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“Whatever stupid thing you’re thinking right now, you need to stop,” Esta told him. “You did what you had to do to keep going, to come find me. You’re not going to hurt me now.”
He wished he could believe her, wished that he were half as certain as she sounded.
“I’m already hurt, Harte.” Gently, she pressed a small, encouraging kiss to his mouth. “I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t,” he told her, unable to stop himself from kissing her back. Softly. A brush of lips that made him want to lean in and take whatever she offered.
But she was injured, and he was a bastard for wanting more. He forced himself to pull back, to keep his hands clenched at his sides instead of pulling her closer like he wanted.
She stepped away, but she tossed an impish smile in his direction, as though she knew the direction his thoughts had taken. As though she maybe even approved. But she didn’t move back toward him. She left him holding the knife, stuck in indecision, as she searched through a case of small bottles provided by the hotel. She found what looked like whiskey and downed the whole bottle, along with a handful of aspirin. Then she grabbed another bottle of something clear and downed it as well, wincing at the taste.
The knife in his hands felt cool, an impossible weight, as he watched her prepare the chair he’d just been sitting in, covering its arm with towels. “It’ll be easier if I have something to support me,” she told him, rolling the sleeve of her robe completely off before she took her place on the chair.
This time, not even the bare expanse of skin was enough to distract him. She was right. Even now he could see that the rot in her arm was spreading. Something had to be done. There was no other choice. As much as he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to hurt her, he was going to have to do this. He was going to have to spill her blood and hope that Viola’s blade didn’t do worse.
“You’ll tell me if I’m hurting you,” he told her, a command more than a question.
“You can’t hurt me any worse than this already is,” she said.
Harte wasn’t so sure. He’d seen Viola’s dagger slice through solid wood and skewer a man’s heart. He knew how badly it could cut Esta if he wasn’t careful. Even once everything was ready, it took Harte a long couple of minutes to finally gather the courage to press the deadly blade into her skin.
ONE WAY OR ANOTHER
1902—Mott Street
When Viola returned with news that neither the Five Pointers nor Nibsy had Cela—or knew where she was—Jianyu knew of only one place he could turn. But as he navigated unseen through the city toward the mansion-like building at 20 Mott Street, he could not help but wonder whether he was making a mistake.
Once, he had been a regular visitor to Tom Lee’s home. Once, he had been so favored by Lee and the On Leong Tong that most people in the Bowery had believed him to be Lee’s nephew. But he had not stepped across the threshold of Lee’s home since he had pledged his loyalty to Dolph Saunders the year before. His leaving was the ultimate betrayal, because he had left not only Lee’s organization but also the closely knit community of his own people. In doing so, he had made an enemy of the self-proclaimed mayor of Chinatown. To Lee, Dolph Saunders had been yet another gwáilóu determined to keep the Chinese people in the city from claiming the success they rightly deserved, and the Devil’s Own was simply another gang intent on stopping him from expanding their community and his prosperity by preventing Lee from claiming any more territory in the Bowery.
At the time, leaving the tong had been worth the risk. Lee might have helped to smuggle Jianyu into the country, and the On Leongs might have provided safety and employment once he had arrived in the city, but Jianyu had grown increasingly discontented with his role as Lee’s most powerful weapon. Fleecing small family businesses was not the sort of job that had allowed him to sleep at night. At least with Dolph, Jianyu had felt like something more than a common criminal. He had felt as though he could make some small difference for Mageus in this terrible city and, hopefully, for his own people as well.
But the Bella Strega was no longer his home, and Dolph Saunders was no longer around to provide him protection. Now, Jianyu’s only concern was for Cela’s safety—and to keep Nibsy Lorcan from gaining any more power before Esta and Darrigan returned with the Book. He could no longer sit by and wait, willingly allowing the players in the city’s game to continue without him. It was time to draw his own alliance.
With the threads of light pulled open around him, it had been easy enough to slip unseen down the busy thoroughfare that was Mott Street, the heart of Chinese life in the city. There, Jianyu was immediately surrounded by the sights and smells of his first days in New York. A wave of nostalgia swept through him, and he felt almost as though he were coming home. But with the amount of real estate Lee himself owned on the street, it was perhaps the most dangerous place he could be.
