by Jade Lee
She wasted no time. It only took her a moment to find the other necessary implements in the cabinet behind the desk. Then she was heating the opium and filling the needle with practiced movements. Behind her, Zhi-Gang had stepped closer, but not close enough to strike—she still stood somewhat between him and Samuel. There simply wasn’t a lot of room behind the desk.
“I need the list, father,” she muttered as if fully entranced with what she was doing. “The list of all your suppliers of girls. Not just the brothels. I might as well run all your shipments.”
Samuel glanced at her. She barely noticed, so careful was she being with the flame as she heated the opium. But she realized he was checking the steadiness of her hands. If she trembled at all, he would believe she was untrustworthy, still an addict.
But she had been weeks off of the drug now, thanks to Zhi-Gang. Her hands were rock steady. She glanced at Samuel. “Did you want the first taste?”
It was a calculated choice. No addict would offer that; they would say there was enough for both of them, then would take that first taste. She was proving she was not the fool he’d believed. In truth, the words were unnervingly difficult to say, but she forced them out with a smile.
Samuel shook his head, seemingly pleased. “Give it to your husband first.”
Zhi-Gang declined.
“More for me,” Anna said—and at that point her hand did tremble, for the hunger hit hard. Would it be so bad to just take a little? For show? It might even help their cause.
She deftly maneuvered the hypodermic needle, drawing up the potent liquid. Pure opium injected directly into the veins gave joy like no other. Then she glanced at Samuel, her words off-hand: “I need all of Halfy’s records, father. I have to go over them to understand who brings girls for how much opium.”
“Of course, of course,” Samuel said with a casual wave. “All in good time.”
Anna set the bag of opium back on the table. She tossed aside the stick that had heated the spoon that melted the powder. She set everything down except for the needle, which she kept gripped and aimed for her arm.
“Have I ever done something you didn’t expect, Samuel? Ever?”
He blinked, surprised. A slow smile slid over his features. “You have been an excellent daughter.”
“I assume that means no. I have always done as you expected, always performed up to expectations. Even beyond, I think.”
His smile grew. “Of course. I was nervous when you ran off, but… you have done very well for yourself.”
“For you,” she corrected.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Then let me do this now. Let me show you how valuable I can be. You can supervise everything I do, but let me show you how profitable running girls can be. Tell me where Halfy’s records are.”
Samuel glanced at Zhi-Gang, then back to her. “You searched but couldn’t find them?”
She nodded.
“That’s because I have them. Here.” He pointed to a leather satchel beneath his feet. “Halfy couldn’t write worth a damn. Kept it all in that idiot brain of his.”
Anna nodded. “So you had to keep his records. I will be a much better manager.”
Samuel smiled. “Yes,” he said as he bent down. Anna watched him haul the satchel up and flip open the cover. Inside were the thick books she remembered from a day long ago. She remembered Samuel writing her name in that book, and how proud she had been at the time. These indeed were the records Zhi-Gang needed. The books held enough information to end a large chunk of illicit trade—drugs, child prostitutes. Which meant it was finally time to end Samuel’s hold on her for good.
It took an act of will. In the end, killing the man—even an evil man—was still damn hard. But she remembered all the lies he had told her, the families his opium had destroyed, and the girls he had bought and sold. Most of all, she knew that he wouldn’t stop unless someone ended his reign. Someone like her. Right now.
While Samuel was bent over, she slammed the hypodermic down, straight into his neck. He reared up in shock, but not before she squeezed down, shooting a massive dose of pure opium into his body.
It was enough to kill him three times over. It certainly would be if it had been shot into his veins. But she hadn’t hit his vein. While he would die, it would not be as fast.
The room erupted into chaos. Samuel roared, his massive hand going to his neck to pull out the needle. His movements were supposed to be slowing, his fingers fumbling from the drug. They weren’t. His arms were very strong as he knocked her backward against the wall with one hand and dragged out the needle with the other.
“Kill them!” he bellowed.
The guards hadn’t needed the order. They were already readying their weapons. But Zhi-Gang didn’t given them the chance. As soon as she struck Samuel with the needle, he had dived for the bag of opium and whipped it at the face of the guard who held the pistol. The bag exploded, powder erupting into the air around him, fouling his grip and his vision.
But that didn’t stop the other man, the one with Zhi-Gang’s knives. He attacked with the speed of a monkey. He barreled forward without subtlety, going for Zhi-Gang, raising the blades with a roar of fury. Zhi-Gang took a step backward, reaching for Anna as Samuel straightened, his eyes blazing with fury.
“I’ll handle Samuel!” she cried. Her voice rang out loud and strong, despite the fact that she felt slightly dazed from striking her head on the wall, and she couldn’t understand why Samuel hadn’t fallen to the ground dead.
Zhi-Gang meant to argue. She could tell by his expression, but the guard with the blades was swinging wildly across the wood expanse of the desk, and so he backed up with her nearly to the wall. The only one truly in danger from the blades was Samuel, who was heading for Anna, barely keeping himself out of range of the blades.
Samuel was breathing hard and his movements were erratic. “You whore!” he spat. “Bitch whore!”
