"I feel threatened." I clenched my hands under the table. I had never felt more threatened in my life. These men could easily kill me today.

"Why?" Rohm sipped his tea delicately, his eyes never leaving Rudolf.

Muscles in Rudolf's jaw stood out like cords, but he did not say a word. He had not expected me to come to this meeting.

"Yesterday my apartment was destroyed. And my cat killed." I too, looked at Rudolf.

"Mademoiselle Zee?" Rohm asked in a cold voice. "Ernst loves that cat."

"Not anymore," I said, thinking of how Ernst had always complained of Rudolf's jealousy. He once said that Rudolf was jealous of everyone and everything he liked.

Rohm looked at Rudolf, who was shades paler than when he'd arrived. "Explain yourself."

Rudolf smiled unctuously. "I'm not sure what-"

"It will be worse for you if you don't tell me now," Rohm said. "Don't be a fool and force me do something unpleasant."

He cocked his head expectantly and looked at Rudolf, his eyes cold.

"I h-hired it done," Rudolf stammered. He leaned back in his chair, looking at Rohm with terror. "To encourage Hannah and Ernst to find what you are looking for, Captain Rohm. I knew nothing of the cat until this very minute. I swear."

Rohm turned from Rudolf to me. Rudolf slumped in his chair, no expression on his face. Rohm would not let his deed go unpunished. I shivered.

"Bring your brother out of hiding," Rohm ordered. "I personally guarantee his safety, and yours, until this matter is resolved."

When I opened my mouth, no sound came out. I had prepared several speeches for this moment, but my mind was blank. Rohm's power was much more palpable and terrifying than I'd expected. I had never experienced anything like him.

Rohm nodded toward his lieutenant. "Lieutenant Lehmann will go with you to fetch your brother."

Lieutenant Lehmann leaped to his feet. His muscles shifted under his shirt. "Yes, sir."

I remained sitting. I did not trust my legs to support me. This was my cue. I took a deep breath. "He cannot fetch Ernst, as someone at this table well knows."

"Continue," Rohm said.

With icy cold hands, I fished Ernst's death photo out of my satchel and handed it to him.

Rohm dropped it on the table, his face ashen. The scar that ran across his face pulsed an ugly dark pink. A breeze from the open window blew the photograph across the table.

Rudolf snatched the photograph out of the air. Wilhelm looked over his shoulder and cried out.

"Someone murdered him." My voice gained strength. "Eight days ago."

"Who?" Rohm said in a controlled voice. "I will avenge him."

Rudolf stared at the photograph. Wilhelm buried his face in his hands and sobbed. Lieutenant Lehmann stood behind Rohm and made no move to comfort his son. A soldier like my own father, he did not abandon his post to comfort his crying children.

"Who?" Wilhelm sobbed. "Why?"

I looked at Wilhelm cynically. What would Rohm do if I revealed him? Kill him. Then another young life would be wasted.

"I do not know." I could not bring myself to do it. Ernst would not want it. But what was I to do instead?

"Where? When?" Wilhelm's voice was thick with tears.

"Very early the morning of May thirtieth," I said.

"Why would someone do this?" Rudolf asked, his eyes blank. "Ernst was not a threat to anyone." He turned to Rohm. "Did your men do this?"

"My men did no such thing." Rohm rose from the table and stood next to Rudolf. He placed his hands lightly on Rudolf's shoulders. Rudolf flinched. "Did yours, perhaps? The same ones who killed the cat?"

Rudolf shook his head rapidly. "Never. I love . . . loved Ernst. We had our-"

"Where did he die?" Wilhelm's hysterical voice cut above theirs. Did he want to be exposed?

"Near a bottle factory on the Spree." I closed my eyes, thinking of the hard cobblestones where we'd found the lead soldier and dagger. I saw Ernst's blood seep across the stones while a shadowy figure looked down on him in silence.

"But there's one only blocks from my house," Wilhelm cried. "Someone must have killed him right-"

"Someone," I said, opening my eyes. "Must have." Why did I protect him? He was a liar and a murderer. But a liar and a murderer whom Ernst had loved.

Wilhelm dropped his face to the table and sobbed. His shoulders jerked up and down.

His father slapped Wilhelm on the side of the head, and the retort echoed around the room. I jumped. My father had often hit Ernst and me like that.

"Soldiers do not cry like children," Lieutenant Lehmann said through teeth clenched with rage.

Wilhelm continued sobbing as if his father had not touched him. I put my hand on Wilhelm's back, and Lieutenant Lehmann glared at us both. How could he feel such revulsion for his own son? Wilhelm's weakness disgusted him, just as it disgusted him that his son loved men. My own father would have reacted no differently.

A thought chilled my mind to calm. What if Lieutenant Lehmann was there that night when Wilhelm brought Ernst home? What if he heard them, perhaps even saw them? He had access to the dagger. And he had beaten Ernst up once before, when he and Wilhelm were schoolboys.

I pictured him following Ernst after he climbed down the fire escape. Perhaps he walked with him, talked to him about Wilhelm, all the while moving him to a deserted alley. Somewhere they would not be seen. Then he stabbed him and watched him die. He stripped the clothes from my brother's dead body and dumped him in the Spree, thinking that he would be carried away and never found. And he might never have been discovered if I had not walked down the hall and seen his picture.

Wilhelm sobbed.

"You," I croaked, my throat painfully constricted. I pointed at Lieutenant Lehmann. "You."

Rohm's head whipped to face him. "Why is she pointing at you, Lieutenant?"

Lieutenant Lehmann took a step backward, glancing from Rohm to Wilhelm.

