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

So there were several straps, including one that belted around the patient's head.

Han gave their men instructions in Cantonese to tie that one as tightly as possible.

While they did that, Victor walked over to the wall directly to the table's left. Several of his tools hung on it, including a machete, his father’s original ax from before he rose up the Red Diamond ranks, and even an actual scalpel, graded for surgery.

This was the hard part. Trying to decide how he should end his victim’s life. Of course, the Red Diamond had dozens of ritual killing styles from which to draw.

But that triad was no more. His father was dead. And that meant there was no longer anyone to mentor Victor on how to handle this particular kind of killing. Decisions, decisions….

No need to bring out the machete, he decided. The gang leader was covered in bold tattoos but fairly scrawny underneath. So there would be no muscle to cut through. Victor hovered his hand over the scalpel, but no…that blade was too tiny, even for the weakling on the table.

“Why are you doing this?” The gang leader demanded.

If the man had been scared before, his upset took on a new level as he watched Victor consider all the life-ending weapons on the wall. He seemed to be…how did the Americans term it? Oh, yes, freaking out.

“Just tell me why!” he yelled at Victor.

Why indeed?

Victor highly doubted the gang leader would've liked his answer. Who wanted to hear that their life was being sacrificed purely as a meeting gift? When one thought about it, the gang leader was rather lucky that Victor couldn't answer him out loud.

In any case, Victor ignored the question and gave his full attention to deciding which weapon he should use to kill him.

“We’re due to meet the 24K Dragon at five-thirty,” Han reminded him. “Not much time.”

No, not much time at all.

Victor would have to make a strong decision. His gaze fell on his father's ax, with its well-worn handle and gleaming blade. Guilt had kept him from using it before, but he had a feeling Raymond would approve of his original weapon’s part in this killing.

He picked up the ax, and the gang leader predictably lost it. A new foul stench filled the air, letting them know he had shit himself in fear. Now that was a first. He hadn’t seen anyone lose control of their bodily functions since the Nakamura boy’s friend pissed himself in that locker room.

“Did Kuang send you?" the gang leader asked, tears rolling down his face as Victor approached. "How much is he paying you? I’ll pay you double!”

So he thought this was about money. Fool…he never should have dared to put down chips for a game he didn’t remotely understand.

The 24K Dragon had something this little weasel of a gang leader could never have. Power. Influence. Territory that needed defending from upstarts like the Vietnamese.

Territory that he might be willing to share. With the right partner.

Victor already had plenty of money. When The Silent Triad stepped into the vacuum Red Diamond had left behind, accumulating wealth had been the easiest part. They had the connections of old-school triad members and the savvy of a modern mafia.

So while other triads fell to the same type of sting operations that had ensnared his father and the Nakamura-gumi, The Silent Triad moved deftly, achieving their goals with ruthless precision.

Often the authorities did not even know they were in the country. Not until a body surfaced with their signature calling card: the fingers of both hands removed, and the tongue cut out. Most often, by the time they found the body, it was too late. The Silent Triad had moved on to a new deal in another country. Often on another continent.

However, now it was time to, how would one put it in the language of the English-speaking country they had decided to adopt for a much longer assignment? He supposed the term would be “settle down.”

Yes, it was time to settle down.

With that thought in mind, Victor raised the ax over his head and then ended all the gang leader’s protests with a single swing.

23

Other than all the crying and begging beforehand, it was a fairly straightforward killing.

Kuang, the 24K Dragon, was pleased that night when Victor presented the gang leader’s tongueless head, literally on a silver platter.

They were in the backroom of one of the 24K’s clubs in Chelsea. The front of the venue was modern and upscale. Beautiful young people would soon fill it up with their louder than necessary conversation and posing for selfies. And, as for their less rich and attractive counterparts? They would stand in line for hours for the privilege of paying too much for drinks, playing spot-the-celebrity, and dancing to music spun by one-name DJs.

But the back of the club was the complete opposite. Only a select few were allowed in this space, and it was nothing less than an homage to old Hong Kong. Dark wood walls, red silk-covered furniture, and doors with stain-glassed windows graced the large space with some ancient Chinese opera playing overhead. A Cantonese proverb was written across one wall. There was even an altar to Emperor Guan. Victor would bet money its placement followed the rules of feng shui.

"I met your father once," the Kuang told Victor over cigars and whiskey. “He would've been proud to see the man you've become."

Perhaps.

Victor remained undecided about that. He had taken his reformed triad even further than his father had envisioned in a mere four years. But Raymond had died in a jail cell. A victim of aggressive cancer that had gone undetected until he started coughing up blood.

It meant that he'd never have to serve the time for the charges brought against him, unlike Jake's grandfather. But he’d only been in there as part of a guilty plea deal. His father had agreed to plead guilty in exchange for them dropping the charges against his son, who hadn’t managed