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

they were all gathered in the dark and dank garage underneath his apartment building, expressly because Victor had requested this chance to prove himself.

To his father, it must have looked like Victor wasn’t taking this opportunity seriously. Also, his son was embarrassing him in front of their Tokyo-based crew.

After giving his father a head bow of apology, Victor pocketed his phone and focused on waiting for their guest’s arrival.

His father came to stand directly behind Victor’s shoulder. It was a position that had become familiar to Victor over the years, for this was how they often had conversations in public. Close enough for Victor to hear every word Raymond said, even if he whispered. And in this position, Raymond could see whatever Victor signed back, as well as blocking the sight of his son’s signing from others in the vicinity.

“If this is about that girl…” his father started, his voice low and dangerous.

Fortunately, Victor was saved from hearing the rest of that threat by the arrival of a van pulling into the garage and coming to a stop directly in front of them. All of the vehicle’s windows were tinted. But Victor knew it was Phantom behind the wheel, driving the white conversion van with confidence, even though he learned to drive on the opposite side of the street in America.

Victor hadn't seen him in a while. Back in April, his father had commanded Phantom to join him in Hong Kong. No reason had been given, and Victor hadn't heard from his cousin since then.

But Victor sussed out what had happened between then and now as soon as Phantom opened the front door.

His cousin looked much older even though it had only been a few weeks since Victor saw him last. But not in a bad way.

His black hair was slicked back, and he wore a white suit, the same as Victor and his father. However, it wasn’t one of those off-the-rack numbers he brought with him from America. He must've paid a visit to their family’s favorite tailor while he was in Hong Kong. The suit fit him like a custom job, encasing his bulky muscles without straining, even as he climbed out of the van. He now appeared the picture of a somewhat elegant power player.

But the most significant change in Phantom’s status peeked out from the skin above his shirt’s open collar. A golden snake with two red diamond eyes curled around his neck.

It might have just looked like a particularly aggressive tattoo to someone outside of their world. But anyone who knew how to read the symbol would've realized upon seeing him that Phantom was now a snakehead for the Red Diamond.

“You ready?” Phantom asked, looking at Victor.

Yes… Victor was ready. This was why his father had flown over especially. And this was the only way he could be with Dawn for longer than one short semester. Dawn who had brought more warmth and love into his life in a few short months than anyone else had in years.

Victor stepped forward with a solemn nod.

And Phantom handed him a gun, sleek and black, with a silencer attached to the muzzle.

The anime, Attack on Titan wouldn't come out for many years after his time in Japan. But watching it later, Victor noticed one thing they got right.

Even the most grizzled soldiers morphed into crying babies when faced with their ultimate demise. Everyone was brave until it was time to die. This human idiosyncrasy would no longer surprise Victor by the time the anime became an international sensation.

But that night, in the dark alley beside his building, he was stunned by the Boston snakehead. The small, wiry man sniveled and begged while Phantom wrestled him out of the back of the van with laughable ease.

Had he no honor? Surely, when he began skimming from the Red Diamond pot, he knew the price he would have to pay if caught. Had he done nothing to prepare himself for that…well, others might have called it an eventuality. But anyone who truly knew Raymond would have called it an inevitability. Perhaps the Boston snakehead was one of those people who were incapable of thinking that far ahead.

Future banking. It was a concept that his father lived by. And he’d told his son that future banking was the ultimate difference between a snakehead and a dragonhead.

This man was no future dragonhead. Actually, this man had no future left to bank at all.

This explained why Phantom had not been in communication over the last couple of weeks. He must have been busy fetching the snakehead from America. And now here he was, shoving the man to his knees in front of Victor.

He smelled foul. Phantom wasn't known for his gentle touch. Victor had no doubt his cousin hadn't bothered to give the man bathroom breaks on the long plane ride from Massachusetts. The soon-to-be-former Boston snakehead reeked of rank body odor, piss, and shit.

“Please! Please!” the man begged in ABC-accented Cantonese. “I’m sorry! I’ll do anything. Just please don’t—”

Phantom slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth. The Red Diamond owned this building. Real estate was one of Raymond’s favorite ways to wash money. And the staff knew better than to let any of the legitimate residents into the garage when they were out here.

But the space was open air. They didn’t want his pleas to carry too far. Or his screams after the betrayer ceremony begun.

Still, the man continued to cry and beg on the other side of the duct tape.

Victor had half an instinct to put the Boston snakehead out of his misery right then and there. He'd obviously had plenty of time to suffer on the journey here.

But there was a protocol for these things. Rules they had to follow.

Victor and Phantom stood by solemnly as his father offered up a prayer to Emperor Guan, a god both the triad and the police were known to worship back in Hong Kong. None of them were particularly religious,