These Violent Delights

by Chloe Gong

  Dimitri fell flat to the ground of the ring. The crowd rushed for the ropes, shaking and shaking and shaking the ring.

  Roma had him now. With his hands positioned where they were, he could snap Dimitri’s neck if he wanted. He could do anything and play it off as a mere accident—a slip of the moment.

  “Roma Montagov, our victor!” the woman with the chalkboard announced.

  Roma leaned down to Dimitri, close enough so Dimitri could not mishear his words over the roar of the crowd.

  “Don’t you forget who I am.”

  With that, he stood, wiping his forearm across his bleeding mouth roughly. He ducked under the ropes and landed solidly amid the crowd. This place was a boiling pot of volatile activity and emotions. Roma couldn’t get away fast enough.

  “You,” he snapped. A man with a white handkerchief in his pocket jerked to attention. “Get someone to take the American’s corpse out of here.”

  The man ran off to fulfill his task. Roma found his way back to his friends, dropping into his seat with the weight of a thousand years.

  “What a hero,” Marshall crooned.

  “Shut up,” Roma said. He breathed in deeply. Again. Then again. In his head he saw the American crumple to the ground. Alisa’s unmoving body. The complete lack of emotion on his father’s face.

  “Are you quite all right?” Benedikt asked in concern.

  “Yes, I’m fine.” Roma looked up with a glare. “Can we go back to what we were discussing before? With Alisa in the state she is in”—flashes of her face were burned into his mind, vivid and stark and already wasting away—“I need answers. If this madness sprouted from somebody’s bad intention, I must hunt them down.”

  “Didn’t your father send you after the Communists?”

  Roma nodded. “But it’s a dead end. We have only struck dead ends wherever we go.”

  “We could plead with the Scarlet Gang for their information,” Marshall suggested. “This time with more guns—”

  Benedikt pressed a hand over the Marshall’s mouth, shutting him up before he could expand further on a nonsensical plan.

  “Roma, I truly cannot fathom what else there is to do,” Benedikt admitted. “I think the meeting made it clear that the White Flowers know nothing. We are at a loss unless we wish to spread our resources thin and put an ear in every corner of Shanghai.”

  “How many spies do we still have in the Scarlet Gang?” Roma asked. “Perhaps they can figure out what it is. The Scarlet Gang practically admitted to having information, but they won’t tell us—”

  “I doubt asking the spies would be effective,” Benedikt interrupted. His hand was still over Marshall’s mouth. Marshall appeared to have started licking Benedikt’s palm in an effort to be released. Benedikt acted as if he hadn’t noticed. “If the Scarlet Gang really do know something, it would be discussed within the inner circle. Letting rumors slip to the regular gangsters is a surefire route toward causing panic.”

  Marshall finally writhed free of Benedikt’s hand.

  “By God, you’re both dull in the head,” he said. “Who in the Scarlet Gang keeps appearing everywhere you go, who appears to also have a personal stake in finding the necessary answers?” He leveled his gaze with Roma’s. “You’ve got to ask Juliette for help.”

  Suddenly, Roma held up his finger, asking Benedikt and Marshall to be patient as he thought it over.

  When he finally seemed to have ruminated on it for some time, he said, “Pass me that bucket over there.”

  Benedikt blinked. “What?”

  “Bucket.”

  Marshall stood and retrieved the bucket. As soon as he brought it under Roma’s nose, the brutal heir of the White Flowers stuck his head within it and retched as a result of all the violence at his hand.

  A minute later Roma resurfaced, the contents of his stomach emptied.

  “Okay,” he said bitterly. “I’ll ask Juliette alone for her help.”

  Nineteen

  I’m worried. Can you blame me?”

  Lady Cai pulled the brush through Juliette’s hair, frowning each time she hit a tangle. Juliette was certainly old enough to manage this herself, but her mother insisted. When Juliette was a little girl with hair that grew down to her waist, her mother used to come into her room every night and brush it until all the knots were gone, or until Lady Cai was at least satisfied by the state of her daughter’s head, which occasionally included the thoughts within it too. Now that Juliette was back for good, her mother had reinstated the practice. Juliette’s parents were busy people. This was her mother’s way of still having some role in her life.

