"One word, one whisper, and you're dead" Farley murmurs. "I'll think about those consequences later, Maven Calore."

Somewhere in between the seconds Farley slammed the door and said her words to me did I stand up. Even though my head feels impossibly heavy from doing so.

My partner is in my brother's apartment foyer, wearing clothing not so different from my own with his dark-colored jacket and pants and Yankees cap. And though Farley's pistol glitters as she shifts her grip, he stares through the gun, through her, and perhaps through the door itself. If my face is an expression of horror, then I don't know what Maven's is.

Because I see fear, rage, sickness, and shame in his ice-blue and empty eyes.

Kilorn, Cameron, Tristan, and Ada might be to my back, and the three young people with dyed hair might ignore me entirely, but Shade has no trouble crossing his arms and giving me a look that speaks a thousand words.

My tongue's leaden. With no chair arms, my fingers have nothing to grasp and instead dig into my palms. I force myself to look at my brother full-on and shake my head. Again and again.

It's the only way I can convey the impossibility of what's going on. My little lie yesterday morning wasn't on par for Maven, and suspecting I knew more than I let on, he followed me—subway, mindless wandering, and all—here. It was another long day of ballet, and I hardly had the motivation to look behind me on my trip from the Academy to Little Italy. But hell, I didn't even see him in the Academy's lobby on my way out.

He heard everything from the other side of that door.

What it means to him, I couldn't say

Maven opens his mouth. "Mare didn't—"

And closes it just as fast when Farley snarls. "You forget what I said already, boy?"

It's enough for me to move my boots across the room, fast but not fast enough for Farley to think it's a threat. Maven's the only thing keeping my hands from shaking as I raise them for Farley, and I'm smart enough to stop a few paces from her, Shade, and the entourage of dyed-hair Street Fighters.

The room holds its breath as Maven shuffles his feet so that he faces me completely. The lighting of the apartment does him good, adding some warmth and color to his face, but in another way, he's paler than ever. Farley's unflinching when it comes to holding that gun of hers, yet it's not bullets that Maven fears—the way he looked right through Diana Farley says that much. Maven doesn't balk at Shade either, who paces now, boots hitting the wood back and forth, back and forth beside the kitchen island.

"He saw me leaving the Academy, which is something I never do after class, and he followed me," I admit quietly, finding the words in my partner's dreary eyes.

There's nothing accusing in them, and Maven goes so far to smile a bitter, tight smile at me. I have nothing to return.

Shade pauses, tilting his head. Reading his silent reprimands comes as easy as it did a year ago, and I choose to look towards Farley instead. Hardly a better option, but an option nonetheless.

My heart pounds as I consider my next words carefully. Farley's eyes are colder than I've ever seen from anyone, and her lips have twisted into a grimace. Her forehead creases, undoubtedly weighing the many, many risks in her mind as she picks apart Maven breath by breath. Underneath it all, she's about to lose it.

I remember who the Scarlet Street Fighters are. At the end of the day, they might claim to stand for justice, but they have no problem leaving a trail of blood in their wake if it gets the deed done. Farley promised as much tonight, and I've seen that promise written again and again in the newspapers and said from the lips of East Harlem gossips. These people are fighting a war, and they think the only way to win is to fight fire with fire. They have no boundaries, no remorse over the things they're doing. After Farley's story, I can hardly blame them, but . . .

Maven Calore just handed himself to the Scarlet Street Fighters on a silver platter. The son of their greatest enemy is currently at gunpoint, courtesy of Diana Farley.

And it's my fault.

Maybe I'll never get the chance to ask him how in the world he didn't hear the others coming.

"I told him everything I knew about the Scarlet Street Fighters six week ago on the night of the fireworks," I say with no breaths in between. "He knew everything I knew up until Sunday night."

Anything to get that gun away from Maven's head. Though I can't possibly imagine how this is going to end.

Shade blinks at me incredulously.

I continue anyway, however stumbling and awful my explanation is. "I didn't . . . I wasn't aware that the Calores were the problem then," I say, inwardly cringing at the horrible euphemism. "It's true that I didn't know much at the time other than my ghetto knowledge and that my brother and best friend were Street Fighters, but I told him what I knew, which was hardly better than what you could find in the news.

"Maven's been worried about his family ever since. He said that he didn't think his father was a corrupt businessman, but he was under the assumption that you targeted anyone rich. The only reason I went to Will was because I promised Maven I'd try to find out what I could."

The silver-haired man chuckles. "You ended up joining instead of getting answers for him. What an ironic twist of events."

A sharp jaw and an abundance of freckles greets me when my attention snaps to him. Despite his words, his eyes—the color of his hair—stare back at me passively.

I had a change of heart. I don't say it aloud.

