I can live with that.
She shouldn’t have said it. Not if she wanted Kane to place a modicum of trust in her. How was she supposed to feel, though, whenhe was determined to drag Jules back into this mess after she’djustgotten her friend out of it? She glared at the back of Kane’s head as he knocked a second time, now with more aggression than purpose.
“Zaria?”
They both whirled around. Jules stood behind them, hat in his hands, disbelief etched across his pale face. His coat was rather dirty, but other than that he looked as well as the last time Zaria had seen him. The tightness in her chest eased some. “Jules. Thank God.”
Lunging forward, Jules folded Zaria into his arms. He knew she wasn’t much for hugging, but he held her firmly. She swallowed hard as she dug her fingers into his back. He smelled like smoke and sweat and the river.
The moment they separated, Jules leveled a finger at Kane. “You.I don’t know what you’re thinking, showing your face around here, but you’d better have one hell of a good explanation before I ruin it.”
Zaria knew it was a bluff, but one side of her mouth ticked up at the threat. When she turned back to Kane, however, his expression gave her pause. His face as he’d watched Jules embrace her was… pained. Like someone had kicked him in the stomach and he was trying not to react.
Then he was impassive again, leaving her wondering if she’d only imagined it.
“Charming as always, Master Zhao,” Kane said. “As a matter of fact, we’ve come to seek your assistance. And if I’m not mistaken, I rather think you’ll want to provide it.”
Jules actually laughed, the sound rough. “Oh, this ought to be good.” He strode past Kane and opened the front door. “I suppose you’d better come in. I’ll warn you that my father and Mirko aren’t here, so you’ll have a hard time threatening anyone to gain my compliance.”
This didn’t appear to concern Kane, who entered without responding.
As Zaria made to follow, Jules gave her a light touch on the arm, his voice low. “Are you okay?”
“Areyou?” she returned.
He blinked. “Of course. I was part of the crew for barely a day, and I didn’t have to do much. Honestly, I think Kane just wanted to frighten me. I could’ve told him it would take more than that.”
Zaria thought of the myriad fights they’d gotten into over the years. Jules wasn’t violent, and was rarely one to start a scuffle, but he also wasn’t afraid to hit someone who deserved it. And when you lived in Devil’s Acre, there was no shortage of people like that. “Well, good. He had no right, and you never should have been put in that position. We both know it was me Kane wanted revenge on.”
Jules waved her apology away, shaking his head. “My father is the one who made that stupid deal with Ward in the first place. He told me how he kicked you out. We had quite the row about it, actually. But Zaria… you shouldn’t have given yourself up for me. The crew members are tough. Dangerous. You can’t stay there, surrounded by them. So close tohim.” Jules’s lips twisted around the word, making it curse-like. “I’ll find a way to get you out.”
“You can’t, Jules,” she whispered back. “Things are… complicated. That’s why we’re here.”
Kane cleared his throat from the other side of the room. He was reclined on the lumpy mattress Zaria had shared with Jules like he owned the place. His arms were crossed, fingers tapping a rhythm against the opposite bicep in a display of impatience. “I didn’t bring you here for social hour, Miss Mendoza.”
Zaria longed to throw something at his head. Pursing her lips, she settled herself in one of the chairs by the table.
“All right,” Jules grunted as he shut the door. “What is it that you want, Durante?”
Kane wasted no time in explaining the situation. To his credit, he supplied more detail than Zaria had anticipated, going so far as to describe their meeting with William Cubitt. Finally, he relayed their conversation from the previous day, ending with the plan to attend a meeting at Mansion House.
Zaria braced for Jules’s response—his reactions thus far had been restrained and rather cryptic.
“Let me get this straight,” Jules said after a long moment of contemplation. “All this came about because some police inspector wants you to do his job for him?”
The question startled a burst of laughter from Kane. “I mean, when you put it like that, it sounds absurd. But yes, I suppose that’s about the crux of it.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m not here because I support this idea,” Zaria told Jules. “You don’t have to be involved. This isn’t your problem, and you don’t work for Kane. I made sure of that.”
The smug look on Kane’s face made her wonder if he would argue. As it turned out, he didn’t need to.
“Of course I’ll help,” said Jules, shooting Kane a sidelong glance. “Notbecause I care what happens to you. Frankly, I still think you’re a piece of shit. But if all I need to do is pretend to be staff at Mansion House, there’s no reason not to. It sounds like we’ll all be better off once this Curator is found.”
Kane’s smug expression was forher, Zaria realized. Because he’d known Jules was going to agree. She ground her teeth together. “It could be dangerous.”
“So is being on a copper’s bad side,” Jules pointed out. “I knew the risks when I agreed to help with the initial heist. Remember what wesaid? About how we need to stop trying to protect each other? This is one of those times.”
That brought Zaria up short. He was right. She was doing it again, wasn’t she? Trying to cut Jules out of something because she deemed it too dangerous. As much as she didn’t want her friend anywhere near this, she had to let him make his own choices.