  “No matter what it is in this city, there are too many people invested,” Lady Cai continued. “Too many people with personal stakes. Too many people with too much to lose.” Her frown deepened as she spoke, both in accordance with the words coming out from her mouth and in frustration with her task. Juliette’s hair was bobbed now—there was not much left to brush—but it was still a struggle to work through all the remnants of product that Juliette heaped on every day to maintain her curls.

  “Māma, you will have more to worry about if”—Juliette winced as the brush went through a clump of gel that hadn’t washed out—“the madness spreads to every corner of this city. Our dwindling numbers are more a cause for concern than the toes I step on while sticking my nose into Communist business.”

  Dwindling numbers in the Scarlet Gang. Dwindling numbers in the White Flowers. Their blood feud was nothing compared to both gangs dying out, yet Juliette seemed to be the only person who believed this madness potent enough to sweep the rug out from under everyone. Her parents were too proud. They had grown too used to situations they could control, adversaries they could defeat. They did not see this situation as Juliette did. They did not see Alisa Montagova trying to tear out her own throat every time they closed their eyes, as Juliette did now.

  The girl was so young. How had she gotten caught up in this?

  “Well.” Lady Cai sniffed. “It is inevitable that you shall step on some toes. It is simply that I would prefer to send men with you while you’re doing so.”

  Juliette bristled. At the very least, her parents were taking the madness seriously now. They still did not think it required their personal interference—or rather they did not see how they could possibly be of any help when it came to a disease that had people tearing at their own throats—but they cared enough to officially put Juliette to the task, excusing her from her other duties. No more chasing rent. Juliette was on a one-woman mission for the truth.

  “Please do not assign me an entourage,” Juliette said, shuddering. “I could outfight them in my sleep.”

  Lady Cai glared at her through the mirror.

  “What?” Juliette exclaimed.

  “It is not about the fight,” her mother replied firmly. “It is about image. It is your people having your back.”

  Oh God. Juliette could immediately sense the incoming lecture. It was an innate ability of hers, like how some people sensed incoming storms by the ache in their bones.

  “Don’t forget, your father has been overthrown once or twice during his time.”

  Juliette closed her eyes, sighing internally before forcing them open again. Four years had passed and her mother still delighted in recounting this story as if it taught the greatest life lesson known to mankind.

  “When that despicable Montagov avenged his father’s death by killing your grandfather,” her mother said, “your father should have been the one to lead next.”

  Lady Cai pulled the brush through another knot. Juliette winced.

  “But he was even younger than you are now, so the businessmen removed him and decided one of their own would have the final say. They dismissed him as nothing but a boy and said that if he wanted to lead with no reason save his bloodline, then he should join the monarchy instead of a gang. But then, in—”

  “—1892,” Juliette interrupted, taking over the story with theatrics, “with the p
eople on the streets of Shanghai directionless and running amok, with both the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers taken over by irrelevant associates while the rightful young heirs were shoved to the background, they at last revolted—”

  Juliette snapped her mouth shut upon seeing the deathly glower her mother was giving her through the mirror. She grumbled an apology, folding her arms. She admired her father’s ability to climb back to the top, just as she could detachedly acknowledge that Lord Montagov—who had also been uprooted when his father died—was intelligent enough to do the same. Except in this period of time, while both gangs were led by men who cared naught for bonds and allegiance, only efficiency and money, the blood feud had been at its quietest.

  “Your father,” Lady Cai said sharply, tugging on a strand of hair, “reclaimed his rightful title when he was older because he had people who believed in him. He appealed to the common majority—those who you see protecting him now, those who you see willing to give up their lives for him. It is all a matter of pride, Juliette.” Lady Cai ducked her head, pressing her face against her daughter’s until they were both staring ahead into the mirror. “He wanted the Scarlet Gang to be a force of nature. He wanted membership to be a badge that declared power. The commoners in the gang could think of nothing else more desirable, and behind him, they toppled the businessmen who had no choice but to accept their subservience.”

