Page 83 of Our Violent Ends
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—thereisplentiful 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.
A wave of goose bumps broke out all down Roma’s arms. Benedikt hissed in a breath, and when Roma didn’t make a move to go fetch it, he did the honors instead, tearing the blade out and unfolding the letter.
When he looked up, his face was void of blood.
“Moy dyadya samykh chestnykh pravil,” Benedikt read. “Kogda ne v shutku zanemog—”
He didn’t have to finish it. Roma knew the next two lines that were coming.
“On uvazhat’ sebya zastavil,” he intoned. “I luchshe vydumat’ ne mog.”
The opening verse toEugene Onegin. Roma marched forward and took the letter, immediately crinkling the edges with his grip. Past the famous lines of poetry, the letter proceeded.
I hear dueling is the most noble way to kill someone. It’s about time this blood feud earned some nobility, don’t you think?
Meet me in a week’s time. And I’ll give her back.
And beneath the text, there was a flourish of a signature, leaving no doubt who had devised this masterful scheme.
“They have taken Alisa,” Roma rasped aloud to Benedikt, though Benedikt already knew. “Tyler Cai has taken Alisa.”
Twenty-Eight
Rosalind was awake, but she was unresponsive. At this point, Juliette was almost getting worried, wondering if the injuries had extended to her mind, too.
“Could you give us a moment?” Juliette called to the Scarlet standing by Rosalind’s bedroom door. He had his hands folded in front of him, rigid and on guard.
“I’m afraid not, Miss Cai,” he said. “Your father said to keep watch.”
“I’malready here keeping watch, so can’t we have some privacy?”
The Scarlet only shook his head. “Whatever information you extract has to go straight to Lord Cai.”
