her wrists trembled with movement. Roma reached over and squeezed her elbow gently.
“How long might we have?” Juliette asked, the question directed at Kathleen. “If the Nationalists decide to purge everyone with Communist alignment out of the Kuomintang?”
Kathleen shook her head. “It’s hard to say. They haven’t come to an agreement with the foreign concessions yet. They might wait until jurisdiction settlements are made. They might not.”