These Violent Delights (These Violent Delights 1)

“Down with the gangsters!”

The shout drew Roma’s attention and Juliette’s horror immediately, startling the two badly enough that they grabbed each other. It had come from the Jiuqu Bridge, from a raving old man who kept yelling until a Scarlet gangster nearby threatened to beat him up. The sight, however, was not met with indifference, as per usual. Instead, at the intrusion of the tough-talking Scarlet, the civilians started to mutter among themselves, throwing rumors and speculations to the wind. Juliette caught snippets of whispers: of striking workers and factory revolts.

She dropped Roma’s hand quickly, taking a step away. Roma did not move.

“Why would he say such a thing?” Juliette muttered, her eyes still on the scene. Why did that old man feel emboldened enough to wish death on the gangsters?

“If the reports I read this morning were any indication, it’s trouble from the Communists,” Roma replied. “Armed strikes

in Nanshi.”

“Nanshi,” Juliette echoed, knowing the area was familiar for a particular reason. “That’s—”

Roma nodded. “Where Alisa is, stuck in a hospital right by the factories,” he finished. “We may be running out of time. The workers will storm the building should an uprising occur.”

If the workers rebelled from their tasks, instructed to cause chaos, they would seek to harm every gangster, every capitalist, every high-ranking foreman and factory owner in sight, child or not, conscious or not—including little Alisa Montagova.

“We kill him,” Juliette decided. “Today.”

Kill the monster, stop the madness. Wake Alisa and save her from the chaos building up around her.

“He will still be in his office,” Roma said. “How do we want to do this?”

Juliette checked her pocket watch. She bit her lip, thinking hard. There was no time for her to consult her parents. She doubted they would approve anyway. They would want to think things through, draw up plans. She could not ask for official Scarlet backup. She would do this by her own terms. “Gather your closest reinforcements, your weapons. We meet by the Labor Daily offices in an hour’s time.”

Roma nodded. His gaze searched her face, sweeping from her forehead to her eyes to her mouth, as if he was waiting for her to say something else. When she did not, puzzled over what he was waiting for, Roma did not explain himself. He merely nodded again and said, “See you then.”

* * *

Tyler pulled back from where he had been lurking, pressing up against the exterior wall of the Long Fa Teahouse. He moved himself out of view just soon enough to avoid being spotted by Roma Montagov, who hurried into the crowds of Chenghuangmiao and disappeared.

Taking one last drag of his cigarette, Tyler pinched the lit end to stub it out, then dropped it to the ground, uncaring of the new burns on his fingers.

Tyler had seen them. He could not hear their conversation, but he had seen them—working together, reaching out for each other.

“Ta ma de, Juliette,” he muttered. “Traitor.”

Thirty-Two

Message for you, Miss Lang.”

Kathleen rolled over, moving from one end of Juliette’s neatly made bed to the other. She was the maids’ worst nightmare. There were plenty of chairs for her to occupy in this house, but whenever Juliette left her room, Kathleen came wandering in to take ownership of her bed.

To be fair, it was an absurdly comfortable bed.

“For me?” Kathleen asked, waving the messenger in. This was unusual. There weren’t many callers for her.

“It says both Lang Selin and Lang Shalin at the front, but I cannot find Miss Rosalind,” the messenger responded, sounding out the syllables of their names awkwardly. When he showed her the front of the note, she realized that her Chinese name—Lang Selin—had been written out in its romanized equivalent instead of its Chinese characters.

It had to be Juliette. No one else would be so cryptic.

Kathleen quirked a brow, extending her hand for the note. “Thank you.”

The messenger left. Kathleen unfolded the slip of paper.

I need your help. The Secretary-General of the Communist Party is the monster. Meet me by his work building. Bring guns. Bring silencers. Tell no one.

“Oh, merde.”