Three
The moment Juliette barreled into the hallway, shoving the last pin into her hair, she already knew she was too late.
It was partly the maid’s fault for not waking her when she was supposed to and partly Juliette’s own fault for failing to get up with the sunrise, as she had been attempting since her arrival back in Shanghai. Those sparse moments just as the sky was brightening—and before the rest of the household rumbled to life —were the most peaceful few minutes one could get in this house. The days she started early enough to snatch a breath of cold air and a gulp of utter, complete silence on her balcony were her favorites. She could trail through the house with no one to bother her, skipping into the kitchen and snatching whatever she liked from the cooks, then taking whichever seat she pleased on the empty dining table. Depending on how fast she chewed, she might even have a while to spend in the living room, the windows thrown open to let in the tunes of early birdsong. The days when she failed to scramble out of her covers fast enough, on other the hand, meant grumpily sitting through the morning meals with the rest of the household.
Juliette stopped outside her father’s oce door now, cursing under her breath. Today hadn’t only been a matter of avoiding her distant relatives. She had wanted to poke her nose into one of Lord Cai’s meetings.
The door opened swiftly. Juliette took a step back, trying to look natural.
Definitely too late.
“Juliette.” Lord Cai peered at her, frowning. “It’s so early. Why are you awake?”
Juliette placed her hands under her chin, the picture of innocence. “I heard we had an esteemed visitor. I thought I’d come oer my greetings.”
The aforementioned visitor raised a wry brow. He was a Nationalist, but whether or not he was truly esteemed was hard to determine when he was dressed merely in a Western suit, void of the decorations his Kuomintang military uniform might bear on the collar. The Scarlet Gang had been friendly with the Nationalists—the Kuomintang—ever since the Kuomintang’s founding as a political party. Of late, relations had become even friendlier to combat the rise of their Communist “allies.” Juliette had been home for only a week, and she had already watched her father take at least ve dierent meetings with the harried Nationalists who wanted gangster support. Each time she had been just too late to slip in without acting like an embarrassment, and settled for idling outside the door instead to catch whatever bits and pieces she could.
The Nationalists were afraid, that much she knew. The budding Communist Party of China was encouraging its members to join the Kuomintang in a show of cooperation with the Nationalists, only instead of demonstrating cooperation, the growing inuence of Communist numbers within the Kuomintang was starting to threaten the Nationalists. Such scandal was the talk of the country, but especially in Shanghai, a lawless place where governments came both to be born and to die.
“That’s very kind of you, Juliette, but Mr. Qiao has another meeting to hurry to.”
Lord Cai gestured for a servant to lead the Nationalist out. Mr. Qiao politely tipped his hat, and Juliette smiled tightly, swallowing back her sigh.
“It wouldn’t hurt to let me sit in on one meeting, Bàba,” she said as soon as Mr. Qiao was out of sight. “You’re supposed to be teaching me.”
“I can teach you slowly,” Lord Cai replied, shaking his head. “You don’t want to get involved in politics yet. It’s boring business.”
But it was relevant business, especially if the Scarlet Gang spent so much damn time entertaining these factions. Especially if Lord Cai had hardly blinked an eye last night when Juliette told him the heir of the White Flowers had pranced into their most central burlesque club, telling her that he had been made aware already and they would speak of it in the morning.
“Let’s go to the breakfast table, hmm?” her father said. He placed his hand on the back of Juliette’s neck, guiding her down the stairs as if she were at risk of running o. “We can talk about last night, too.”
“Breakfast would be delightful,” Juliette muttered. In truth, the clamor of morning meals gave her a headache. There was something about mornings in this household particularly that made Juliette uneasy. No matter what it was that her relatives discussed, no matter how mundane—like their speculation on the rising prices of rice—their words dripped with scheming and relentless wit.
Everything they discussed seemed more tting for the late night, when the maids retired to their rooms and the dark crawled in on the polished wood oors.
“Juliette, darling,” an aunt crowed the moment she and her father approached the table. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, Ā yí,” Juliette replied tightly, taking a seat. “I slept very well—”
“Did you cut your hair again? You must have. I don’t remember it being this short.”
As if her relatives weren’t vexing enough, there were also so many of them coming in and out of the Cai household for Juliette to care very much about any of them. Rosalind and Kathleen were dually her closest cousins and only friends, and that was all she needed. Everybody else was merely a name and a relation she had to remember in case she needed something from them one day. This aunt jabbering in her ear now was far too distant to be useful at any point in the future, so distant that Juliette had to stop for a second to wonder why she was even at the breakfast table.
“Dà jiě, for God’s sake, let the kid breathe.”
Juliette’s head jerked up, grinning at the voice who had chimed in from the end of the table. On second thought, there was only one exception to her apathy:
Mr. Li, her favorite uncle.
Xiè xiè, she mouthed.
Mr. Li merely raised his teacup to her thanks, a twinkle in his eye. Her aunt hued, but she ceased talking. Juliette turned in her father’s direction.
“So, Bàba, last night,” she started. “If talk is to be believed, one of our men met up with ve White Flowers at the ports, then ripped his own throat out.
