Victor: Her Ruthless Crush by Theodora Taylor (beach read book TXT) 📕

got there just in time to see Byron take a punch to the gut. He was still wearing his basketball clothes. And two boys with wet hair, fully dressed in their school uniforms, were holding him prone to the locker.

One was Tim, an American who used to be Byron's friend up until this term. And the other was a Japanese guy who never bothered to talk to me whenever Byron dragged me along for one of the basketball team’s hangouts. I think his name was Yoshi. I was more surprised to see them holding my brother down than I was to see the guy who had just hit Byron.

That would be Jake Nakamura. The grandson of my father's boss.

He was saying something in Japanese to Byron, who was doubled over in pain. Words I didn't understand. But the anime term for extreme facial expressions, agego, flashed through my mind. He appeared that angry.

After Jake finished his tirade, he and Yoshi traded places. Yoshi had never liked Byron. Probably because before my brother joined the team, he was the only one who could hit three-pointers.

He was not nearly as considerate as Jake, who hit Byron below the neck. Yoshi drew his arm back, curling his hand into an open fist to hit my brother again. This time in the face.

Meanwhile, Jake had the nerve to say, "Yes, hurt him. Give him what he deserves."

I knew…

I knew that Jake’s grandfather was the only reason we were allowed to go to this school. Our tuition for Tokyo Progressive had been a signing gift to my father. A gift he could take back whenever he wanted. Also, I’d promised my brother I'd stay out of this Jake mess at the beginning of the term.

But something inside me snapped at the sight of them holding Byron down while Yoshi prepared to hit him.

“Let him go! Get away from my brother!” I screamed, throwing down my backpack and rushing at them blindly.

I couldn't say that I had a plan for how I, a five-foot-three girl, would take on a bunch of basketball players. I'm not tough like so many of the other girls I went to school with back in Jersey. I'd never gotten in a fight in my life, and I wasn't even sure how to throw a punch.

But as it turned out, all I had to do to keep Byron from getting hit again was show up.

Yoshi’s fist plowed into my face and sent me flying into the lockers.

And did the humiliation stop there? Nope. I bounced off the metal wall behind me. Then, of course, I had to trip over the low bench welded into the floor between the rows of lockers. I went flying again, this time face forward as I tumbled over the wood and steel structure before landing in an unceremonious pile on the concrete floor.

Ow.

“What are you doing here?” Yoshi demanded in his still not very good English despite the years he and Byron had been supposed friends. “No girls allowed in boys’ locker room!”

I groaned and turned over. Jake and his two friends were standing over me, their expressions aghast. Like me being in the boys’ locker room was way more outrageous than their completely unfair fight with my brother.

“What am I doing? What are you doing?” I demanded back.

Pain from my Melissa McCarthy in blackface routine stabbed at it least five points on my body as I sat up. But I struggled to my feet, determined to look strong, even if half my face felt like there was something hot and pulsing inside of it.

“What do you think your coach would say if he found out you were in here wailing on my brother?” I asked once I was back to standing.

The American looked scared, but Yoshi and Jake just exchanged smirks.

“Our coach is in his office now, pretending he does not hear,” Jake answered in the only faintly accented English he’d been so proud to show off when he first met my brother and me. “He will not do anything. Just like you will not say anything to anyone about what happened here today.”

“You think I’m going to let you keep on hurting him like this?” I widen what I can only hope is both eyes at Jake. My left one is throbbing so bad; I can't be sure it's not on its way to swelling shut.

“Are you threatening me?” Jake took a step forward, his fists balled at his sides.

“Dawn, just shut up. Please!”

Jake and I looked toward the lockers where Byron was standing, one hand holding his stomach. He was bent over at the waist now that no one was forcing him to stand up straight to take another hit.

But he lifted his head to plead with Jake. “Don't hurt her. It's not her fault. This is all on me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

My brother was apologizing? Saying it was all on him? I was one of the three people who knew what really happened last term. And what Byron was saying was total BS.

But Jake glared at my brother like he couldn’t agree more with his admission of guilt.

“You better make sure she keeps her mouth shut,” he said to Byron. Then he looked back at me and shook his head like I was a roach who had found its way into the boys’ locker room. “Tell your father hello for me, won't you, Dawn-senpai. I appreciate how hard he works for our family. But you should know, our guards rarely quit. They are almost always disposed of when we are done with them.”

Usually, I loved the honorifics Japanese students use, even with each other. But my stomach filled with bile as Jake called me by an upperclassman honorific right before he low-key threatened my father.

And I felt like throwing up when Jake and his friends walked past me, all three smirking because they were so clearly going to get away with beating up my brother.

I didn't want to give them any more