And they finally had the evidence against Rockley they needed. Revenge was like vinegar on his tongue. Close. So damn close. He’d been waiting five years. Within a handful of days, he’d see Rockley topple. What would happen afterward, he didn’t know, but he wouldn’t think about it now. Now was for savoring the anticipation of that bastard’s ruin. It might not be as satisfying as killing him, but maybe Nemesis was right and having Rockley live in shame and disgrace could be better. He could sit and stew and let regret tear the flesh from his bones, the way Jack had done in prison.

Was this happiness? No. Jack never knew that feeling. But it was as close to it as he could get.

He rose from bed, and got ready for the day. Judging by the ash-colored light, it was already late afternoon. He smiled—his life had always been lived at night. Only when he got to Dunmoor did that change, rising with the dawn, working all day, and collapsing onto his cot soon after sunset. But he was claiming himself back.

He hurried downstairs, hoping that the rest of Nemesis had gathered so they could talk about the next steps with Rockley. They’d have a plan. They always had a plan.

His steps halted when he found Eva already in the parlor, standing beside the fireplace. He barely noticed Simon and Marco sitting at the table. She didn’t blush or look away, but met his gaze boldly, with unmistakable heat.

It was like invisible hands grabbed him, pulling him toward her. He needed her mouth, the feel of her hands, the warm scent that clung to her neck.

Marco coughed. Loudly. A reminder that Jack and Eva weren’t alone. Goddamn it.

Though he didn’t care what either Marco or Simon thought, Jack couldn’t go to Eva, not even to stand beside her. He’d have to touch her, and one touch would lead to more, and more. Instead, he grabbed a chair, swung it around and straddled it, his arms braced across the back.

“The next steps need to be planned carefully,” Simon announced. “We’re close now. Too close to get sloppy.”

“He’ll have been told that the evidence was stolen,” Eva said. “The madam identified Jack, too. Rockley will know Jack isn’t dead.”

Marco asked, “Won’t he go to the police with that?”

Jack snorted. “And tell them I was spotted busting up a whorehouse where he keeps damning papers? No—he’ll keep his muzzle shut.”

“If he feels the walls caving in around him,” Simon pointed out, “he’ll lash out, try to protect himself.”

“We have to move first before he can.” Eva frowned in thought as she looked into the fire. “It’s time to—”

Everyone silenced as footsteps sounded on the staircase outside. It could have been Lazarus or Harriet, but Jack didn’t recognize the tread. He stood.

Eva opened the door, revealing Byrne. The chemist stood on the landing, his forehead all creased with worry, and held out a slip of paper to her. “This came for you. Not you specifically, miss,” he added, “but I was told to give it to the folks upstairs.”

“Told by whom?” she asked.

“The boy that delivered it. He ran off before I could ask who sent it.”

“Thank you, Mr. Byrne.” She took the note.

“What’s it about?”

She shook her head. “Policy, Mr. Byrne.”

Contrite, the chemist smiled. “Right. Less I know, the safer I am.” He gave a little bow and then trundled back down the stairs.

After Eva closed the door, she unfolded the note. Jack, Marco, and Simon all watched her as she scanned it. A troubled look crossed her face. “It’s from Miss Jones. ‘It is vitally important that you come immediately,’” she read aloud. Glancing up, she added, “The handwriting’s hers, but it’s shaky.”

“She wants us to go to her home?” Marco wondered. “She and her father have always met with us here.”

“Something must be wrong.” Simon got to his feet and put on his hat. “Eva and I will see what’s the matter.”

“I should go, too,” Jack said.

“He did help by talking with her last time,” Eva noted.

Instead of arguing against Jack’s presence, Simon just nodded.

Maybe Jack had earned the toff’s confidence after all.

But it was the look of trust in Eva’s eyes that Jack truly prized.

*   *   *

Pretty suburban neighborhoods like Hammersmith always made Jack’s skin crawl. It was all so bloody normal, so orderly and neat. Even now, as he, Eva, and Simon walked toward the house of Miss Jones and her family, they passed men returning from their work in the city. The sun hung low on the horizon, and all the good, respectable men of business hurried home for supper. Through the lit, lace-covered windows, Jack watched as women greeted their husbands, taking their hats and coats, offering dutiful kisses on the cheek. Children in clean, starched pinafores clung to their fathers’ legs until they were shooed away by their mothers. The men retired to front parlors, where they read newspapers and smoked pipes.

These were the people who decorated advertisements pushing health tonics, soap, cocoa. Perfect little kingdoms in perfect semidetached houses, and far from anything he’d known.

“Do you envy them?” Eva asked as they passed one house, with its brightly lit front window showing the people inside like actors on a stage.

“There ain’t no thought in it,” he said. “They’re all doing what they think they’re supposed to, but what’s the fun of it? Where are the guts?”

“Perhaps they don’t want fun or guts. Perhaps all they want is security, certitude.”

“Only one thing’s certain,” he said. “We’re all going to wind up in the ground. Way I figure it, that leaves us free to do what we want. Not shut ourselves away in tidy boxes.”

“Radical notion,” she answered. “You might be a revolutionary.”

“Don’t go picking out my crate and setting me up on Speakers’ Corner,” he warned. “I’m just trying to survive, not change the world.” The world could take care of itself. He had his own skin to look after.

But as he, Eva, and Simon walked down a tree-lined street, heading toward Miss Jones’s house, a kick of worry beat beneath his pulse. Worry for the young lady. Eva had said that the girl’s handwriting looked shaky, which meant she’d written her note in a state of distress. Rockley might have threatened her again, or done worse. Jack knew that Eva could take care of herself, but most females hadn’t been given much to defend themselves. They were at the mercy of men and the law, neither of which seemed to care much about the fate of women.