What do you make of it?”
Lord Cai made a thoughtful noise from the head of the long rectangular table, then rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighing deeply. Juliette wondered when her father had last gotten a full night’s sleep, uninterrupted by worrying and meetings. His exhaustion was invisible to the untrained eye, but Juliette knew.
Juliette always knew.
Or maybe he was just tired of having to sit at the head of this table, hearing everyone’s gossip rst thing in the morning. Before Juliette left, their dining table had been round, as Chinese tables rightfully should be. She suspected they had switched it up only to appeal to the Western visitors who came through the Cai house for meetings, but the result was messy: family members unable to talk to who they wished, as they could if everybody was seated around a circle.
“Bàba,” Juliette prompted, though she knew he was still thinking. It was only that her father was a man of few words and Juliette was a girl who couldn’t stand silence. Even while it was hectic all around them, with sta bustling in and out of the kitchen, a meal underway, and the table accommodating various conversations at oscillating volumes, she couldn’t stand it when her father let her question draw out in lieu of answering immediately.
The matter was, even if he indulged her now, Lord Cai was only pretending to be concerned about an alleged madness. Juliette could tell—this was child’s play atop the already monstrous list plaguing her father’s attention. After all, who would care for rumors of strange creatures rising from the waters of this city when the Nationalists and Communists were rising too, guns poised and armies ready to march?
“And that was all Roma Montagov revealed?” Lord Cai nally asked.
Juliette inched. She couldn’t help it. She had spent four years recoiling at the mere thought of Roma that hearing his name aloud—spoken from her own father, no less—felt like something improper.
“Yes.”
Her father tapped his ngers on the table slowly.
“I suspect he knows more,” Juliette continued, “but he was careful.”
Lord Cai fell into silence once again, allowing the noise around him to lull and pick up and fall. Juliette wondered whether his mind was elsewhere at this very moment. He had been terribly blasé at news of the White Flower heir on
their territory, after all. Given how important the blood feud was to the Scarlet Gang, it only showed how much more consequential politics had become if Lord Cai was barely giving Roma Montagov’s infraction any serious consideration.
Before her father had the chance to resume speaking, however, the swinging doors to the kitchen slammed open, the sound ricocheting so loudly that the aunt seated next to Juliette knocked her cup of tea over.
“If we suspect the White Flowers have more information than we do, what are we doing sitting around discussing it?”
Juliette gritted her teeth, mopping the tea from her dress. It was only Tyler Cai who entered, the most irritating among her rst cousins. Despite their shared age, in her four years away, it was as if he hadn’t grown up at all. He still made crude jokes and expected others to kneel before him. If he could, he would demand the globe turn in the other direction simply because he thought it was a more ecient way to turn, no matter how unrealistic.
“Do you make a habit out of eavesdropping at doors instead of coming in?”
Juliette sneered, but her scathing remark went unappreciated. Their relatives jumped to their feet at the sight of Tyler, hurrying to fetch a chair, to fetch more tea, to fetch another plate—probably one engraved with gold and crusted with crystal. Despite Juliette’s position as the heir to the Scarlet Gang, they would never simper after her in such a manner. She was a girl. In their eyes, no matter how legitimate, she would never be good enough.
“It seems simple to me,” Tyler continued. He slid into a seat, leaning back like it was a throne. “It’s about time we show the White Flowers who really holds the power in this city. Let’s demand they hand over what they know.”
“We have the numbers, the weaponry,” an obscure uncle chimed in, nodding and stroking his beard.
“The politicians will side with us,” the aunt beside Juliette added. “They have to. They cannot tolerate the White Flowers.”
“A territory battle is not wise—”
Finally, Juliette thought, turning toward the older second cousin who had spoken up, a sensible voice at this table.
“—but with your expertise, Tyler, who knows how much farther we could
advance our turf lines.”
Juliette’s sts tightened. Never mind.
“Here is what we shall do,” Tyler started excitedly. Juliette cast a glance at her father, but he seemed content to merely consume his food. Since her return, Tyler had been nding every opportunity to upstage her, whether in conversation or through sidelong remarks. But each time, Lord Cai had stepped in to shut him down, to remind these aunts and uncles in as few words as possible to remember who the true heir was, to remember that this favoritism they were showing for Tyler would take them nowhere.
Only this time Lord Cai remained silent. Juliette didn’t know if he was abstaining because he found his nephew’s tactics to be laughable, or because he was actually taking Tyler seriously. Her stomach twisted, broiling with acid at the thought.
“—and it’s not as if the foreign powers can complain,” Tyler was saying. “If these deaths have been self-inicted, it is a matter that could aect anyone. It is a matter of our people, who require our help to defend them. If we do not act now and take back the city for their sake, then what good are we? Are we to suer another century of humiliation?”
The voices at the table sounded their approval. Grunts of praise; wrinkled, scarred thumbs stuck into the air; claps of esteem against Tyler’s shoulder. Only Mr. Li and her father were quiet, their faces held neutral, but that wasn’t enough. Juliette threw her utensils down, shattering her ne porcelain chopsticks into four pieces.
