His hand shot out, grabbing her elbow and pulling her in close. He’d eaten. There was a sliver of green clinging to one tooth, the odour of something decaying on his breath. “Why the hurry?” His nails were digging into her skin. “Did Papa tell you about his debts? His passion for cards? Did he tell you how much he owes me?”

“How much?”

“Nine hundred.”

“You’re joking.”

His eyes gleamed with avarice, like two black buttons. “You think this is funny? Think I want to wait all day for Teo’s little whore to show her face? Ha. Ha. Ha.” His spittle arced across her cheek like the first brush of monsoonal rain.

“I don’t have that much.”

He let her go at last. “Not yet. I heard you took a job. Tanjong Katong? House on the sea. Expensive, lah.”

She massaged her elbow with her other hand. She’d only accepted the job the day before and had told no one, save her lodging sisters. Clearly a mistake. “I can’t get that much. Not right away. I’ll have to pay by instalments—”

“Big house, big opportunity. No money? All right. Lai Hock understands. You find another way. Maybe your mem has rings, diamonds, silverware.” He grinned, revealing a missing front tooth. “First edition books.”

A rickshaw rattled past, then abruptly stopped, disgorging its passengers—two men in sarongs. Gean Choo lowered her voice to a hiss. “I can’t rob my employer! I’ll hang!”

“Then don’t get caught. Maybe there’s an accident. Maybe the whole house goes up in a fire—oh, so sad,” he said, vowels dripping with false sorrow.

Her teeth ached from clenching her jaw.

Lai Hock reached out and took her left hand before she could protest. “You won’t scream, will you?” he asked as a smile curled on his face like a cat in a sunbeam. With his other hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife, unfolding it with a flick of his thumb. He turned her palm face up. There was something glacial about his eyes.

She should’ve screamed. Should’ve hit him, should’ve run, should’ve done something.

But she couldn’t move. She could scarcely even breathe. She did nothing, said nothing, thought nothing… for she was nothing.

Lai Hock pressed the tip of the knife against her skin. It didn’t hurt, not at first. There was a sharp sting, no worse than a bee. He drew three lines to make a shape like an inverted “U,” two strokes inside and a final line to seal the box. The cuts were shallow but they bled all the same, red beading up from her skin like a lotus emerging from a swamp, blood pooling in the hollow of her palm.