But that’s why Nemesis existed.

Miss Jones’s house was one of the smaller buildings on her block. Unlike most of the other houses, only a few lights burned in the windows. Simon knocked on the door, and after a minute, the girl herself answered the door. Pinched lines showed on either side of her mouth. She looked as if she’d aged ten years in just a few days. Her face was pale, and she twisted a handkerchief in her hands. She definitely didn’t look happy to see any of them on her front step.

“Come in, please,” she said, holding the door open. “I’ve sent our maid out, so we’re alone.”

They all stepped into the entryway as Eva asked, “Where are your parents?”

“Also out.”

“Tell us what this is about,” Jack said.

Miss Jones turned and moved down the hallway. “I’ve got some tea ready in the kitchen.”

Jack, Eva, and Simon all shared a look after she disappeared through a door.

“Don’t like it,” Jack muttered.

Eva frowned. “She’s acting oddly, that’s true.”

“Odd behavior or no,” Simon noted, “she’s our client. If Rockley’s threatening her further, we need to help.”

“Will you come?” Miss Jones asked, reappearing in the doorway.

Feeling restless and ill at ease, Jack followed the others as they filed into a medium-sized kitchen. Racks of pans lined the walls, and an iron stove took up one side of the room. A round table stood in one corner, surrounded by chairs, and beside the table was another door that looked like it led to a pantry.

Miss Jones waved toward the table. “Please sit.”

Jack glanced around the kitchen. “Where’s the tea?”

“I beg your pardon?” the girl asked, looking even more pale despite the heat of the stove.

“You said you’d made tea.” Eva nodded at a kettle, still hung up on its hook. “It’s not even on the fire.”

Miss Jones’s face seemed to crumple. She pressed the handkerchief to her mouth. “I’m sorry!”

Jack heard them before they came into the room—men. He spun to face the door just as three huge bruisers wielding clubs came barreling through. Two more blokes charged from the pantry, one of them holding a lead pipe and the other sporting a pair of brass knuckles.

It was as though someone had rung the bell to start the match—everything became instinct. He grabbed a heavy long-handled pan from its rack and swung it at the three men. From the corner of his eye, he saw Simon tussling with the bloke holding the pipe, ducking to avoid the swinging blows and throwing punches of his own. Eva had a chair in her hands and jabbed its legs at the chap with the brass knuckles, holding him back.

Jack weaved to the side as a club-wielding thug swung at him. He countered by striking with the pan. The thug wasn’t fast enough to dodge the hit, and took the pan hard on the side of his head. He staggered. Jack cracked the pan onto the bloke’s arm. The thug shouted in pain, and his club went flying, smashing into the racks on the walls and sending pots and pans crashing to the floor. The bloke sank to his knees, whimpering as he cradled his broken arm.

Miss Jones shrieked, flinging her handkerchief into the air.

Jack didn’t pay her any mind as he faced the other two near the kitchen entrance. They rushed him at the same time. He picked up an iron spit that lay on the ground, and, armed with the pan in one hand and the spit in the other, parried the bruisers’ strikes. One club caught him across the back, and he grunted with the impact. But he wouldn’t release his makeshift weapons. He kept swinging at the two thugs, holding his ground when they tried to force him back into the corner.

Simon wrestled with the bloke holding the pipe, grabbing hold of it with both hands and using it as leverage to shove his attacker into the wall. Once he had his opponent pinned against the wall, Simon rammed his knee into the bloke’s gut. As the thug doubled over, Simon punched him in the nose. Blood spurted, bright red, and Miss Jones screamed again, louder than the bloke with the smashed nose.

As Jack continued to fight with the two other bruisers, he saw Eva swinging the chair at Brass Knuckles.

“Careful with that, little miss,” the thug sneered. “Might hurt somebody.”

“Like this?” She brought the chair up and raked the points of its legs across Brass Knuckles’s knees. He staggered, then landed on his hands and knees right in front of the stove. She leaped to him and opened the stove’s door, slamming it against his head. Brass Knuckles shouted in pain, but his shouts stopped after Eva gave him a few more good knocks against the iron stove and he collapsed onto the tile floor.

Well, goddamn Jack if the sight of Eva pummeling a thug into unconsciousness wasn’t one of the prettiest things he’d ever seen.

He still had his two club-holding attackers to worry about, though. When one of the blokes lunged for him, Jack slapped the length of the spit against his belly. As the thug crumpled, Jack plunged the spit in and out of his shoulder. The bloke clutched at his wound as blood seeped through his fingers.

That left one remaining thug. He looked at Jack, then at Eva, then at Simon, and finally at his friends writhing in agony on the floor of a suburban kitchen. Dropping his club, he ran from the room.

Jack chased him to the front door. The thug pushed a passing man to the ground as he raced down the street, and Jack shouted at the bruiser’s retreating back, “You tell that fucking bastard that nothing’s stopping me!”

The thug turned a corner and vanished.

As Jack started to shut the door, a bobby marched up the walkway. He tensed, readying himself to fight or run if the copper tried to nab him.

“No need for that language, sir!” the bobby snapped. “This is a respectable neighborhood.”

Before he could say anything, Eva appeared at Jack’s side. “Thank God you’re here, Constable. There was an attempted burglary, and we only just managed to escape unscathed.”

The copper blew on his whistle, and in a few minutes, half a dozen patrolmen milled around inside Miss Jones’s kitchen. Jack kept a good distance between himself and the police, hovering at the edge of the room, keeping his face in the shadows.