“Ooooh,” Alisa said under her breath. “That makes more sense.”
She tucked the folder under her arm, then gathered up the plate and the fork. In a hurry, she skittered across the roof, carefully lowering herself over the edge with the one hand she had free and sliding the whole way down upon one of the exterior poles. She landed in the thin alley around the back of the apartment complex, her shoes squelching hard in the mud, her elbow thwacking against a pot of flowers growing upon one of the first-floor windowsills. It wouldn’t do to be spotted waving this folder around at the front of the house, and so she would merely use a back entrance, or else—
Alisa stopped when a figure stepped in her path. Before she even had time to run, the bag came down over her head.
In White Flower territory, the protests reached all-time heights, spilling over the footpaths and wreaking havoc in the buildings. When Roma exited the safe house he had been visiting—another stop on his search for the identity of the White Flower Frenchman—he was almost impaled by a shovel.
“By God,” Roma spat, hurrying to the side.
The worker only eyed him, not seeming very sorry. Why would he be? There were no other gangsters in sight to put a stop to this.
With another muttered curse, Roma hurried back home, staying close to the buildings. His father should have sent men out for crowd control. Their numbers should have gathered by now, fighting back against the rioters with weaponry. So where were they?
Roma ducked into the alleyway that took him to headquarters, a hand above his head to protect himself from dirty laundry water. A heavy drop landed on his palm right as another colossal shout echoed down the road, driving unease into his bones. It seemed nonsensical that he was spending time searching for the Frenchman when there had not been an attack since the train cart. When instead all that had been wreaking havoc across Shanghai was the blood feud or the rioters, and as far as he knew, not a soul in the White Flowers had a plan of action to combat that sort of discord instead.
“You’re full of nonsense.”
Roma frowned, closing the front door after himself. The loud bang did not interrupt the voices shouting from the living room. A wave of heat from the radiators immediately warmed his stiff skin, but he did not shrug his coat off. He wandered into the living room, following the shouting, and found Benedikt and Dimitri in the heat of an argument, a plate smashed to pieces by Dimitri’s feet, as if someone had thrown it.
“What is going on?” Roma asked, for what felt like the umpteenth time that day.
“That’s what I want to know too,” Benedikt replied. He stepped back, crossing his arms. “Alisa is missing.”
An ice-cold sensation swept down Roma’s spine. “I beg your pardon?”
“I heard her yell,” Benedikt seethed. “From somewhere outside the house. And when I went to investigate, guess who the only person present was?”
“Oh, don’t be tiring,” Dimitri sneered. “I heard no children screaming. Nor any ruckus past the chaos on the streets. Perhaps you are imagining things, Benedikt Ivanovich. Men who do not assert themselves tend to—”
Roma did not hear the rest of whatever foolish thing Dimitri was surely to say. He was already charging up the stairs with a roar in his ears, taking two at a time until he was on the fourth floor, charging into Alisa’s bedroom. Indeed, as Benedikt had said, it was empty. But that didn’t mean anything. Alisa was always disappearing for large blocks of time. For all he knew, she was hidden in some air duct across the city, biting into an egg roll and having the time of her life.
“She’s not in her room. I already checked.” Benedikt’s voice traveled up the staircase before he did, emerging with his hands buried in his hair.
“It’s hardly unusual,” Roma said.
“Yes.” Benedikt bit down on his cheeks, turning his face gaunt. “Yet I heard her yell.”
“Dimitri is right on one thing at least—there is plentiful yelling outside. The streets are rioting. I can hear yelling right now.”
But Benedikt only gave Roma an even look. “I know what Alisa’s voice sounds like.”
The certainty was what had Roma on edge. Acting on a sudden instinct, he made a sharp pivot for his room. He didn’t know why that was the first place he thought to check, but he did, easing his door open gently. Benedikt was close on his heels, peering in curiously too.
Three things became immediately apparent, one after the other. First: Roma’s room was freezing. Second: it was because his window had been pulled open. Third: there was a letter fluttering on the window ledge, pinned down by a thin blade.