“I am cruel.”
“You are not.”
Juliette swallowed hard. How quickly he forgot. How quickly he tried to convince himself otherwise. “Your mother, Roma.”
“Oh, please,” he said, “I already know.”
He . . . what? A tremor hastened through the room: Juliette staring at Roma and Roma staring right back. “What do you mean?”
“I know how these things work, Juliette.” Roma tore a hand through his hair, exasperated. His dark locks became so mussed that the longer strands fell loose over his forehead, and all Juliette could think was that this stone-cold, perfect image of a boy was at last giving way for the real one underneath. “I know we were a risk to each other from the very beginning. And I know you far better than you think I do.”
“Do you?” Juliette challenged.
But Roma wasn’t buying her pity party. He folded his arms. “In what world would you have sent men after my mother, no matter how upset you were? You didn’t know her. She had no personal gain to you, and if I never knew that you did it, then it wasn’t to spite me, either. No, you told someone. In a fit of recklessness, you gave her address, however you found it, and then the blood feud did the rest of the work.” Roma strode two, three steps more, stopping at arm’s length in front of her. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Juliette looked away, her eyes prickling with tears. Somehow, he had found the heart of the matter and told it so generously that it seemed undeserved.
“You’re not wrong,” she managed.
Roma nodded, his shoulders straight and assured. By flickering candlelight, he appeared all the more sturdy, like nothing could phase through his bravado. Only as Juliette tried to blink away the emotion threatening at her eyes, she peered at Roma and found that he was struggling to do exactly the same.
“We live,” he said, “with the consequences of our choices. I know that better than anyone, Juliette. I am the only one in this entire damn city who feels exactly as you do. You should have known that I would understand.”
He didn’t have to say it aloud. They both knew. Nurse. He was talking about Nurse, and the explosion at the Scarlet house.
“You’re right,” Juliette said tightly. “You do know. You know that all we do is take from each other, break each other’s hearts in turn and hope the next time won’t shatter us completely. When does it end, Roma? When will we realize that whatever sordid affair we have between us isn’t worth the death and the sacrifice and—”
“Do you remember what you said?” Roma interrupted. “That day in the alley, when I told you my father made me set the explosion.”
Of course she remembered. She was incapable of ever forgetting a single moment between them. Depending on how she looked at it, it was either a great talent or a mighty curse.
Juliette’s voice shrank to a whisper. “We could have fought him.”
Roma nodded. He swiped hard at his eye, getting rid of the moisture there. “Where has that attitude gone, Juliette? We keep bending to what the blood feud demands of us, letting go of what we want in fear that it will be taken first. Why must we wonder when this mutual destruction will end? Why don’t we fight it? Why don’t we just end it?”
A bitter laugh crept up from her lungs, echoing faintly into the room. “You pose questions that you know the answer to,” she said. “I am afraid.”
She was so damn afraid of being punished for her choices, and if it were easier to shut down, then why would she not? If there were an easier way to live, to choose ease over pain, how could she not?
But Juliette knew she was lying to herself. Once, she used to be braver than this.
Roma closed that final breath of space between them. His fingers grasped her chin, and he turned her gaze upon his. Juliette did not frighten, did not jolt out of the way. She knew his touch. Knew it to be gentle, even when it had tried being violent some few days or weeks or months ago.
“What are you afraid of?” Roma Montagov asked.
Juliette’s lips parted. She exhaled a short, abrupt breath. “The consequences,” she whispered, “of love in a city ruled by hate.”
Roma drew his hand away. He remained quiet. A terrified part of Juliette wondered if this was it; if they had reached the end of the line. Try as she might to tell herself they were better off if she and Roma were finished, that future flashed suddenly before her eyes—one without this love, one without this fight—and the sorrow almost cleaved her in two.