Last Violent Call (Secret Shanghai, #3.5)(2)
He hadn’t been wrong, per se, but that still wasn’t very polite.
“Sock organizing wasn’t so bad once I got the hang of it,” Juliette said. “I didn’t realize you had such big feet.”
Roma choked on his tea. He scrambled to put his cup down before he spilled anything, coughing once to get the tea back into the right pipe. Juliette picked up her own cup innocently, taking a sip.
“You’ll be glad to hear that I didn’t have a particularly interesting time either,” Roma said when he recovered. Fortunately for him, he had managed to play off the cough. “Until I was driving back and Yulun here dove in front of the car.”
The boy, Yulun, perked up at the sound of his name. Now he knew he was being summoned into the conversation.
“Yes, I was wondering why you had picked up a stray.” Juliette returned to speaking Chinese, extending a hand in Yulun’s direction. They almost never brought anyone into their actual house, so this had to be something different from the usual clientele. “I’m Mrs. Mai.”
Mai. The easiest combination of “Cai” and “Montagov,” perhaps the least original method of creating an alias in the history of starting anew. Roma and Juliette had butted heads too much about whose name to begin with if they were to hyphenate… not because either wanted their own put first, but rather the other way around. Juliette wanted to be a Montagov; Roma insisted there was too much baggage attached. In her head, she still liked the sound of Juliette Montagova, because that was his name, and that was all that mattered. But it was better to use a Chinese name in Zhouzhuang, better for Roma to pass himself off as half-Chinese when his features ran close enough to be convincing, or else even more people might start getting suspicious about who they really were and what they had run from.
“Mai tàitài,” Yulun greeted politely, shaking her hand. “I need your help. I assume you make the big calls. Please.”
Juliette cast a glance over to Roma. “Did you hear that? He thinks I’m in charge.”
“Don’t pretend to be shocked.” Roma’s arm slid around the back of her chair. He yanked off one of the loose threads dangling from her dress—she had drastically toned down her wardrobe since fleeing Shanghai, but Juliette’s version of toned-down still involved complex embroidery—then turned back to Yulun and said, “Tell her what you told me.”
With some hesitance, Yulun shuffled forward in his seat. The chair leg scraped against the floorboards with a grating sound.
“I heard that you’re the people to go to for weapons,” he said. “I… I wanted to acquire some, but I don’t have the means to meet the prices.” He looked into his lap. “I was hoping that you might be open to an exchange of some sort. I’m great at running messages.”
Juliette blinked, tilting her head curiously. A wisp of hair fell into her eyes. She attempted to blow it back, only her hair was long these days, growing far past her shoulders, so the huff did nothing except stick the lock to the side of her cheek.
“We’re not really hiring right now,” Juliette replied. She felt Roma trail a finger along her arm, the contact unhurried, more an instinct than something he was consciously aware of doing. The silence drew out in the kitchen. Juliette shook her hair back into place. “But I do want to know why exactly you are trying to come into possession of weapons. You’re not our usual demographic.”
Yulun’s gaze flickered over to Roma. He must have divulged this already, if Roma was willing to bring him all the way here to get Juliette’s opinion.
“My fiancée is being threatened.”
Ah. Juliette let out a small sigh, leaning into her chair. Of course it was something like this that got Roma’s sympathy. Him and his soft heart. She adored him so much that it hurt.
“She’s not from around here,” Yulun went on. “She fled Vladivostok three years ago and entered Shanghai as a refugee before making her way farther inland.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a picture. Clearly Roma hadn’t seen this yet, because he leaned forward too and jolted immediately in surprise. His reaction was almost indiscernible, but he still had his hand against Juliette’s arm, and she felt his tension like it was her own.
Yulun’s fiancée looked just like Alisa, Roma’s little sister.
The differences were evident enough that they were clearly two different people, and yet upon first glance Juliette would have easily made the mistake, from the blond curls to the deep-set dark eyes crinkled in a smile.
“I’m all she has,” Yulun finished softly. “I was hoping you could help me. If not with weaponry, then…” The boy trailed off. When he slumped his shoulders, all his strength left him. “Someone from her past keeps contacting her. If weapons aren’t an option, I had hoped you might sell your safeguarding.”
Roma finally glanced away from the photo, one of his brows quirking up.
“You didn’t mention that part on the drive.” His tone had turned perplexed. “What sort of safeguarding could we possibly provide? We run a small business, not a security force.”
Yulun gulped tightly. He reached into his pocket again and this time pulled out what appeared to be a newspaper clipping.
“You once offered protection, didn’t you?” He unfolded the clipping slowly. The two portraits were revealed first, then the large-print headline above it: