“Do you want things to escalate? Protesters in the street perhaps?”

He crouched down, closer to her. She could feel the heat coming off his body now.

Her heart pounded in her chest.

“Where do you think that would lead?” His eyes searched hers. They were cold eyes. Dark eyes. The eyes of a man who could ruin her without remorse.

“Soldiers? Gunshots? Tanks?” His eyes bored into hers, not letting her go. “Students, dead in the street? Or worse? More Shanghai events? Tens of them?”

She swallowed, said nothing. She couldn’t breathe. Didn’t trust her words not to betray her.

“Is that what you want, Zhi Li?” Bo Jintao asked. “No?”

Bo Jintao stood back up to his full height, his hands straightening his suit.

“Your nation educated you,” he told her, looking down. “Your nation marketed you to the people. Your nation made you. Now you owe your nation a certain degree of service and respect.” He smiled faintly at her. “And if that’s too difficult to accept, then remember that the state owns your face. It owns your voice. We can make a billion copies of you. Think on that the next time you try to undermine your country.” He shook his head. “Because that would be the last time.”

Then Bo Jintao and his aide and his guards walked away, leaving her with Lu Song and a very on-edge Dai and Qi.

Later, in the limousine, as it drove them to the airport and her private jet and their homes in Shanghai, Zhi Li scanned the video feeds, again and again.

The fan tubes had dozens of videos of their interview. All were missing that question. Fans slyly commented that Zhi Li had said something very clever. Others complained that their phones had malfunctioned at that very moment. None dared mention the word coup. None dared speculate that censor codes had deleted those seconds of video from their phones, though everyone must know it was so.

Even as she watched, posts mentioning camera malfunctions began to disappear before her eyes.

Her hands clenched into fists.

She turned to the sanctioned channels next. And they had the full interview. All of it. Jin Lien asked her, “What would you think of acting opposite Lu Song again?”

And on every channel it was the same. Zhi Li looked over at her lover, looked back at the cameras, and smiled broadly. “If the studio could land Lu Song for the male lead,” her smile broadened even wider. “That would be perfect. Just perfect.”

Zhi Li shook in frustration and rage, as a mute, trembling Lu Song held her.

She woke in Shanghai, in Lu Song’s penthouse suite in the Pudong, the closer of their homes to Shanghai’s airports, to messages on her phone, from producers, directors, collaborators.

Budget cuts.

Production delays.

New directions for projects.