"He was worried because he knew. Take his phone," Farley grinds out, shaking her head with that familiar disgust. She sheds the semblance of civility we had with her order, and my gut knots. Her eyes are still trained on Maven, watching for the slightest flinch that suggests he's going to try something. Though there isn't much of anything he could try with the ten Street Fighters in the apartment and God knows who else in this building.

Farley raises a brow in surprise when Maven reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out his phone, and sticks it out toward Shade.

Shade sticks it right back in Maven's face to unlock it.

"I'd knock him out. Then drown him in the bathtub. Much quieter than a gunshot, don't you think?" Cameron says out of the corner of my eye. She mutters it in a way that has me wondering if it's a morbid joke or utter, down-to-business seriousness.

"The real question is how we're getting his body out of this building," Tristan muses, shaking his head. He's the only one who isn't standing.

My eyes slide to Maven's.

It's a betrayal. I've betrayed Maven and everything he's done for me.

And it feels different than all the times I've thought about it in my head.

Maven's a Calore.

Calores are bad.

They need to be taken down.

And that's more important than a stupid friendship with one kind boy in a city of selfish people.

I've never felt so disgusted with myself.

It's what gives me the courage to say—

"Ransom would be a better idea, in my opinion. But do what you want, I suppose." Maven's voice is cold and quiet, distant the way my whole body feels. But he turns his head to Farley, his eyes so unreadable and transparent all at once as they leave mine. "I'm not sure what to say."

"Then it's a good thing I ordered you to shut the hell up," Farley snaps back in an instant.

Maven releases a humorless laugh instead. His lips draw close then part, again and again as though he can't find his tongue. It's not something that happens often for Maven, and Farley seems to understand that considering the curious look that spreads across her face. "Maven Calore," she mutters his name. "What am I to do with you."

It's not entirely a question. Not that I can fully tell, staring between stone-cold Diana Farley and the most perceptive boy in the world. My own brother doesn't know what's coming, having paused from swiping through Maven's phone at the island to join in on the heavy staring. The three with the dyed hair stand perfectly still, though I see wonder bleeding through the cracks of their solemn masks.

But what she says is enough for me to realize she's not hurting Maven, or at least not in a way that involves a bullet. In spite of the gun she brandishes.

A murder would be far too messy for the current circumstances, apparently.

"He killed your sister? Your mother?" Maven's voice breaks halfway through, and while it could very well be an act, it doesn't feel like one. Maven's hands clench up, too-much like my own.

Farley's story echoes in my mind. It's like this loop that keeps on playing, full of faces of a family I've made up and too much blood. A tragedy that didn't deserve to, nor should've, happened. It's the only thing that keeps me from launching myself at Farley, putting something between her and Maven.

That anger I see so vividly in Farley's face says it all. She wants to level the playing field, take out a Calore son. An eye for an eye, a son for a daughter. And a mother.

Farley's grimace deepens. "Could you not hear my little narrative through the door?"

"I could," Maven says, keeping that quiet, cautious tone. Though his glazed-over eyes still aren't a product of fear. "But you wouldn't believe me if I told you that I didn't know any of it, would you?"

"You're seventeen. There's a chance, but your family's also a lot of inbred liars, so I'd say my guess is as good as a flip of a coin."

The frown Maven gives Farley is saturated in mirth. "Just say it again."

"Your father, Tiberias Calore, ordered a hit on my mother and sister because my father was paid to get a little too close to the truth. Maybe if he and I had been home, we would've been killed too."

I watch my partner carefully, and he nearly flinches at those unapologetic words. I swear it's real. I swear I see his world come crashing down within those dull, quiet eyes. Everything Maven's ever known, his memories of every moment with his parents . . . those things change with one blink, one closing and reopening of his eyelids. And he has to face that truth here, of all places. Surrounded by the enemies he never knew he had.

"My father's a mob boss."

"Not mob, to my knowledge. Like the mob, but without the title. Just as dangerous, though."

Maven only nods.

"Well then." Farley's grimace at last morphs into somewhat of a more normal expression, albeit bewildered. I doubt she has any more of a clue of what to make of Maven than the rest of this apartment does. "We have a few options here, though I'm not particularly fond of—"

"Let me save you the trouble, then."

Farley raises a brow, but Maven begins before she might say anything more, in that cold, quiet, detached tone of his.

"I want to help you."

My jaw might as well hit the floor.

Behind me, Cameron snorts. "I'll get the bathwater running."

It's enough nonsense for Farley to shove her gun back where it came from in her holster. "You don't need to start lying, boy. We'll put you up for ransom, just like you said."

Except he's not lying. Maven might face Farley, but I've been watching him too, every movement and flicker in his eyes. Even Maven, who grew up smiling and acting his way through dinners and parties, couldn't lie like this.

