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Juliette remembered when Roma swore to her that he would never pick up a gun. He had never grown comfortable with automatic weaponry like she had. In those few months she had spent in Shanghai at fifteen, Roma hadn’t been living the same life as she had. While he operated in his comfortable claim as the heir of the White Flowers, Juliette was fighting to be seen, hanging on to her father’s every word in fear that missing a single instruction would place her into obscurity.
We do not have the luxury of mercy, Juliette. Look at this city. Look at the starvation that squirms under the layer of glamour.
Her father’s favorite teaching tactic had been to take her to the attic of the house, so they could peer through the highest window together and squint at the city center on the horizon.
Empires can fall in mere hours. This one is no different. Here in Shanghai, whoever shoots first has the best chance of surviving.
Juliette had learned her lesson. It seemed that Roma had picked up the same sentiment in the years she had been gone.
“Don’t miss,” Juliette whispered.
“I never do.”
A bang sounded from the space between them. Juliette immediately whirled around to catch the British tail collapsing where he stood, a bright-red spot blooming on his chest. There was a smoking hole in Juliette’s coat, but she barely noticed. Her mind was on the screams resounding around her as they sought the source of the sound, on the flurry of movement that had started atop the cobblestones.
Gunshot sounds were common in Shanghai, but never in a place so occupied, never in a place that the foreigners liked to brag about to their friends back home. Gunshot sounds belonged to gangsters and conflicts across territory lines, in the hours when the devil prowled the streets and there was moonlight beaming down from the sky. Now was supposed to be reserved for the warmth of the sunset. Now was supposed to be a time of pretending Shanghai wasn’t split in two.
Yet in the chaos, there were three other places of absolute stillness.
Juliette hadn’t been followed by one man. She had been followed by four.
So they needed to run now.
“The arcade,” Juliette commanded. She turned to Roma, frowning over his slowness. “Come on. This is the first time I’ve actually had to run from a crime I’ve committed.”
Roma blinked. His eyes were pulled wide, disbelieving. He didn’t seem to be entirely present as they dove into the crowd, pushing against the abundance of hands and elbows that were surging in all directions in an attempt to find safety.
“A crime you committed?” Roma echoed softly. Juliette had to strain to hear him. “I shot that gun.”
Juliette scoffed, turning. “Do you really need credit for—” Her sentence died against her lips. She had thought Roma was correcting her, claiming ownership over the crime, but then she saw the expression on his face. It had been an accusation.
He hadn’t wanted to shoot.
Juliette turned away quickly, shaking her head as though she had seen something she wasn’t supposed to. Here she was, thinking that he had finally adapted to the gun, and in the very next second he was surprising her with his playacting. How much of his exterior was a mere image? Juliette hadn’t considered before this moment that while Roma was being swept into the rumors on her cruelty, thinking her transformed into someone else, perhaps Juliette had been falling into the exact same trap, buying into the tales of ice and coldness that had originated from within the White Flowers themselves.
Juliette frowned, ducking to surge through a small gap between two open parasols. When she emerged on the other side, her eyes wandered over to Roma again—to his clenched jaw and his calculating stare.
She never seemed to know what was real and what was not when it came to Roma Montagov. She thought she knew him, and then she did not. She thought she had adjusted after he betrayed her, marked him off as wicked and bloodthirsty, but it seemed he still was not.
Maybe there was no truth. Maybe nothing was as easy as one truth.
“Quickly,” Juliette said to him, shaking her head to clear her mind.
They managed to enter Great World, pausing at the entranceway to check for their pursuers. Juliette glanced over her shoulder and found two of the three men she had spotted before, each pushing their way through the crowd, their eyes glued on her. They moved strategically, always behind a civilian, always ducked low to the ground. Roma was tugging at her shoulder to keep her moving, but she was searching for the third man, her hand going to her ankle.
“Where is he?” she asked.
Roma searched the crowd, and after a fraction of a second, pointed to the very side, where the man was running, perhaps looking for an alternate entrance into Great World so that he could corner them inside.
Juliette pulled her pistol from her sock. The man was seconds from disappearing from view.
Even if Roma was not the brutal heir this city thought him to be, that did not mean Juliette’s reputation was any less true.
The running man crumpled as Juliette’s bullet embedded into his neck. Before her pistol had stopped smoking, Juliette had already pivoted on her heel and was shoving deeper into the building.
Inside Great World, most of the attendees hadn’t heard the gunshots, or had simply thought them part of the arcade’s sound and atmosphere. Juliette wove through the crowd, her reflection darting by in the corner of her eye as she tried to navigate past the exhibit of distorting mirrors.