He raised his massive fists, probably to strike her. But Anna had learned a few fighting tricks—some of them from Samuel himself. She ducked and slammed her shoulder into his chest. He gasped, and she felt the heavy impacts of his fists on her back. The first was a glancing blow that numbed her shoulder. The other landed like a hammer on her lower back. She cried out and dropped to her knees.
She barely had the strength to draw breath, much less tense for the coming rain of blows. But it didn’t matter, she told herself; all she was doing was buying time for the opium to take effect.
The shower of blows never arrived. Out of the corner of her eye, Anna saw Zhi-Gang step over her and slam his fists into Samuel. She heard her adopted father grunt in surprise and watched as his feet stumbled over his satchel that lay open and abandoned on the floor. She looked up in time to see Zhi-Gang throw her adopted father backward over the desk and into the man swinging the deer-horn knives.
With a gasp of surprise, the guard tried to recover. Samuel, too, stretched forward to grab at Zhi-Gang. Neither succeeded. A blade sliced across Samuel’s shoulder and bit into his neck. Blood spurted everywhere and both the guard and Anna’s father screamed.
Anna straightened. She needed to see what she had wrought. She would not spare herself the consequences of her actions. But before she could rise, Zhi-Gang slammed his open hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down. A second later, a pistol shot sounded. The other man.
Zhi-Gang leaped across the desk, slamming his fist into the face of the horrified guard with the knife embedded in Samuel’s neck. Anna heard two, maybe three blows land—flesh hitting flesh, a grunt of pain and then a telltale gurgle. She prayed it was the man with the knives who was dead. It couldn’t be Zhi-Gang…
She lifted her head far enough to see over the desk just as another pistol shot deafened her, and dropped back down with a squeak of terror. But not before she had seen Zhi-Gang, one of his knives back in his hand, leaping for the guard with the pistol.
Anna cringed and half crouched, half crawled around the desk.
She had to help if she could. She had created this situation; she couldn’t allow Zhi-Gang to face it alone.
But she was too late. She rounded the corner in time to see that both Samuel and the first guard were dead. And as she looked up, the one with the pistol was slowly sinking to the floor, a deer-horn knife sticking out of his chest.
She gaped. She was no stranger to blood or death, but it still took a moment for her to absorb the sight. Her gaze went to Zhi-Gang. He was spinning around, his black queue coiling around him as he moved. His eyes were fierce, his grip strong as he pulled his blade out of the last guard and scanned the room.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“Are you all right?” he said at the same time.
Both answers came equally fast.
“Fine.”
“No injury.”
Then there was a long moment of silence as both of them stared at each other, at the room, and processed the knowledge of what they had done.
“It’s finished,” Anna said quietly. “I’m free.”
“I would have done it,” he answered, equally softly. “You didn’t need to—”
“I did. You have enough of a burden. This was mine.” She straightened to her full height. “I am not running anymore.”
He paused then nodded, his eyes grave as he looked at her, looked at the dead men around them and then, as if a cord holding him back abruptly snapped, he closed the space between them. She was enfolded in his arms before she had a chance to draw breath. His arms surrounded her, she buried her face in his chest, and then she wrapped her arms around him, gripping him with all her strength.
“You have his records,” she murmured into his chest. “You can trace all the girls coming into his brothels—not just from Jiangsu, but all over. You can stop it now. You can—”
He stopped her words with a kiss. His mouth landed on hers with a fierceness that sent a thrill of delight through her body. He was marking her with his tongue, was claiming her as his own as he thrust against her tongue, stroked her teeth, even teased the roof of her mouth. She opened herself fully to him. More; she filled herself with him, allowing his brand to sear her.
She was his. Body and soul, she gave herself to him. And in the moment when he at last pulled back, his breath coming in aching gasps, she looked into his eyes and realized the truth: she was still going to run—this time from herself. She could go all the way to England, but her life in China would always be part of her, would always break her heart.
From Anna Marie Thompson’s journal:
January 1, 1900
A new year, a new century, a new decision: I’m leaving China. The Enforcer follows me wherever I go, whatever I do. I feel him looking for me, searching. It can’t be true. He doesn’t know about me, but I still feel it. And I can’t live like this anymore.
So, I’m leaving. I’ll board a boat and escape. I don’t even care where. Maybe England. Maybe my grandparents will change their minds once they meet me. I’ll be like the Prodigal Son. They’ll hug me and throw a party. Maybe…
It doesn’t matter. I’m leaving because the Enforcer is coming. If he finds me, I’ll never escape…
I am in dread of the judgment of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China.
—William Gladstone, 1842
The cure for all ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows and the crimes of humanity, all lie in the one word “love.” It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life.
—Lydia Maria Child
Chapter Nineteen
Anna said nothing. The bodies were cleared, the walls scrubbed clean, and her hands were raw from washing. And yet, she felt right somehow. This was like the end of a disease, like moments after a surgery. The tumor had been removed, the patient was now recovering, and all would be well.