"Josef," Rohm roared. "You will answer me."

Lieutenant Lehmann stuttered, "I-I don't know."

"You were there that night," I said. "My brother's last night."

Rohm's voice grew deadly quiet. "Josef."

Lieutenant Lehmann froze, staring at Rohm.

"This boy." Rohm cleared his throat. "This boy had the secret to my future, to the future of the Sturm Abteilung in his hands. Did you know that?"

A flicker of confusion crossed Lieutenant Lehmann's face. "I had to protect my son."

"By leaving his dagger for anyone to find?" I pulled the dagger out of my satchel and slammed it on the table. Wilhelm stared at it, shocked into silence.

Rohm cleared his throat. "This is about something bigger than your son. That boy you killed was key to protecting me from the current allegations. And now he cannot. You have done a disservice to the Reich," Rohm said. "To me. A disservice from which I may never recover. The enemies of the Third Reich gather against me even now, as you well know."

He looked into Lieutenant Lehmann's eyes and continued speaking, "Do you understand that?"

Lieutenant Lehmann looked aghast. He regretted the damage he had caused Rohm, but not taking my brother's life.

Rage rose in me. I leaped toward him. Without turning his head, Rohm caught my wrist and twisted it behind my back. Pain seared through me. I fell to my knees.

"You know what you must do," Rohm spoke only to Lieutenant Lehmann.

Lieutenant Lehmann clicked his heels together, gave the old-fashioned Prussian salute, bowed, and left the room.

Rohm released me, and I climbed to my feet, rubbing my wrist. "I apologize for hurting you, Fraulein Vogel," Rohm said. "I only wished to prevent you from starting an altercation you could not win."

"Where is he going?" Wilhelm asked Rohm.

He should not have had to ask. If my father had been under similar circumstances, there would have been only one honorable way out.

"To do what he must do. What every soldier facing dishonor must do," Rohm said.

Wilhelm bolted toward the front door. My head told me to go after him, to help him save his father. But my heart wanted his father dead. Those were my feelings, and I was not proud of them. I sat at the table and buried my face in my hands, waiting.

Rohm paced, as if thinking about the next problem.

A gunshot cracked near the front door downstairs. Rudolf started. Had Lieutenant Lehmann ended his life like a good soldier? Or had Wilhelm stopped him? I took a step toward the door.

Rohm did not seem to care about the gunshot. He must have given Lieutenant Lehmann up for dead the minute he told him to go.

Rohm put a hand on my arm. "Do you have what I came for?"

"What did you come for?" I asked, numbly. If he would order his trusted lieutenant to take his own life, he would have no scruples about killing me.

"She knows nothing," Rudolf said in a hollow voice. "He wouldn't have known to tell her." He bowed his head and stared at the table.

If I had not been so frightened for myself, I might have pitied him.

Rohm glared into my eyes as if to read the answers from my mind without bothering with words. I kept my chin up and did not blink. After a few terrifying seconds, he turned away. I sat down again.

"So he is lost," Rohm said to Rudolf. "You have lost him."

That made no sense to me. Did he mean Ernst? Or Lieutenant Lehmann?

Rudolf raised his head. He was pale, but his eyes were focused again. "I did not know of Ernst's death."

Rohm paced the room, but Rudolf and I sat as if pinned to our chairs. I did not want to call attention to myself by moving. I had no idea what Rohm and Rudolf were talking about. I was afraid to say anything lest my ignorance doom me to death.

"It has been a week, Rudolf," said Rohm in his round, southern German accent. "Seven days and my son is missing and alone. A boy of five."

A boy of five. The words echoed in my ears, but my mind could not make sense of them. Would not make sense of them.

Rohm and Rudolf walked into the bedroom. I stared at the dagger on my mother's table. A boy of five.

As if in a dream, I stood and followed them.

"I told you," Rohm yelled at Rudolf, poking him in the chest with each word, "to take care of him until I returned from Bolivia. I sent you money for his care in case I needed him. And you lost him."

Rudolf stared at him without speaking.

"I want my son," Rohm roared. "Now."

"I am here, Father," Anton said. He stepped out of the wardrobe, clutching Winnetou.

"Anton!" Rohm and I screamed simultaneously.

Anton walked to Rohm's side. "He is my father. You are my mother."

He must have crept in when I went to buy the tea. "Your father?"

The room spun around me. It was the wrong Ernst. Ernst Vogel was not his father. Ernst Rohm was. Rohm wanted neither the ring nor the letters. He wanted the only thing that mattered.

"She is not your mother." Rohm embraced Anton, lifting him like a toy. He turned to Rudolf. "What nonsense have you put in the boy's head?"

The sound of Wilhelm sobbing drifted through the front window. I could not bring myself to care.

"It is her nonsense," Rudolf said weakly, waving his thin hand at me.

I hesitated. I could produce the forged birth certificate and implicate Rudolf, but I stayed my hand. Why had Rudolf had it made? Perhaps Rohm had ordered him to make it, in case he needed to deny that Anton was his son.

"How long have you been caring for him?" Rohm asked me, and the moment passed.

"He appeared a few days after my brother's death. I have not cared for him long." I would not lie to Rohm if I could avoid it.

Rudolf crossed to the window.

"Nor well," Rudolf sneered, turning to face us. "The people you associate with."

He wanted to blame Anton's childhood on me. He would not want Rohm to know that his child was raised by a drug addict and a prostitute.

"I have had him only a week," I said. "No more. I am not responsible for him being raised by a boot girl from Wittenbergplatz."

Rohm rounded on Rudolf, his face furious. "A boot girl? My Elise became a boot girl?"