Last Violent Call (Secret Shanghai, #3.5)(23)
“Okay, you can get back in ten minutes—pleasepleaseplease, thank you, my most beloved cousin.” Juliette flung open the door, hopping over the trip wire. “Roma, meet me by the open markets. I will get a head start.”
“What?” he barely managed.
Juliette was already outside, edging along the canal and making way for the stone bridge. She started in a steady run, passing the row of houses on the other side of the water. Mrs. Fan was outside tending to her potted plants, her head snapping up when Juliette approached.
“Fan nǎinai,” Juliette greeted, slowing only a fraction. “Can you scream very loudly if you see a group of men approaching?”
Mrs. Fan blinked. “Oh. Oh, I suppose so.”
Juliette surged ahead, ducking under a collection of laundry lines and swerving onto a lesser-used route. By nature of being a water township, most of Zhouzhuang was more long-winding than necessary, the canals uncrossable until there was a bridge that provided a path over water. But Juliette had been here for long enough to know exactly which canals kept a supply of wooden planks by their edges—tossed over for easy passage, as long as you didn’t lose your balance and fall—and which canals had extra stone steps jutting into the water, narrowing the distance to the other side and allowing for jumping.
In no time she was approaching the main road, drawing farther from the waterways and hurrying along the market tents. Only two or three vendors had set up shop, the hour too early to bring proper sunlight over the horizon. She didn’t rush in her search. If Celia had spotted the men here, then there were only a certain number of routes they could have taken from this point.
It was more useful to think about how she would make her approach. As she passed a stall, Juliette snatched a rag left to dry on a bamboo rung. Then she swiped a hammer, frowning when the handle chipped paint onto her palm.
The hammer would perhaps be more intimidating to swing around if she weren’t dressed so nicely. Juliette dropped the tool back down, determining that the gun in her pocket would probably suffice.
Voices.
She paused. Listened. Her feet coming down silently, Juliette backtracked and followed into an alley, catching the first glimpse of movement. There were various passageways here that led into open courtyards and private gardens with expansive gazebos. Right as another bit of movement flashed ahead, she hurried into a parallel alley, pressed close to the wall and surging forward so that she was moving with the group. She proceeded carefully with a wall between them for a few minutes, before the next opportunity presented itself and a small alley connected the two.
Juliette counted to five. Then she darted into their alley and grabbed the man lingering at the back of their group, clapping her rag to his mouth and kicking the back of his knees to send him off-balance. Before the rest of his group could take notice or turn around to investigate what that faintly muffled noise had been, she dragged him in the other direction by his head, barging into someone’s courtyard and using her momentum to keep going until they were past a set of wooden doors, blocking sound from the alley.
The moment she paused, the man bucked hard, pushing the rag and her grip off his face. By then, Juliette had already delivered a hearty blow to his head with her elbow, sending him to the ground just long enough for her to grab her gun. He whirled around. Blinked up. She pointed her weapon at his face.
“Hello,” she said, slightly breathless from the struggle. “You have five seconds to talk.”
The man stilled. She wondered which one he was. If not Ilya, then surely another of the names from the guest book.
His eyes moved to the left. Maybe-Ilya put his hands up to show goodwill.
Then his feet kicked out, striking Juliette hard in the shin. She wheeled back, but it wasn’t enough to tip her over completely, and she lunged forward again with ten times more conviction, jamming the barrel of her gun right to his forehead before he could sit up properly. Her knees scraped into the dirt. There were small pebbles digging into her skin.
“Listen very carefully,” Juliette hissed, switching to Russian. Her tone dropped low; her words bit out in a growl. The group would discover he was missing and circle back before long. She needed to be fast. “I have at least five bullets left in this gun and I can make this a very painful process for each of your limbs. Answer one very simple question: Who sent you to kill Milyena?”
She cringed a little sometimes when she had to bring out the former gangster heiress. But effective tactics were effective tactics.
“You—”
“Five.”
“What—”
“Four.”
“It’s not—”
Juliette’s finger started to press down on the trigger. “Three.”
“We are not the ones killing them—what is your problem?”
And in that split second of confusion, while Juliette’s pressure eased a fraction, Maybe-Ilya whirled out of range and struck up hard with his fist. Both sides of her face suddenly stung like hell: the left from getting hit and the right as it collided with the rough ground.
Juliette recovered fast. The man was drawing his own weapon; she turned hers around and attempted a strike, not wanting to shoot until absolutely necessary lest it draw his group’s notice. The heel of her gun took him off-balance, only the man had already fired, and the bullet whizzed narrowly past her arm, striking the courtyard wall.