She stood in the doorway and watched Zhi-Gang work behind the desk, his glasses slipping to the end of his nose. His expression was tight, his attention fully focused on ledgers before him. And in that moment, her heart broke again as it had been breaking every moment of the last few hours.
It was time to leave, to face whatever fate handed her in England. Zhi-Gang had no need for a white wife, and she had no desire to remain in a country so rilled with sorrow. Or so she told herself.
Unwilling to yet dwell on what her future held, she stepped fully into the room, saying the first words that came to mind. “Can you read English?”
“Some,” he answered from the desk. Then he lifted his face to focus on her, his expression unreadable. “You are packed to leave.”
She glanced down at the bundle in her hands. She held very little: two dresses of serviceable cotton tied together inside a shawl. It was hardly respectable—not by British standards—but would be enough for the boat ride. And once she landed, she would find something appropriately English to wear.
“I have some money in a Shanghai bank. I will withdraw it and be on the boat by evening.”
“A good plan—if it is enough money.”
She nodded that it was: She had adequate funds to establish herself wherever she choose. “What about you?” she asked. She took another step into the room, needing to close the distance between them one last time. “You’ll be dealing with both Chinese and white men. Will you be able to keep up the fiction for long?”
He blinked. “What fiction?”
“That Samuel is alive. That you’re in charge.” She knew what he intended. He hoped to keep Samuel’s network alive long enough for him to learn of others—opium smugglers, slavers, anyone involved in the man’s unholy business.
He shook his head slowly. “Not likely.”
“But you’re going to try, aren’t you? You’re going to—”
He abruptly stiffened. “I am the Emperor’s Enforcer. I will do my duty.” His words were a vow. But it was a dark vow, one filled with frustration and pain. And yet the words and their force were integral to who he was, giving him purpose even as it exposed his heart.
At least she had lightened his load. At least she had done something good for this tortured man. If only…
“What will you do in England?” he asked. He stood with a weary sigh.
She blinked, thrown. “Well, I will find my family,” she said. “They will welcome me with open arms—throw me a party, no doubt—and I shall eat tea and crumpets until I burst.”
He nodded, his expression still blank, and stepped around the desk. “Do you like tea and crumpets?”
“Oh, yes,” she lied. She’d never had them.
“And what of our marriage?” he suddenly said, his voice low enough to send a shiver up her spine. “What will you tell them of that?”
She twisted to face him. “I don’t know. They will want me to marry, I suppose. That seems to be the way of things in England. I… uh… I shall tell them I am a widow, I suppose. That will explain my reluctance to wed again.”
“But I am not dead.” He stepped even closer. She did not shy backward, though the impulse surged through her. He was in a strange mood, wore the mask of neither Enforcer nor lover but a dark combination of both.
Yet she was trying to not run anymore—not from anyone, including Zhi-Gang. So she stiffened her legs and faced him. “You married me so you could kill me legally,” she reminded him.
He nodded. “Yes, that is what I told you.”
She lifted her chin. “It wasn’t true?”
He was towering over her now, his eyes dark, his expression enigmatic. “Certainly not. I believe I wished to bed you legally.” He shrugged. “My motivation was never truly clear—at least, not to myself.”
She looked at him, really studied his expression. She saw the darkness inside. He would carry that with him always—because he was the Enforcer, because of what was done to Little Pearl on his behalf. That stain would color him forever. And yet, she saw something else too, something brighter that brought a shimmer of light to his eyes and a quirk to his lips.
“You know
what you want now,” she said softly. It wasn’t a question. She could see the truth of it in his calm.
“I have always known. I wish to end the slave trade—especially whenever it is tied to opium.”
True enough. “But there is more.” She reached out to him, setting her palm flat against his chest. She needed to feel connected to him, wanted to know how his heart beat in his chest.
Quickly. It beat quickly.
She looked up at him. “What do you want now?”
“You have given me the tools to fight. If I stay in Shanghai, I will pretend to be Samuel. To have taken over—”
“Yes, yes,” she interrupted. “I know this.”
“It will work much better—I can maintain the fiction for longer—if… if you do it with me.” He gestured to Samuel’s books. “Some of that is in code.”
She stared at him, and this time she did take a step back—but only to prevent herself from leaping into his arms. She needed to understand exactly what he wanted. “You want me to translate Samuel’s books?”
“And trace the runners. And get me into the brothels, so I can catch the slavers.”
Her heartbeat accelerated, the mythology of England fading into the very real, very exciting possibilities of a life in Shanghai. She could indeed be of enormous help to Zhi-Gang.
“I want to,” she said, the words expelled without thought. She desperately wanted this with the same kind of hunger she had once reserved for opium.
“Then do so,” he pressed.
“I…” Her voice trailed away as she struggled with her thoughts. “Don’t you understand? I want to be done with my old life. I don’t want to run opium or girls. I don’t want to be a stranger in a terrible land.” She dared to look up at him and voice her deepest longing. “I want to be a respectable woman. To have a husband and children.”
He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he reached out and stroked her shoulders. His touch was warm and gentle, but when she would have swayed close to him, he held her apart. And with excruciating slowness, he let one hand slip down to her belly.