“You were successful?” Lord Cai asked, still speaking to Juliette even as he took the folder from Kathleen.
“You’d better frame that contract,” Juliette replied. “Kathleen almost got in a fistfight for it.”
Kathleen nudged a subtle elbow into Juliette’s side, a warning in her expression. By normal circumstances, Kathleen couldn’t look stern even if she tried, but the room’s low light helped. The miniature chandelier dangling from the ceiling was dialed to the dimmest setting, casting long shadows up against the walls. The curtains behind Lord Cai’s desk were undrawn, blowing faintly because the window was open the smallest crack. Juliette knew her father’s old tricks. In the dead of winter, as it was now, the open window kept the office chilly, kept every visitor on their toes when they took off their coat to be polite and ended up shivering.
Juliette and Kathleen kept their coats on.
“A fistfight?” Lord Cai echoed. “Lang Selin, that’s not like you.”
“There was no fistfight, Gūfū,” Kathleen said quickly, shooting another sharp glance at Juliette, who only grinned in response. “Merely a scuffle between some people outside the Grand Theatre. I managed to extricate the merchant, and he was thankful enough that he was willing to sit down at the hotel next door for a cup of tea.”
Lord Cai nodded. While he scanned the handwritten terms, he made a few noises of approval here and there, which from a man of silence meant the business deal had lifted his mood.
“I didn’t know the specifics on what we wanted him for,” Kathleen hurried to supply when Lord Cai closed the folder. “So the language is rather vague.”
“Oh, no bother,” Lord Cai replied. “The Kuomintang are after his weaponry. I do not know the specifics either.”
Juliette blinked. “We’re entering a business partnership where we don’t even know what we’re dealing?”
By all means, it was not any big matter. The Scarlet Gang was used to trading in human labor and drugs. One more illicit item only added an inch to what was already an infinitely long scroll, but to trust the Nationalists so wholeheartedly . . .
“And on that matter,” Juliette said suddenly, before her father could answer her question, “Bàba, there was an assassin after the merchant.”
Lord Cai did not react for a long moment, which meant he had already heard. Of course he had. Juliette may have had to wait hours before she could see her own father, slotted at the bottom of a waiting list filled with Nationalists and foreigners and businessmen, but messengers could come and go at a whim, slinking into the office and whispering a quick report into Lord Cai’s ear.
“Yes,” he finally said. “It was likely a White Flower.”
“No.”
Lord Cai frowned, his gaze darting up. Juliette had jumped in with her disagreement rather quickly and empathetically.
“There was . . . a White Flower present who was also trying to make an acquaintance with the merchant,” Juliette explained. Her eyes darted to the window unwittingly, eyeing the golden lamps humming in the gardens below. Their light made the rosebushes glow with warmth, a far cry from the real biting temperature at this time of night. “Roma Montagov.”
Her eyes flicked back, swallowing hard. If her father had been paying attention, the speed at which she sought his reaction would have given away her guilt immediately, but her father was gazing off into space.
Juliette let out her exhale slowly.
“A curious matter on why the White Flower heir was after the merchant too,” Lord Cai muttered, half to himself. He waved his hand then. “Nevertheless, we need not worry about an amateur assassin. Likely a Communist, or any faction opposing the Nationalist Army. We’ll have Scarlet men protect the merchant from now onward. No one would dare another attempt.”
He sounded certain. Still, Juliette chewed her lip, not so convinced. A few months ago, perhaps no one would dare upset the Scarlets. But today?
“Has there been another letter?”
Lord Cai sighed, lacing his fingers together. He said, “Selin, you must be tired.”
“It is my bedtime, yes,” Kathleen replied easily, taking the cue to leave. She was out in seconds, the office door closing behind her before Juliette could say good night. Her father must know that she would merely fill Kathleen in afterward about what was going on. She supposed it made him feel better to think the rest of the family wasn’t getting involved in this, that the fewer people knew, the less likely it was to explode into a troublesome matter.