Jianyu passed 14 Mott Street, the headquarters of the tong, where Lee ruled with an iron fist. Next door, at 16 Mott Street, was the Chung Hwa Gong Shaw, or Chinatown’s unofficial City Hall. There, Lee’s influence was perhaps less violent but no less subtle. Lee had established himself as the leading Chinese figure in the city years before, when he aligned himself with Tammany and the police. Since then, he had acted as their deputy sheriff. It was only recently that Mock Duck and his Hip Sings had threatened that power.
Finally Jianyu reached 20 Mott Street, where Lee lived in an enormous three-story home. Its tall windows flashed in the morning sun, while balconies of fanciful wrought iron clung to its brick facade. There was not another family in the Chinese quarter that could afford three floors of luxury, and only a few of those who depended upon Lee for protection and support had ever been inside. Far fewer of the ordinary working poor could ever hope to amass even a fraction of Lee’s prosperity.
In front of the building, a trio of highbinders stood guard in plain sight. In the past weeks, the Hip Sing Tong had grown bolder with its attacks on Lee and his territory. It was no doubt the result of the packet of information Nibsy Lorcan had given Mock Duck weeks before as payment for Jianyu’s capture.
The rest of the city often dismissed Chinese men with their long queues and decidedly non-Western dress, viewing them as effeminate. As not truly masculine or virile. Few newspapers paid attention to the squabbling between the tongs, and even fewer citizens understood that these young men were every bit as deadly and dangerous as the Italian Mafia or Black Hand.
Jianyu knew better. The trio of Guards waited, sharp eyed and alert, ready to protect their employer from any danger. Well armed with knives and guns, they would shoot to kill any who might threaten their territory.
With his affinity strong and sure, Jianyu slipped easily past the highbinders. He waited a little longer until a peddler’s cart clattered by, and then, using the noise to disguise the opening of the door, he let himself into Lee’s mansion.
Inside, very little had changed since the last time Jianyu had been there. J. P. Morgan himself would have felt at home in the opulent space, with its plush carpets and gleaming furniture. There was even a grand piano holding court in one corner. The style of the large porcelain vases and colorful Chinese paintings gracing the walls were the one difference between the splendor of Morgan’s mansion and the luxury of Lee’s. But each piece of Lee’s collection was particularly astounding in their beauty and rarity. Even a Westerner would easily be able to appreciate their value. Every detail of the home sent a message: Here was prestige. Here was power.
Perhaps once Jianyu had been swayed by the gleaming luxury of Lee’s house—the promise that such prosperity could one day be his as well. Now he understood the truth. Lee had built his power and collected his riches in the same way Morgan and the other men of the Order did—on the backs of those who had no power to stand against them. On the backs of peasants who had no other choice.
Jianyu found Lee exactly where he expected him to be at this time of day, alone in his chambers. It was a simple thing to slip in undetected, but once he closed the door behind him, Lee knew he was no longer alone.
“I wondered when you would come back to me.” The older man spoke in the Cantonese they shared. Turning in the direction of the door, Lee was almost uncanny in his ability to find the exact spot where Jianyu waited. But then, he had always been able to sense when Jianyu was near, even when he was wrapped in the light. “That is, I assume you are returning. Otherwise, you should have killed me already.”
The old man looked the same. His full goatee was white with age, though the hair he had pulled back into a queue was still dark. Even now, after so many years of success and power in this new land, Lee still wore his hair long, in deference to a dynasty that currently held little power over his life. But the queue also meant that he could return to his place in Chinese society. It meant a way out should Lee ever desire one—an escape no longer available to Jianyu.
Under the cover of his magic, Jianyu lifted his hand to his own shorn hair, remembering the night a group of men had surrounded him in the Bowery, beat him, and cut his queue. But that terrible memory brought up another—the night Cela had trimmed the ragged ends of his hair, shaping them into a Western style. Her fingers soft but sure against his scalp.