“You want to deliver yourself into White Flower territory?” She stood up, smoothed down her dress. “Be my guest. I’ll have a maid untangle your guts when they send them back in a box.”
With her relatives too shocked to protest, Juliette marched out of the kitchen.
Her heart was thudding despite her calm demeanor, afraid that maybe this time she really had pushed it too far. As soon as she was in the hallway, she paused and glanced over her shoulder, watching the kitchen doors settle. The wood of those doors, imported from some distant nation, was carved with traditional Chinese calligraphy: poems that Juliette had memorized a long time ago. This house was
a mirror of their city. It was a fusion of East and West, unable to let go of the old but desperate to mimic the new, and just like the city, the architecture of this house didn’t quite meld well with itself.
The beautiful but ill-tted kitchen doors ew open again. Juliette barely
inched. She had expected this.
“Juliette. A word.”
It was only Tyler who had followed her out, a frown etched onto his face. He had the same pointed chin that Juliette had, the same single dimple at the lower- left corner of his lip that appeared in times of distress. How they looked so alike was beyond her. In every family portrait, Juliette and Tyler were always placed together, cooed at as if they were twins instead of cousins. But Juliette and Tyler had never gotten along. Not even in the cot, when they played with toy guns instead of real ones, and Tyler never missed a single wooden pellet aimed at
Juliette’s head.
“What is it?”
Tyler stopped. He folded his arms. “What is your problem?”
Juliette rolled her eyes. “My problem?”
“Yes, your problem. It’s not amusing when you shut down my every idea—”
“You’re not stupid, Tyler, so stop acting like it,” Juliette interrupted. “I hate the Montagovs just as you do. We all hate them, so much that we bleed from it.
But now is not the time to be waging a territory war. Not with our city already
carved up by the foreigners.”
A beat passed.
“Stupid?”
Tyler had missed the point entirely, and yet he was oended. Her cousin was a boy with steel skin and a heart of glass. Ever since he lost both his parents too young, he had become this faux Scarlet anarchist, pretentious for the sake of it, wild within the gang for no reason, and because like called to like, his only friends were those who hung around hoping to shortcut a connection with the Cais. Everyone tiptoed around him, happy to throw choreographed punches and let him think himself powerful when each hit bounced o, but give him one sudden kick down his middle and he would shatter.
“I hardly think defending our livelihood is stupid,” Tyler went on. “I hardly think that reclaiming our country from those Russians—”
The problem was that Tyler thought his way was the only correct way. She wished she could nd it in herself to not fault him. After all, Tyler was just like her; he wanted what was best for the Scarlet Gang. Only in his mind, he was what was best for the Scarlet Gang.
Juliette didn’t want to continue listening. She turned on her heel and started to leave.
Until her cousin snagged her by the wrist.
“What kind of an heir are you?”
Quick as a ash, Tyler slammed her into the wall. He kept one hand scrunched against her left sleeve and the rest of his arm splayed against her clavicle, pushing just enough to make a threat.
“Let me go,” Juliette hissed, jerking against his hold, “right now.”
Tyler did not. “The Scarlet Gang is supposed to be your rst priority. Our
people should be your rst priority.”
“Watch yourself—”
“You know what I think it is?” Tyler breathed in, his nostrils aring, deep wrinkles marring his face into absolute disgust. “I’ve heard the rumors. I don’t think you hate the Montagovs at all. I think you’re trying to protect Roma Montagov.”
Juliette became utterly still. It was not fear that overtook her, nor any sort of intimidation that Tyler had sought to incite. It was indignation, and then hot, hot anger. She would tear Roma Montagov apart before she ever protected him again.
Her right hand jerked up—st clenched, wrist hard, knuckles braced—and made centered, perfect contact with her cousin’s cheek. There was a moment when he could not react. A moment when Tyler was only blinking, the lines of his pale face trembling in shock. Then he stumbled, letting go of Juliette and whipping his head to look at her, hatred stamped into the hollows of his eyes. A red slash bruised the line of his cheekbone, the result of Juliette’s glittering ring
scraping through skin.
It wasn’t enough.
“Protecting Roma Montagov?” she echoed.
Tyler froze. He hadn’t had a chance to move, hardly had a chance to take the slightest step back, before Juliette had pulled forth a knife from her pocket. She pressed it right to his cut and hissed, “We are not kids anymore, Tyler. And if you are to threaten me with outrageous accusations, then you will answer for them.”
A soft laugh. “How so?” Tyler rasped. “Will you kill me right here in the hallway? Ten paces away from the breakfast table?”
Juliette pressed the knife in deeper. A stream of blood started down her cousin’s cheek, trailed into the lines of her palm, dripped along her arm.
Tyler had stopped laughing.
“I am the heir of the Scarlet Gang,” Juliette said. Her voice had grown just as sharp as her weapon. “And believe me, tángdì, I will kill you before I let you take it from me.”
She shoved Tyler o the blade of her knife then, the metal ashing red. He said nothing more, oered no response save a blank stare.
Juliette turned, her heeled shoes twisting grooves into the carpeting, and walked o.
