Last Violent Call (Secret Shanghai, #3.5)(3)
Commemorating the Star-Crossed Lovers of Shanghai
Juliette Cai & Roma Montagov
1907–1927
“Juliette Cai and Roma Montagov, heir to the Scarlet Gang and heir to the White Flowers, the children of feuding families born into a bloody war, defying everything to end the cycle and be together.” Yulun uttered each word with intention. As if he had heard those lines from elsewhere long ago and was reciting them from memory. “I had hoped that, of all people, you would understand.”
The portrait sketches were uncannily accurate. Juliette picked up the newspaper clipping and held it to the afternoon light, looking for some sort of plausible deniability.
She found none. These were their faces, no doubt about it. Roma, however, didn’t even glance at the portraits.
“You must be mistaken,” he said. “I have never even heard the name Roma Montagov before. City gossip doesn’t make its way to Zhouzhuang.”
“What?” Yulun exclaimed, taken aback. “But you were just speaking Russian.”
“Was I? I can’t remember.”
Yulun turned to Juliette next, his mouth opening and closing in incredulity. He pointed behind her. “You have a painting back there of Shanghai’s wàitān.”
Juliette craned over her shoulder, squinting at the frame and acting like she had never realized what it contained. Her cousin, Celia, bought it for her after Juliette admitted she was starting to forget the Bund—the ocean salt smell, the creaking boardwalk under her feet. Shanghai was a coastal city, an open port that pulsated with constant activity, ships arriving without pause and movement tearing through its streets at such speed that the city delivered its highest highs in the same breath as its lowest lows. Zhouzhuang was the exact opposite. It held the promise of haven in its stillness, protective layers formed in every direction with the leisurely speed at which its waters flowed.
“What a neat coincidence,” she said, playing along with the bluff that Roma had started. “We hail from Harbin, though, not Shanghai.”
Slowly Juliette pushed the newspaper clipping back toward Yulun. He didn’t look like he believed her, but how could he possibly prove that they were lying, short of accusing them outright?
“If I’m reading this correctly, these people are long dead,” she said gently. “Here.” Pitying the boy, Juliette grabbed a pen from the counter behind her and quickly wrote a number on the paper edge: the communal telephone line in the township. “Give us a call for proper business when you have the means. But we’re not the ones you’re looking for. I’m sorry.”
Her apology was sincere. She had once believed that inheriting the Scarlet Gang would give her immense power, that she would be able to help the people who needed it and stomp down the people trying to hurt her. But that kind of power was never supposed to be concentrated in one place, and a position like that would only draw up an unending list of enemies trying to cause her harm. She preferred a life free from the Scarlet Gang to a magnitude that was beyond words, and yet there was always going to be the little pang in her heart when she couldn’t make things happen with a snap of her finger anymore.
Yulun took the newspaper clipping, returning it to his pocket alongside the photo of his fiancée. His lower lip wobbled. Before it could happen again, he steadied his expression, giving an accepting nod.
Roma stood and circled around the table. “I will walk you out,” he said, clapping his hand down on Yulun’s shoulder. “Are you able to get yourself back home?”
Yulun stood as well, looking dejected. “Yes, don’t worry about me. I’m sorry to be a bother.”
“Ah, we don’t mind being enlivened once in a while.” They disappeared into the living room, the murmur of conversation carrying on for a few more minutes before the front door opened and closed.
Juliette sighed, propping her elbows onto the table and resting her chin in her hands. She was still holding that pose when Roma returned to the kitchen, her eyes flicking up and latching onto him. He leaned against the archway, raising a brow as if to ask why she was staring, but she didn’t look away. She liked admiring him without being afraid of getting caught. She liked it when she spotted him at the open market unexpectedly, breaking into a run and surprise-attacking him from the back, getting a laugh in response instead of a gun pulled on her. Their past had made every moment of their future a novelty, and she would never get sick of peppering him with kisses when she woke him up in the mornings, waiting for him to draw away before she was willing to stop—only he always refused to draw away first, offering his face with the biggest grin.
She would have thought that the addictive thrill would wear off after the first year. Perhaps once they started getting used to living without fear, living without the weight of two families and a whole city on their shoulders. But the truth was that weight would never fully fade, so neither did the knowledge that they had achieved something unbelievable in finding peace. Sometimes Juliette still jumped if a restaurant owner dropped a metal bowl on the ground, convinced that there were gunshots in the distance and she needed to go break up a fight between gangsters. Even if she realized quickly that there was nothing to be afraid of, her thoughts would be foggy and her palms clammy all day long, unsettling her stomach until she managed to distract herself. Sometimes Roma still woke up panicked in the middle of the night, shouting Juliette’s name as if she had been pulled away in his dream, and though Juliette would be right beside him, her hands clasping his face, whispering, “I’m here, I’m right here, my love, it’s okay,” his heart wouldn’t stop thudding under her touch until morning, neither of them sleeping.