I remember our conversation from yesterday morning. He told me that he didn't know what he'd do if his father turned out to be the kind of man the Scarlet Street Fighters were after. And this . . . well this is ten times worse than either of us imagined during our lunches spent agonizing and speculating over such things.

"I'm serious."

"He's serious," I mutter, more out of disbelief than an attempt to help Maven out.

"Bullshit," Farley says under her breath. "How the hell would you know."

I don't, but my heart's beating more steadily in my chest than it was before. My body feels grounded, as though my very bones know that I can trust Maven, the kindest boy on all of Manhattan Island and my best friend of two months. He wouldn't betray me. Not for this, not for anything.

Maven's gaze returns to mine. I might feel disgusted with myself and what I've done to my partner, but there's no blame in Maven's eyes. If anything, his irises seem to nod, as if he understands why I did it.

"You don't," Maven says for me. "But unless you already recruited my brother to your cause, you could use me. I live in the same penthouse as my father and could easily break into his office, could easily break into any of his offices, for that matter. And you're not interested?"

Of course Farley's interested, regardless of what she says. An alliance with Maven Calore would change everything, could bring Tiberias Calore to his knees overnight.

That intrigue gets the better of Farley. "I thought blood ran deeper in crime families," she says, tilting her head. "You're supposed to be willing to kill for your father, not the other way around."

"Maybe I think that my father deserves what's coming to him."

"And you're not planning on double-crossing the Street Fighters the first chance you get?"

Maven has the audacity to roll his eyes. "You tell me what I need to know and nothing more. With what I know now, the most you'd lose is this apartment."

"And what about Mare?"

Maven smiles softly at me, nothing of the vindictive, bitter sort. "She won't keep her job at the Academy if you ransom me off, but if we go on acting as though everything's normal, she will. I would never hurt Mare. That's the one thing you have to trust me on."

I swallow. I'm the biggest risk of all, living in that den of wolves at the Academy. One word from Maven, and I'd be at the mercy of the Calores.

But he wouldn't. He wouldn't betray me. Not for this, not for anything.

"I trust him."

What I say comes from my lips, but from someplace deeper too. A place that I usually ignore because of the stupid, idiotic decisions it's been famed to make. My heart.

Farley starts shaking her head like some disapproving parent.

"It's your life, I suppose."

She shifts to Maven.

"We're going to have a long talk, you and I."

The street that I face stretches left and right for blocks of traffic lights and apartment buildings before fading at the horizon.

It's getting late, though the rest of the world doesn't seem to mind. Little Italy keeps on glowing with its romantic, buttery lights, and the stench of tomatoes isn't letting up. The buildings are getting old and the restaurant signs are entirely tacky, but nobody minds those things at this hour. Not as they walk along the sidewalks, dodge the occasional car that comes from down the street as they cross, and enter the doors of whatever restaurant pleases them the most. Not so far below, a thronging of young people disappears underneath an awning. Late-night drinks, I'd imagine.

It's getting cold, too. The metal of the apartment's fire escape chills my hands, and gooseflesh prickles at the skin on my arms. For how hot this summer was, a cool night this early in the fall is strange. Half-drunken men and women might talk and laugh and yell from every corner, but the cool makes the air quiet. Calm.

I don't mind it. It helps me focus. As though I can't get that image out of my head.

Diana Farley's father used to be a private investigator, though not of the sketchy, non-certified type Will is. From what Farley said, he was one of the best in the city, hired by all sorts of rich people, and he was nothing short of a middle-class man. He had a wife and two daughters, a family to live in a modest Brooklyn apartment with.

Five years ago, he was hired by a family. Not the Calores, but some nameless, faceless family Farley refuses to say anything about. The job was above a PI's paygrade, probably more of an FBI agent's kind of work. But whoever they were, the family wanted it to be kept a secret. And they offered far too big of a bonus for Farley's father to deny.

He was to investigate Tiberias Calore. Not as a businessman, but simply as a man. For two weeks, he followed Mister Calore's driver day and night and lived the life of Tiberias Calore. Most of it was boring and bland, nothing different than you'd expect from the head of a banking corporation. But then there were strange moments. Mister Calore had a tendency to leave his penthouse at eleven-thirty at night with a different driver and return one-hundred blocks downtown to Wall Street in the dead of night. Or as dead as Manhattan can be at night.

He was an innocent middleman paid to observe Tiberias Calore. After all, Mister Calore was just another businessman of the city, probably carrying the usual dirt any rich man carries. But as it turned out, that family made a mistake in hiring a private investigator for such a case. Or perhaps they knew exactly the kind of risk they were taking.

Farley wouldn't tell me what her father discovered in his investigations.

