Last Violent Call (Secret Shanghai, #3.5)(33)

“I don’t believe you in any fashion.”

“I am here to pursue knowledge,” Pyotr seethed. “At every end it is only others trying to take it away—”

“So did Lourens take something from you?”

“I did not say that—”

“Then you took something from Lourens,” Roma cut in.

Pyotr was turning red in the face. “How dare you say such—enough. I am here to help. I am the only one who can help Milyena.”

“And help yourself in the process, I’m sure.” Juliette brought the gun closer until it pressed right against Pyotr’s temple. She tilted her head, watching him. He narrowed his eyes in return, and narrowed them even further when she asked: “Were you in Shanghai during the madness?”

“No,” Pyotr snapped.

“Funny,” Roma followed immediately. “You didn’t even ask what the madness was. You would think someone from Vladivostok might show a bit of confusion.”

A flash of something passed behind Pyotr’s gaze. It didn’t matter whether he was lying or not. Maybe he had been present in Shanghai and had witnessed it himself. But if he hadn’t, then he showed no confusion because he had heard about its details from Lourens. If he claimed to be the only one who could help Mila, then he had been inspired by the tales of madness and was the very one who had put this mechanism in place.

Roma walked forward at last.

“Here.” He put the pen and paper down. “Slowly. I want Lourens’s full location—no detail-skimping on the street name or suburb.”

Following instructions, Pyotr moved his hands away from his head carefully. “I am going to pick up the pen now.” He picked up the pen. Pressed the nib to the paper and started to write, providing an address in Vladivostok. “I’m putting the pen down now.”

He reached for the other end of the pen, looking like he was going to secure the ink nib.

Instead, when the pen turned, a blade flicked out, and Pyotr shoved forward.

Juliette caught his wrist, rolling her eyes. Was that it? The whole plan that had been whirling behind his eyes while he talked? She twisted his arm hard, and Pyotr yelled out, dropping the pen. It clattered to the floor. Roma glanced down to track where it was rolling, his nose scrunched like he smelled something bad.

“You could have at least lunged for me instead,” he said dully. “My reflexes are a little slower.”

“Enough,” Pyotr spat. He yanked his arm free from Juliette’s hold, then was forced to freeze immediately when her gun pressed to his forehead again. “I have done nothing wrong. Let me go.”

Juliette laughed humorlessly. “You gave five girls ticking time bombs inside their own bodies,” she said, “and you say you did nothing wrong? Four of them are dead.”

Pyotr’s eyes flickered in the direction of the safe again.

“It is a matter of protection,” he argued. He didn’t deny Juliette’s accusation. “Lourens did not do the work alone. Those are my findings too. My right to claim, not the board’s. They think they can pay their dirty money and fix their mistakes—they allowed the first set of girls to leave. No one would be dead if the board had only listened to me. If they want to steal my research, all they will get are corpses. The moment they try to take blood to study, all they will get are corpses.”

Juliette felt slathered in disgust. An image of those vials inside the safe flashed in her head, then the memory of what the man in the alley had said: We are doing our damn best to knock them out and keep them unharmed…. They are brainwashed to kill themselves the moment we get near.

It wasn’t proximity. The hired men had misunderstood, had probably repeatedly triggered the mechanism by not noticing what was really causing the faux madness: a needle to the skin. A preventative measure so that no one could ever commence research without killing the subject entirely. Something as simple as trying to sedate the girls would likely have the same effect.

“You seem to be telling me that you have no desire to fix Mila,” Juliette observed.

Pyotr made a noise under his breath, seeming to realize that he had gone too far and said too much. “That’s untrue.”

Roma kicked the pen away from where it had landed on the floor. Then he walked up to the bookshelf, staring at the miniature safe.

“If she’s kept brainwashed forever, though, it means you can order her around and no one else can study her.” Roma pointed at the safe. “What is in here?”

He, too, had noticed that Pyotr’s attention kept drifting over.

“Research,” Pyotr answered tightly.

“What sort?” Roma demanded. “Because this is Lourens’s safe.”

Pyotr blinked. Some of his anger transformed into sheer incomprehension. “Who are you people?”

“The wrong people to be upsetting.” Juliette was at the end of her patience. “We won’t ask so nicely again. What is in there?”

His lip curled with a sneer.

“A reset mixture,” he finally spat. “When injected, it targets each chemical instruction given to a subject and erases what has been put into place.”

Juliette’s breath snagged. In other words, it was a cure. The simplest solution to fix Mila, and he merely kept it away, waiting for these people to come after her and unknowingly cause her death.