“I beg you.” Juliette dropped to her knees. “Call an end to the White Terror, demand the Nationalists cease, demand the White Flowers be held separate from the Communists. We have no right to eradicate a populace. It is not fair—”
“What do you know about fair?”
Juliette lost her balance, folding sideways and sprawling upon her carpet. She could count on one hand the number of times her father had raised his voice at her. He had shouted so loudly just then that it hardly seemed real. She was half convinced the sound had come from elsewhere. Even Lady Cai was blinking rapidly, her hand pressed to the neck of her qipao.
Juliette recovered faster than her mother did. “Everything you taught me,” she said. She pulled herself upright, the loose fabric of her dress gathering around her knees. “Everything about our unity, about our pride—”
“I will not hear it.”
Juliette straightened to her full height. “If you won’t do anything, I will.”
Lord Cai looked to her again. It was either the electricity flickering at that very moment or a light in her father’s eyes dimming. His expression turned blank, as it did when he encountered an enemy, as it did when he was readying to torture for information.
Her father, however, did not resort to violence. He only put his hands behind his back and let his volume sink into a steady quiet once more.
“You will not,” he said. “Give up this malarkey and remain heir to the Scarlet Gang—remain heir to an empire that will soon be backing the country’s rulers—or leave us now and live in exile.”
Lady Cai swiveled toward him. Juliette’s fists grew tighter and tighter, letting out all her dread so that it did not show in her face.
“Are you mad?” Lady Cai hissed to her husband. “Do not give such a choice—”
“Ask her. Ask Juliette what she did to Tyler.”
Utter silence descended on the room. For a second, Juliette was experiencing that weightlessness right before free fall, her breath cold in her throat and her stomach upended. Then the significance of her father’s words registered like a shock of ice water, and she was rooted once more in the thick threads of her carpeting. Suddenly his refusal to bring her in on Scarlet planning made sense. Shutting her out of the Nationalist meetings made sense. How long had her father known? How long had he known she was a traitor and kept her here anyway, let her pretend that everything was normal?
“I killed him.”
Lady Cai reared back, her lips parting in shock.
“I shot him and his men,” Juliette went on. “I live with his blood on my hands. I made the choice to put Roma’s life over his.”
Juliette watched her mother, the line of her brow furrowed and carved from stone. Juliette watched her father, his gaze as blank as ever.
“I suspected, when they said he was found with only one bullet wound,” Lord Cai said. “I suspected, when all of his men went down with no struggle, which seemed odd given the workers of the uprising were ruthless in their artillery spray. It was only after I received reports about Tyler challenging Roma Montagov to a duel that my suspicions seemed to have motive.”
Juliette slumped against the frame of her bed, her whole body collapsing against the footboard slat. She had nothing to say. No defense to give, because she was guilty to the very core.
“Oh, Juliette,” Lady Cai said softly.
It was hard to tell whether her mother was admonishing her or pitying her. Pity that came not out of sympathy, but out of abhorrence that she could be so thoughtless.
“I had no intention of punishing her. No intention of asking for an explanation when this was the daughter I raised.” Lord Cai brushed at his long sleeves, smoothing out the wrinkles in the fabric. “I wished to observe her. To see whether I could right her course, wherever she had strayed. Juliette is my heir, my blood. I wished to protect her above all else, even against Tyler, even against the Scarlets below us.”
Her father walked close then, and when Juliette continued staring at her feet, he grasped her jaw, bringing her gaze up firmly.
“But we punish traitors,” he finished. His fingers were like steel. “And if Juliette wishes to defect to the White Flowers’ cause, then she may leave and die along with them.”
Lord Cai let go. His hands dropped to his sides, and without another word, he swept out of her bedroom. The door closed behind him with a subdued click that seemed incongruous with the promise he had made. He would not break it. Her father had never broken a promise in his life.