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Roma jerked away, narrowing his eyes. He was nineteen, heir to one of the two most powerful underground empires in the city, but whenever Dimitri was in the same room as him, he was reduced to a child again.
“Out,” Roma replied vaguely. If he said it was anything related to White Flower business, Dimitri would pry and pry until he was in the know too. While Dimitri wasn’t unintelligent enough to ever openly insult Roma, Roma could hear it in every reference to his youth, every quasi-sympathetic tut whenever he spoke up. It was because of Dimitri that Roma wasn’t allowed to be soft. It was because of Dimitri that Roma had crafted a cold and brutal face that he hated seeing every time he looked into a mirror.
“What do you want?” Roma asked now, pouring himself a glass of water.
“Don’t worry.” Dimitri wandered into the kitchen after him, grabbing a nearby chopping knife. He stabbed at a plate on the table, picked up a piece of cooked meat, and chomped down around the thick blade without regard for who had left the plate there or how long the food had been sitting out. “I was on my way out too.”
Roma frowned, but Dimitri was already walking off, taking with him the heavy scent of musk and smoke. Left alone, Roma heaved a long exhale and turned to put his glass in the sink.
Only, as he turned, he found himself being watched by wide brown eyes on a small, pixie-like face.
He almost yelped.
“Alisa,” Roma hissed at his sister, throwing open the doors of the kitchen cupboard. He couldn’t figure out how she had been watching him from up there without his notice, or how she had even managed to fit in among the spices and sugars, but by now he had learned not to ask.
“Careful,” she whined when Roma lifted her out of the cupboard. When he set her down on the floor, she gestured at the sleeve Roma had clenched in his fist. “This is new.”
It was very much not new. In fact, the cloth-and-wrap shirt that went around her petite shoulders resembled the sort of clothing the peasantry wore before the royal dynasties in China ended, ripped in a sort of manner that could be caused only by slipping in and out of the tightest corners. Alisa simply spoke outrageous things on occasion for no reason other than to incite confusion, leading people to believe she skated a thin line between insane and overly immature.
“Hush,” Roma told her. He smoothed down her collar, then froze, his hand stilling when it touched a chain Alisa had looped around her neck. It was their mother’s, an heirloom from Moscow. The last time he’d seen it, it had been on her corpse after she was murdered by the Scarlet Gang, a bright silver chain that stood stark against the blood seeping from her slit throat.
Lady Montagova had gotten sick shortly after Alisa was born. Roma would see her once a month, when Lord Montagov took him to a secret location, a safe house tucked in the unknown nooks of Shanghai. In his mind, she had been gray and gaunt, but always alert, always ready to smile when Roma walked up to her bed.
The point of a safe house was so Lady Montagova didn’t need guards. She was supposed to have been safe. But four years ago, the Scarlet Gang had found her anyway, had slashed her throat in response to an attack earlier that week, and left one wilted red rose clutched in her hands. When they buried her corpse, her palms were still embedded with the thorns.
Roma should have hated the Scarlet Gang long before they killed his mother, and he should have hated them even more—with a burning passion—after they killed Lady Montagova. But he didn’t. After all, it was lex talionis: an eye for an eye—that was how the blood feud worked. If he hadn’t launched that first attack, they wouldn’t have retaliated against his mother. There was no way to spread blame in a feud of such scale. If there was anyone to blame, it was himself. If there was anybody to hate for his mother’s death, it was himself.
Alisa waved a hand in front of Roma’s face. “I see eyes, but I see no brain.”
Roma snapped back into the present. He placed a gentle finger under the chain, shaking it about. “Where did you get this?” he asked softly.
“It was in the attic,” Alisa replied. Her eyes lit up. “It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
Alisa had been only eight years old. She had not been told about the murder, only that Lady Montagova had at last succumbed to illness.
“Very pretty,” Roma said, his voice hoarse. His eyes flicked up then, hearing footsteps on the second floor. Their father was in his office. “Run along now. I’ll call you down when it’s time for dinner.”
Giving a mock salute, Alisa skittered out of the kitchen and up the stairs, her wispy blond hair trailing after her. When he heard her bedroom door close on the fourth floor, Roma started up the stairs too, going up to his father’s office. He shook his head roughly, clearing his thoughts, and knocked.
“Enter.”
Roma filled his lungs with air. He pulled the door open.
“Well?” Lord Montagov said in lieu of a greeting. He did not raise his eyes. His attention was on the letter in his hand, which he scanned quickly before tossing it away and picking up the next one in his stack. “I hope you found something.”
Cautiously, Roma walked in and set the bag down on the floor. He reached into it, hesitating for a moment before pulling out the shoe and setting it down on his father’s desk. Roma held his breath, clasping his hands behind his back.
Lord Montagov looked upon the shoe like Roma had presented him with a rabid dog. He made that expression at Roma rather frequently. “What is this?”
“I found it where the first seven men died,” Roma explained carefully, “but it belongs to the man who died in the Scarlet club. I think he was present at the scene of the first crime, and if so, then this is a matter of contagion—”
Lord Montagov slammed his hands down on his desk. Roma flinched hard but forced himself not to close his eyes, forced himself to stare forward evenly.
“Contagion! Madness! Monsters! What is wrong with this city?” Lord Montagov bellowed. “I ask you to find answers and you bring me this?”
“I found exactly what you asked for,” Roma replied, but quietly, barely audible. For the last four years, he was always doing what was asked of him, be it a little task or a terrible one. If he didn’t, he would have the consequences to fear, and though he hated being a White Flower, he hated the thought of not being one even more. His title gave him power. Power kept him safe. It gave him authority, it held his threateners back, and it let him keep Alisa safe, let him keep all his friends within his circle of protection.
“Get this out of my face,” Lord Montagov ordered, waving at the shoe.