  Juliette raised an eyebrow. “In summary,” she said, “it is a game of numbers.”

  “You could say that.” Her mother clicked her tongue. “So don’t start believing that skill is all it takes to stay at the top. Loyalty plays its dirty hand too, and it is a fickle, ever-changing thing.”

  With that Lady Cai set down her brush, squeezed Juliette’s shoulder, and said good night. Brisk, quick, and abrupt—that was her mother. She strode out of Juliette’s bedroom and shut the door behind her, leaving Juliette to mull on those parting words.

  The rest of the world didn’t see it, but while Lord Cai was the face of the Scarlet Gang, Lady Cai did just as much work behind the scenes, running her eyes through every piece of paper that passed into the house. It was Lady Cai who had convinced her husband that a daughter would be far more capable of leading the Scarlet Gang next, rather than a male relative. So Juliette had been given the crown, and Lord Cai expected the gang to bend at the knee when Juliette became the head one day—out of expectation, out of blood loyalty.

  Juliette leaned toward the mirror, touching her fingers to the lines of her face.

  Was it loyalty that created power? Or was loyalty only a symptom, offered when the circumstances were favorable and taken away when the tides turned? It helped that Lord Cai and Lord Montagov were men. Juliette wasn’t naive. Their every messenger, every errand runner, every lower-tiered but fiercely loyal gangster was male. Most of the Scarlet Gang feared and revered Juliette now, but she was not in control yet. How would they react when Juliette tried to exert true power over them? Would she have to shed all that she was—ditch the glittery dresses and wear suits to be listened to?

  Juliette finally pushed away from her vanity table, rubbing at her eyes tiredly. The day had worn on for far too long, yet her body felt restless instead of weary. When she collapsed onto the blankets atop her bed, her nightgown was sticky against her skin. She could hear her heartbeat thudding, and with the longer she lay there in the dark, the thudding only became more intense, until the sound was playing through her eardrums.

  Wait—

  Juliette bolted upright. Someone was knocking rhythmically on the glass doors of her second-floor balcony.

  “No,” Juliette said aloud dully.

  The knocking came again, slow, purposeful.

  “No,” she repeated.

  More knocking.

  “Ah!”

  Juliette clambered to her feet and stormed toward the sound, opening the curtains with more force than necessary. As the fabric settled, she found a familiar figure seated casually on the railing of her balcony, his legs swinging and his body backlit by the glow of the crescent moon. She swallowed hard.

  “Really?” Juliette demanded through the glass door. “You climbed my house? You couldn’t have simply thrown a few pebbles?”

  Roma looked down into the gardens below. “You don’t have any pebbles.”

  Juliette rubbed her eyes again, forcefully this time. Maybe if she rubbed hard enough, she would realize this was all a fever dream and she’d wake up peacefully alone in her room.

  She removed her hand from her eyes. Roma was still there.

  They really needed to upgrade their security.

  “Roma Montagov, this is unacceptable,” Juliette declared tightly. This was all too reminiscent, too wistful, too much. “Leave before you get shot.”

  Even with his face shrouded in the shadows, Roma managed to convey a frown that reached Juliette with maximum effect. He looked around, seeing no one in the gardens below him.

  “Who will shoot me?”

  “I’m going to shoot you,” Juliette snapped.

  “No, you’re not. Open the door, dorogaya.”

  Juliette jerked back, horrified not by the command, but by his term of endearment. With delay, Roma seemed to realize too what had slipped out, his eyes widening a fraction, but he didn’t fumble or take it back. He merely stared at her in wait, like he hadn’t just pulled out a relic from their past, one that they had smashed to pieces.

  “The door stays closed,” Juliette said coldly. “What do you want?”

