And Juliette’s tongue stalled. What was she to say? Was she to beg for Roma’s life? Was she to plead, drop to her knees, do all that Tyler expected her to do as that weak-hearted girl he had never thought could lead?
Juliette swallowed hard. She could not. She would not. She was the heir to the Scarlet Gang. Heir of mobsters and merchants and monsters, each and every one of them, blood frothing at the mouth. She kneeled to no one.
Tyler smiled. “Take your place, then.”
But God, she wished she weren’t. She wished she could just be a girl.
Juliette walked to the back of the alley, stopping beside Alisa. By now Alisa was starting to frown. She was putting together the pieces, watching Roma and Tyler face each other at opposite ends of an alley, pistols in their hands, as Benedikt said, “Tyler Cai. You may approach the barrier at your own pace.”
“What’s happening?” Alisa demanded suddenly. “Is this a duel?”
A crack dashed across Juliette’s heart. She felt the gouge form like it was a physical sensation.
“Don’t look,” Juliette said to Alisa.
Tyler was walking far too fast. The fear of a Russian duel was that the first shooter would miss, that the closer they had approached the barrier for their own shot, and closer they were when it became their opponent’s turn. But Tyler did not seem to have that worry at all. Tyler kept going, and going, and going, until he had closed in on the barrier entirely, his shoes stopping by the trash bag.
“What do you mean don’t look?” Alisa shrieked. She was struggling, squirming like her life depended on it, doing everything in her effort to loosen the grip the Scarlets had on her arms. “He will kill him, Juliette! Tyler will kill him!”
“Alisa Montagova,” Juliette snapped. “I said look away—”
Tyler raised his pistol. Aimed.
And just as Alisa started to scream, a shot rang into the early morning, as loud as the world ending.
The scream ended abruptly.
Tyler touched his chest, where a bloom of red was starting, flowing faster and faster. Roma took a step back, his eyes widening, searching the scene before him.
Because he had not made the illegal shot.
Juliette had.
Both her hands came around her smoking pistol. There was no room for regret now. She had done it. She had done it, and she could not stop there. She turned, and with a sob choked on her tongue, she shot each and every one of Tyler’s men before they had even comprehended what was happening, bullets studding their temples, their necks, their chests.
The moment they were all down, Juliette threw her pistol to the ground too.
“Dammit, Tyler!” she screamed. Tyler turned around and looked at her—really looked at her. He dropped to his knees. Fell to his side. Rolled to face the dark, dark sky.
Juliette rushed forward. She had made the shot, all his men were dead, and yet still she reached out and tried to stanch his wound as if she would be more despicable if she didn’t try, as if there could possibly be any coming back from this.
“Why did you have to keep pushing?” she cried. “Why couldn’t you have just left it?”
Tyler blinked slowly. It would have been easier if he had answered Juliette in hatred. It would have been easier if he had spat at her and called her a traitor, used any of the names that he never had any trouble labeling her with. Instead, he looked confused. Instead, he touched his weeping wound over Juliette’s hands and pressed down, and when his fingers came back covered in bright scarlet, it was absolute incomprehension that marred his face, like he never thought Juliette would hurt him this way.
“Why?” he rasped. He might have been echoing her. But Juliette knew he wasn’t—he was asking a question of itself.
Juliette’s hands came down harder, certain that if she just pressed enough, by sheer will she could close the wound, could stop the blood, could reverse the last minute of the world.
But even if she did, the city’s feud would still go on.
“Because—” Juliette said. Her voice was no louder than a bare whisper. Yet in the quiet of the alley, with only Tyler’s gasps, she was all that could be heard. “I love him. I love him, Tyler, and you tried to take him from me.”
Tyler exhaled. Something like a dry laugh shuddered from his lungs. “All you . . . had to do,” he said, “was . . . choose your people.”
Juliette’s jaw trembled. Nothing was ever as simple as “my people” and “your people,” but to Tyler, it was. He thought himself capable of rising to the top, thought himself worthy of being the next heir, but all he had ever done in his eighteen years was act off orders from the top, tainted by the hate that ran like poison through their lives. How could she fault him for that?