“Ready?” Roma’s voice returned to normal, like the previous moment had been erased from memory. Rather reluctantly, he offered his arm.
Juliette took it before he could have second thoughts, wrapping her fingers around his sleeve. Her hands were gloved, but still her skin jumped upon contact.
“There were sightings yesterday. In the outskirts of the city where workers were striking. They said a monster was present.”
Roma cleared his throat. He shook his head like he didn’t want to discuss it, though monsters stalking their city were precisely why they were here. “Unless people are dying, I don’t care,” he muttered. “Civilians make up sightings all the time.”
Juliette dropped the topic. They had stepped inside the clubhouse, and the double takes started almost immediately. It would have been impossible to go entirely under the radar, not when Roma Montagov and Juliette Cai were wholly recognizable, but Juliette had thought at least there would be a delayed reaction. There was no delay at all. Frenchmen in suits and women twirling their pearls were positively craning their heads with outright curiosity.
“None of them are going to be helpful,” Roma said under his breath. “Keep moving.”
The onlookers thinned out as they climbed upward, passing a bowling game happening on the mezzanine level. The second floor rang loud with a billiards game clacking across the space, almost in tune with the hooves clamoring just outside.
On the third floor, there was a booth installed outside the closed double doors, standing sentry to the long lines of dark timber and glazed panels that made up the domineering entranceway. A fireplace roared close by, keeping the floor warm enough that an immediate sweat broke out under Juliette’s coat, prompting her to undo a few buttons until the fur hung open.
“Hello,” Juliette said, waiting for the woman behind the booth to look up. By her hair, she appeared to be American. “This is the members’ stand, yes?”
A collective outburst of laughter wafted from the doors, accompanied by the sound of glasses clinking, and Juliette immediately knew that it was. In there were all the well-to-dos and must-knows of the French Concession. In a city that teemed with people, someone had to be aware of something. All it took was to find the right people.
“Are you members?” the woman asked dryly, sparing the briefest glance up. Her accent came out clearly. American.
“No—”
“Grandstand for Chinese is outside.”
Juliette let go of Roma’s arm. He reached out as if to pull her back, but thought better of it at the last moment, his hand floating inanely in the air as Juliette walked forward, her heels clicking on the smooth flooring. She approached the booth, then slapped her two hands right onto it. Just as the woman was finally startled into looking up properly, Juliette leaned in.
“Say that again,” she said, “but actually look at my face this time.”
Juliette started to count to three in her head. One. Two—
“M-miss Cai,” the woman stammered. “I didn’t see you on our expected visitor list—”
“Stop talking.” Juliette pointed to the door. “Open it, would you?”
The woman’s already wide eyes flickered to the door and then to Roma, before widening even farther, at risk of popping right out. Some dark part of Juliette reveled in it, in the rush that surged through her veins each time her name was spoken with fear. Some darker part still was more rapt at the sight that she gave, looming while Roma waited at her side. They would rule this city one day, wouldn’t they? One half each, fists over empires. And here they stood, together.
The woman hurried to open the door. Juliette offered a smile that was nothing but bared teeth as she passed.
“You embarrassed her so deeply that she’ll be looking over her shoulder for the next three years in fear,” Roma remarked inside. He inspected a passing tray of drinks.
“It means little that I managed to embarrass her,” Juliette grumbled. “Every other Chinese person in Shanghai doesn’t have the same privilege.”
Roma picked up a drink, giving it a sip. For a moment, it almost seemed like he was going to say something more. But whatever it was, he clearly decided against it, because all that came out was “Let’s get to work.”
For that next hour, they mingled in and out of the crowds, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries. Foreigners who moved into this city long-term liked to call themselves Shanghailanders, and though that term gave Juliette such nausea she preferred to permanently block out its existence from her mind, it was the only acceptable one that she could think to use to describe every person in this room.
How dare they claim such a title. Juliette clutched her fists tight as she let a couple pass in front of her. How dare they label themselves the people of this city, as if they did not sail in with cannons and forced entry, as if they are not here now only because they come from those who lit the first fires.
But it was either the wretched Shanghailander or imperialist, and she doubted her father would be very happy if she went around the room addressing merchants and bankers as such. She simply had to swallow it. She had to laugh with one Shanghailander after the other in hopes that they had information to give when she casually mentioned the new deaths.
So far nothing had turned up. So far they were more interested in why Juliette and Roma were working together.
“I thought y’all didn’t get on,” one remarked. “I was warned that if I did business in this city, I oughta pick a side or get shanked.”
“Our fathers tasked us together,” Roma said. He flashed a quick grin, looking debonair enough that the foreigner visibly swooned—though she was old enough to be his mother. “We’re on a mission so vital that the White Flowers and Scarlet Gang must collaborate, even if it means placing . . . business aside for the meanwhile.”
Juliette wondered if Roma had practiced those words and the way he was to deliver them. He spoke like the perfect glimmering prodigy, because no one could hear the bitterness but her. All the foreigners took in was his easy beauty and smooth speech. Juliette listened to the words. To the resentment that they were tasked to this, for otherwise he would be far, far across the city.
She hoped the blackmailer would hear about this, or better yet, could see them right this moment. She hoped they would observe the cold cooperation and have terror strike their heart. Once the Scarlets and the White Flowers joined together, it was only a matter of time before their mutual enemy collapsed.
“Why, I don’t know if I should be offended that I have waited so long still without a greeting!”
Roma and Juliette both turned at the voice, coming from a short, booming man. He tipped his newsboy cap, and in return, Roma inclined his boater hat, looking the picture of sophistication in comparison to the man’s huffing, red face. It was an unfair competition. Juliette eyed the two women who accompanied the man and knew that they saw it too.
“Forgive us,” Juliette said. The man reached for her hand, and she let him take it to press a kiss to her gloved fingers. “If we have met before, you will need to remind me.”
Ever so faintly, the man’s grip tightened on her fingers. He let go in the next second, so it could have been played off as a mere slip of his grip, but Juliette knew that he had acknowledged her slight.