  Roma hopped off the railing, his shoes landing on the balcony tiles with a soft sound. When he came up close against the glass, Juliette noted a deep scratch marring his jaw, and she wondered if he’d stumbled here right after a fight. It was almost enough to have her reach for her gun and really send him running, but then, quietly, Roma whispered, “I want to save my sister.”

  Something inside of Juliette came loose. Her hard eyes softened the smallest of fractions.

  “How is Alisa?” she asked.

  “They’ve tied her up at the hospital like some asylum patient,” Roma replied. His eyes were focused on his hands. He kept flipping them over—palm, back, palm, back—searching for something that wasn’t there. “She tried to go for her throat again when she regained consciousness, so they’re injecting her with something to keep her asleep. They’re keeping her asleep until there’s some way to cure this madness.”

  Roma looked up. There was a madness, a desperation, in his own eyes.

  “I need your help, Juliette. All the trails from my end have gone cold. There’s nothing else I can chase, nowhere I can go, no one I can call. You, however—I know you know something.”

  Juliette didn’t immediately respond. She stood there unmoving, wrestling with the pit in her stomach and realizing she was uncertain if this feeling was still hatred… or fear. Fear that if the madness went on, she too would find herself in Roma’s position, watching someone she loved die. Fear that by mere consideration of Roma in such a sympathetic manner, she had crossed the line.

  The problem with hatred was that when the initial emotion weakened, the responses still remained. The clenched fists and hot veins, the blurred vision and quickened pulse. And in such remains, Juliette was not in control of what they might develop into.

  Like yearning.

  “You ask me for help,” Juliette said quietly, “and yet—how much blood is on your hands, Roma? In the time I was gone, how many of my people asked you for help, for mercy, right before you shot them?”

  Roma’s eyes were wholly black under the moonlight. “I have nothing to say to that,” he answered. “The blood feud was the blood feud. This is something utterly new in itself. If we don’t help each other, we may both die out.”

  “I am the one with information,” Juliette warned, her skin pricking uncomfortably. “Try to refrain from making sweeping generalizations about us both.”

  “You have information, but I have the other half of the city,” Roma countered. “If you a
ct alone, that’s half of Shanghai you cannot work with. If I act alone, I cannot enter any Scarlet territory. Think, Juliette—when the madness is hitting us both, there is no telling in which territory the answers will be found.”

  A chill swept through her room, bitter and cold and correct. Juliette tried to ignore it. She forced a laugh, the sound hard.

  “As you’re proving right now, I don’t think a lack of permission is stopping you from prancing into my territory.”

  “Juliette.” Roma pressed his hands against the glass. His pleading stare was utterly, utterly unguarded. “Please, she’s my sister.”

  God—

  Juliette had to look away. She couldn’t bear it. The heaviness twisting her heart was undeserved. Any vulnerability that Roma Montagov showed was an act, a carefully constructed facade he would bide his time with until the chance came to strike. She knew this.

  But perhaps Juliette would never learn. Perhaps her memories of Roma would pull her toward ruin, unless she reached into her own chest and ripped out all remains of softness.

  “For Alisa,” Juliette managed roughly, finally turning her gaze back, “and for all the little girls in this city falling victim to a game they never asked to play, I will help you. But do your part, Roma. I help you and you help me find the solution to this madness as quickly as possible.”

  Roma exhaled, breathing relief and gratitude onto the glass. She watched him carefully, watched the tension drain from his shoulders and the terror in his eyes meld into hope. She wondered how much of it was true and how much of it was for her benefit, so she would think she was making the right decision.

  “Deal.”

  This could ruin her. It could ruin everything. But what mattered now was not Juliette, nor her feelings—it was finding a solution. If the possibility of saving her people meant risking her reputation with them, then it was a sacrifice she had to make.

  Who else would make it? Who else but Juliette?

  “Okay,” Juliette conceded quietly. She supposed there was no going back. “I have Zhang Gutai’s home address. My next move was breaking in and rummaging around, but”—she shrugged, the gesture so forcefully casual on her part that she almost believed it—“we can go there together to begin, if you wish.”