Two weeks into her father's newest case, Diana Farley, high school senior, got home late from a track meet. She found her father kneeling in the middle of the hallway, hands covered in blood. He told her not to look, but she went into their bedrooms anyway and found the corpses of her mother and twelve-year-old sister bleeding out from the hearts. There were no signs of struggle. Just blood.

According to Farley, it was nothing more than a message from the Calores to the family who had hired a PI. Her mother and sister were just collateral.

After a long talk with her father, Farley agreed not to report the murder of her mother and sister. There was no evidence other than her father's bloody hands, and, well, by that point Farley's father had a good enough idea of who the Calores were. They packed their things that night and even managed to bury the other half of their family upstate by dawn. And then they just disappeared.

To form the Scarlet Street Fighters, to get revenge. However long it took.

There's more. Farley knows more, I know that. She knows far more about the Calores than she's letting on, but only offered what I needed to know and what twisted my gut the most.

She wouldn't tell me their names. And I'm not sure if it's because she doesn't think I deserve them, or if she's protecting me by making it less real. Though it already feels painfully, unquestionably real. Her sister would've been my age if she had lived.

I never met them and I can see their bodies.

If I'm being honest, the control Farley showed in front of Maven was impressive. Though Cal is his father's replica, Maven doesn't look so different from him either. She might've been furious, but she never came close to pulling that trigger. I don't think that I would've shown the same restraint.

From under the fire escape stairs where I sit, the window of the apartment's guest bedroom pushes open.

And I'm certain it's Shade long before he climbs out the window. I watch him as he strides up the grated-metal steps, stopping at my step and sitting down next to me.

"I see you found my favorite place," my brother says by way of greeting.

The steps are narrow, leaving me shoulder-to-shoulder with Shade. But just like this cool autumn night, I don't mind it. It makes me remember that he's here with me.

"It's cold out here," I murmur.

"Nah," he says, shaking his head out of the corner of my eye. "You were just used to it being ninety-five degrees every damned day this summer, and now normal weather feels weird."

"Maybe." It's all I can think of to say.

Like at the door, every thought I've ever had about Shade and his disappearance seems to get away from me. If my own departure from our family's apartment didn't complicate things enough, the truth about the Calores and the Scarlet Street Fighters does. It's not some ordinary, thuggish drug gang Shade's a part of—that I'm a part of—and he hasn't stayed away from our family out of shame. He's been protecting us all along.

Though I needed a moment alone, I was hoping he'd follow me out here. It's absolute chaos inside, with Farley debriefing Maven. I hate to leave him alone in that living room, but he seemed to be holding his own before I went off.

Shade and I stare off towards Midtown in silence, though the skyscrapers of it are dozens of blocks away and have no hope of being seen. The lights glimmer, car horns honk from time to time, and the occasional drunk lets out a rip of laughter. I can't see the stars. You never can in New York, with all of the lights blocking them out.

I've been waiting for this conversation for a year, yet now I find myself with nothing to say. I can't blame my brother for anything, and my stomach and mind are still reeling from what happened inside.

"I want to tell you all about my new life," I whisper, my words fading into the night. "And I want to hear all about yours, what's happened in the last year."

"But not now," Shade finishes for me. "It's a lot to take in."

I smile. When I turn my head, Shade's honey eyes are already there.

I missed you, they seem to say.

Winking at him, me too, my eyes say.

Shade's mouth melts into a smile that matches mine.

But the phone in his back pocket rings, and Shade rolls his eyes in annoyance.

"That's the brother," Shade says, even before he fishes out Maven's phone and checks the caller ID. "By my count, that's the third time he's called in fifteen minutes."

My brows crinkle. "What time is it?"

"Almost eleven."

"Here. I'll answer it."

Before Shade can protest, I take the phone from him and swipe the slide-to-answer button.

"This is Mare speaking," I say into the line, careful to keep my voice bored.

My brother isn't particularly happy about my decision to take Maven's phone from him, but a glare is about as much as he can give me, even as he leans closer to my ear.

Maven and I go out all the time. We could've met up at the movies tonight, or gone out to dinner like we usually do. Maven could be in the bathroom right now, and he could've left his coat with me.

Yes. That's exactly what happened.

"Mare?" Cal's voice is nothing short of confused. "I didn't know you and Maven were going out tonight."

He might not be able to see me, but I shrug anyway. "Change of plans. We met up after I made a trip to the bank."

Wherever Cal is, people shout in the background. The muffled noises sound like orders.

It takes Cal longer than it should to respond.

"Well, can you cut it short?" The noises get louder, and Cal says something that I can't hear to somebody else.

"What's wrong?"

Next to me, Shade frowns.

Cal sighs over the line. "Evangeline got into an accident. You might be getting a promotion even sooner than we thought."