Jules was silent for a moment, considering. His onyx eyes were serious.
“The country,” he decided eventually. “Somewhere with grass. A place with nobody else around, where you can look out your window and see for miles. Somewhere you can always see the sun.”
Zaria nodded, though she could scarcely picture such a thing. “Would I be there?”
“Of course.” Jules nudged her shoulder again. “There’s a big house that’s all ours, and we don’t have to worry about kingpins or rent. It has a yellow front door. In the summertime, we sit outside and look toward the forest. There are more trees than you’ve ever seen. Maybe I write a book, and you invent something genius and impossible just because you can.”
“Hmm.” Zaria wished she could see it as clearly as he did. That she could dream without an oppressive sense of melancholy. “Why is the front door yellow?”
Jules situated himself more comfortably beside her. “Why not? It’s a nice color. You see it from a distance and know you’re home.”
How simple, Zaria thought. A world of grass and sunshine, of trees and yellow doors.
“I see it,” she murmured, surprised to realize that it was abruptly true. She saw herself free from this place, from the stink of the river and the cries of the miserable, and wanted it with a voracity that made her ache in places she’d forgotten existed within her.
You see it from a distance and know you’re home.
What would it be like, she wondered, to feel at home?
KANE
THE NOTE HAD ARRIVED EARLIER THAT DAY LIKE A PUNCH TOKane’s stomach.
It was folded in half, his name scrawled on the front alongside a drawing of an arrow. The sight of it had made Kane drive his fist into the wall, and he now sprawled on the sofa in furious pain as Fletcher stared at him sardonically.
“Did that make you feel better?”
Kane stretched his throbbing fingers. They were already starting to swell, an ugly purplish sheen on a couple of the knuckles. “Yes.”
Fletcher snorted. “Lying bastard.”
Stress rose like bile in Kane’s throat. The note had contained nothing but a single line of script in Ward’s hand: an address. One Kane knew to be in the most miserable part of Devil’s Acre. He didn’t need any more information to know what he was supposed to do.
“Want me to come with you?” Fletcher continued, though he had to know what the answer would be.
“God, no.” Kane lifted his head, mouth twisting. “Did you see who delivered it?”
“It was on the table when I got back.”
Kane swore, soft and low. He leapt to his feet, grabbing the glass and bottle he’d abandoned the previous night, and poured himself a drink. It burned viciously going down, and he inhaled through clenched teeth. Fletcher’s eyes were a relentless weight as Kane refilled his glass. He pretended not to notice. Only when he’d finished did he yank his coat on, flipping the collar up to hide his neck. His head was already spinning.
Fletcher followed him to the door. “Kane—”
“I’ll meet you at the docks,” Kane drawled. He’d meant to come off as nonchalant, but even to his own ears he sounded resigned. “One hour.”
“Be careful.”
“When am I not?”
Fletcher’s answering expression was so withering, Kane might have laughed if he hadn’t felt like screaming.
The air outside was chilly, heavy with the scent of recent rainfall, but the alcohol warmed his insides as he hurried to the outskirts of Devil’s Acre. He felt his inhibitions lower. Not enough to make him happy about playing the role Ward most preferred him in, but enough to make him wonder whether a fight wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if it came to that.
Kane didn’t like collecting money from people. Didn’t like the way they looked at him—as if he were more monster than boy. Didn’t like the person he became when he was forced to defendhimself against someone who was only trying to protect what little they had.
But what could he do? Kane had to protect whathehad. He could still starkly remember being fifteen and failing to shake payment out of a young shop owner. He’d returned expecting trouble, yet Ward had been eerily silent about the whole thing.
The next day, one of Ward’s errand boys—Abe, his name was—accosted Fletcher and sliced his cheek. When Kane had gone to Ward in imploring fury, the kingpin’s face had been cold and empty. That was when Kane knew Abe’s attack hadn’t been random.
