“Yes, A 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 jie, 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 huffed, 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 five 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 first 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 staff 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 finally asked.
Juliette flinched. 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 fingers 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 first 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 efficient 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 fists tightened. Never mind.