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

the guy’s fingers. Even after Victor’s father sliced off the guy’s freaking nose. Even then, I tried to believe Victor wasn’t part of it.

Phantom—well, it became obvious that he was all in when he sliced off the poor guy’s fingers. Han, too.

But maybe Victor’s father was forcing him to watch all of this. There was no way the guy who’d taken such gentle care of me during our first time was as stone cold as them.

Nope.

Victor was the same. Maybe even worse.

He looked down at the grossly disfigured man thrashing about on the ground and, without any hesitation whatsoever, lit him up. The gun must’ve had a silencer on it. I didn’t hear any sound. But the guy’s body danced under the impact of all the bullets Victor shot into him.

Eventually, Victor’s finger stopped pumping, and the guy’s body finally went still.

Victor had killed him. Just killed him.

Without batting an eye. Then turned around to receive his applause.

That was when reality set in…when I fully processed what I was seeing.

Unfortunately, that was also when Phantom spotted me, peeking out from behind the garage’s stone outer wall.

I tried to run. But there was a reason they made us change out of our school uniform shoes into sneakers for P.E. My Mary Jane’s were shit for running. Plus, I had all the stuff I had packed hastily, weighing me down.

Phantom caught me. Easily.

And a few moments later, I was being dragged in front of Victor, and the man I’d presumed was his father.

Okay, he was definitely his father. He was much older and plain in comparison to Victor—he looked a lot like Phantom. But he had that Chinese Scarface married a supermodel air about him, and there was just enough of Victor’s features in his face for me to recognize him as kin. Including the same cold stare as his son.

There were also a bunch of dudes hanging out in the background that I hadn’t seen before. They stood gathered in the shadows of the garage, like rats watching a show.

“Hi… I said, my voice small and weak.

Victor stared back at me. We’d grown so close over the past months. I thought I’d learned to interpret all of his looks: grumpy, happy, and neutral.

But now, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His face was an icy blank canvas.

Instead of signing hello, he turned his back on me to have a conversation with his father. I couldn’t see what Victor was signing. And his father only spoke in Cantonese.

It was excruciating, having to stand by and listen to this. To think I’d spent all this time learning CSL but hadn’t bothered to study Victor’s native language. I had regrets.

Pictures of me are not a good idea. The memory of what Victor had said after destroying Byron’s camera shivered down my back. If a picture warranted that reaction, what would witnessing him stone-cold kill somebody make him do?

I swallowed hard. Then again, maybe it was better that I didn’t know what they were saying. As the conversation dragged on, I became pretty sure it probably amounted to whether they should hurt me, kill me, or both.

Thinking back to the gruesome but strangely ceremonial death I’d watched go down, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were both.

Panic made me dare to speak up again, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to spy or anything. Please, I won’t say anything, I promise! Just let me go.”

Victor and his father’s heads snapped toward me as if they were just now realizing I was still there.

An ugly frown came over his father’s face, and then he made a dismissive motion with his hand.

I guess that must have been Chinese mafia sign language for “take her away.” Phantom yanked me out of there like I was trash he had been told to take to the garbage.

18

VICTOR

“So will you kill her, or should I?” his father asked after Phantom dragged Dawn away, and Han escorted the rest of the Red Diamond out of the garage.

Raymond regarded Victor with a grim, disappointed stare.

“I won't let her say anything,” Victor assured him, instead of answering his question. “She won't say anything.”

“How do you know that? She is the daughter of a Nakamura guard. He serves the same man who could be upset with us because of what you did to his grandson.”

Victor inwardly grimaced. His father hadn't mentioned the incident during their text exchange about him taking over for the Boston snakehead. And when Raymond had met him downstairs, the Nakamura boy hadn’t come up. Victor had hoped Raymond had forgotten about it, considering that encounter took place months ago. But obviously not.

“The Macau Boy” had grown up with gambling gangsters, and he always held cards in reserve to play at the right moment.

“Did the Nakamura-gumi contact you?” Victor asked. “Have any of our deals fallen through because of what I did?”

Something in his father's jaw ticked, letting Victor know that the answer to that question was no.

“The Nakamura grandson was too scared to run to his grandfather,” Victor assured him.

His father squinted. “How do you know that?”

“I know,” Victor insisted. “Trust me.”

Raymond regarded Victor for a long time. Then he said, “You want me to trust you. But this is not how a snakehead behaves. How can I put you in charge of Boston?”

His father didn’t understand. Victor would do whatever it took to not only get but also keep that assignment. Literally kill to stay close to Dawn. However, telling Raymond that would not alleviate any of his father’s worries. It would only make them worse.

“Baba, I can do it. I assure you,” Victor answered. Then he proposed another solution: “But if you think that's the case, you can give me more time before I officially join Red Diamond. I have received an invite to Tufts University. Let me go there. Then I’ll come back to Red Diamond and serve in any capacity you want.”

Raymond, who had not spent nearly as much time researching East Coast colleges in