Last Violent Call (Secret Shanghai, #3.5)(36)

“Oof,” she muttered beneath her breath, shivering.

Three rapid knocks sounded on the front door, signaling Roma’s return. He stepped in a beat later, collapsing his umbrella and resting it on the coat rack, a newspaper tucked under his arm and a bag filled with roasted chestnuts clutched in his hand.

Roma paused.

“Juliette,” he said, his tone flummoxed. “What’s the matter?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Nothing. Why would something be the matter?”

He looked around, still hovering by the doorway. “Are you upset? Why are you staying over there?”

“I—what? You knocked three times. Hands full.”

Roma set down the bag. Threw over the slightly damp newspaper bundle so that it landed near her feet. “When has that ever stopped you?”

Juliette rolled her eyes, nudging some of her blanket aside. Despite appearances, she was suffused with sheer delight over his lamenting tone. He was such a pampered lover.

“I am merely cold and didn’t want to get up. Come here and let me steal your body warmth.”

Roma shed his jacket. He strode over and dropped down, barely making a word of protest when Juliette stuck her cold hands under his shirt.

“I got the weekly paper from Shanghai,” he said, reaching for the bundle. “Toss or read?”

“Read,” Juliette replied. “As long as it is not about my parents.”

Roma leaned back into the sofa. He started to roll off the rubber band holding the news bundle together, looking concerned. “Was there something concerning recently?”

“No, it’s not that.” Juliette forced a smile, but it felt artificial on her lips. “They have been appearing a lot, that’s all. The more news there is about the civil war, the more frequently they are mentioned to remark on their economic contribution.”

A sigh. Roma leaned in and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Are you okay?”

She shrugged. Juliette peered up at him, blowing a breath to get a strand of hair out of her eyes so that her vision wasn’t obscured. “Sometimes I get shaken unsteady. It happens. There are two parent-shaped holes in my heart.”

Roma reached over to get her hair out of the way. “It is quite hard to hold steady all the time with holes in your heart,” he agreed quietly. “You will always have the extra pulp of my heart to borrow from, though. It might not fill that space just right, but at least it gives you a place to land on days your balance is weak.”

This time, Juliette’s smile was real. “Where did you get extra heart pulp from?”

Roma finally finagled the rubber band off. “I started fixing up the holes in my heart from a younger age. It means I have excess to spare these days.”

“How fortunate for me.” Her arms tightened. “I love you.”

“I love you too, dorogaya.” The newspaper unfurled. “We really need a place to put these rubber bands because—”

Roma cut himself off suddenly, his jaw going slack. When Juliette followed his gaze and registered the front-page headline, she jolted ten times more vigorously.

LANG SHALIN ALIVE. HONG LIWEN HANJIAN.

“Oh my God,” Juliette exclaimed. She clambered upright onto her knees, clutching the newspaper. “Is this today’s issue?”

“Fresh from the presses less than an hour ago. This just happened.”

In awe, Juliette scanned the article, reading the information as fast as she could. Rosalind had aided the arrest of multiple employees working for the Japanese government to incite terror. It had come hand in hand with a conspiracy spearheaded by national traitors in their own government, collaborating with the invading imperial empire.

“This is Rosalind’s operation partner,” Juliette whispered. “Hong Liwen.”

Roma had been reading over her shoulder. “It says he’s hanjian.”

“It also says he has been taken as a brainwashed soldier of the empire as part of their chemical experiments.” Juliette rocked back, sitting on the sofa again. “What is going on?”

For a long moment, Roma and Juliette kept staring at the newspaper, accompanied only by the sound of wood burning and popping. Then, at once, they seemed to have the same thought, exchanging a gaze and looking into the kitchen where that other vial taken from Pyotr stayed hidden in the cupboard.

“Roma,” Juliette said.

“Juliette,” he returned.

“We cannot go to her, though. We will be recognized in a heartbeat inside city borders.”

Roma’s eyes were soft. Warm. “She can come to us.”

They had the very item that could help. And heavens knew that with the situation her cousin was currently in, Rosalind needed the help. But…

“Are we really going to do this?” Juliette whispered. “Are we going to risk it?”

“I am with you if you want to, and I am with you if you cannot.” When Roma reached forward to fold the newspaper up, his ring flashed and caught the firelight, blazing gold. “Ah Cao is coming in ten minutes to take the document shipments. He can also make a phone call from somewhere untraceable. What do you want to do?”

She was so scared. This beautiful life, this tremendous love. It didn’t seem fair to have fought so hard for peace only to throw it away.

But she couldn’t live with herself if she pretended she never saw this headline. If she let that vial sit in the cupboard forever. She had abandoned Rosalind once already. How could she do it again?