Phantom: Her Ruthless Fiancé: 50 Loving States, Kentucky (Ruthless Triad)

by Theodora Taylor

  The breakfast in bed he’d been about to make was more like a recovery lunch, but he turned off the stove. “You don’t sound so hot. You hurt? In danger?”

  Eric let out a watery laugh. “I’m hurt. But I’m not in danger of anything but a broken heart. I felt so bad about missing Byron’s birthday; I went down to New Jersey to surprise him, and…and….”

  Eric’s voice gave out, probably due to another fit of tears.

  But Phantom had heard this story plenty of times before. It was easy for him to guess the ending. “He was cheating on you?”

  “He was cheating on me!” Eric confirmed on a wail.

  So that was how they ended up spending the day before Olivia left for Uganda in Eric’s Lower East Side apartment instead of having marathon sex. Phantom made waffles in Eric’s bad-ass Darth Vader-shaped iron while Olivia consoled her best friend at a tiny kitchen table like they were side characters in a gay rom-com.

  “I’m so sorry things ended this way with Byron,” she told her best friend, rubbing his back.

  Eric just shook his head, his face red and miserable. “He took me home to meet his parents! His mom was so excited about him dating a doctor. I figured he was all in with me.”

  Eric blew his nose noisily into a napkin. “I don’t know why I thought it would go the distance with this guy. He told me upfront that he was basically a serial dater. He said I was his longest relationship when he asked to be exclusive back in April—and at that point, we’d only been dating for four months!”

  Olivia and Phantom, who’d only been dating for maybe four months in total, exchanged looks over the Sith Lord waffle he was plating up.

  But then, Olivia turned back to Eric to say, “That’s a huge milestone. And it doesn’t matter how short a time you were dating. He made you a promise that he didn’t keep, and you have every right to feel upset by his betrayal.”

  Eric sniffled and shook his head some more. “The worst thing is the other guy was way—and I mean way hotter than me. You should have seen him. Zero body fat, total bad boy. He had this intricate partial bodysuit of tattoos—just beautiful and vibrant. At first, when I caught them in bed, I didn’t know whether to get upset or watch them go at it like porn.”

  Phantom frowned as he plated the last Vader waffle. “Japanese guy?”

  “Yeah, I think maybe. Why?”

  Phantom tilted his head with memories that were over fifteen years old—going to Byron and Dawn’s school to put a particular Nakamura-gumi scion in his place.

  But all he said out loud was, “Sounds like yakuza….”

  He set a plate with a scoop of vanilla ice cream placed over a Darth Vader waffle down in front of Eric, along with a big spoon and a glass bottle of Trader Joe’s maple syrup.

  Eric’s face fell. “What kind of cop cheats on the doctor boyfriend he just committed to with a member of the Japanese mafia?”

  Olivia opened her mouth, but Eric cut her off before she could offer him more validation and comfort. “That’s it!”

  He snatched up the large spoon and used the edge to cut off a big bite of waffle and ice cream. “No more hot bad boys for me—wow, sugar is evil, but this is insanely delicious.”

  “Yeah, waffles and ice cream solve shitty feelings like nothing else,” Phantom promised as he went to get the other plates. “Try it with the syrup. You’ll be like ‘Byron who?’”

  Phantom was just talking, but maybe there was some truth in his words. A smile had returned to Eric’s face by the time Phantom sat down with his and Olivia’s waffles minus the ice cream.

  “I just want to settle down with someone who loves me and gets me,” Eric said after he finished inhaling his extra sweet breakfast. “Like you two. You’re hashtag couple goals.”

  Phantom exchanged another look with Olivia. They smiled at each other, even though they hadn’t officially said I love you yet.

  And Phantom told her best friend, “Okay, now I think you’re ready to get my brother’s digits. Take a couple of months to get your mind right, then I’ll send it to you.”

  “Are you serious?” Eric asked, his whole face lighting up.

  Phantom shook his head. “Why would I joke about that shit? He’s my little brother. I don’t set him up with just anybody.”

  Eric cheered. “Yes! Come through, Thanksgiving Weekend! See, this is why you two are my new favorite couple of all time.”

  Olivia and Phantom just laughed. And no, they hadn’t said they loved each other yet or officially agreed to get married.

  But he had a feeling that both those conversations would be had before the end of May.

  26

  Five months with Olivia. Just five months.

  That was all it took to turn Phantom into a whiny bitch.

  “I don’t wanna go…” he whined as she rode him—at his request.

  With all the baby-making business, he rarely got to watch her do her thing on top anymore. But it was the day right after her period finished, and Olivia had just gotten back from Uganda. Plus, she felt sorry for him because he had to leave in a couple of hours.

  Speaking of which, back to whining…

  “I’m not going,” he declared. “I’m staying here all day and fucking you instead. Decision final.”

  Olivia slowed her roll to a stop. “You have to go to the wedding.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You’re Victor’s best man.”

  “Victor? I don’t know any Victor,” Phantom answered. “New phone. Who dis?”

  She laughed. Phantom didn’t know why. He wasn’t kidding about not going. Like, at all.

  “I’m serious,” he told her. “Why can’t you come with me to this thing again?”

  She laughed, “Because if I’m serious about seriously pulling back my work hours at the clinic, I have to train the new doctor we just hired to take my place.”

  Okay, that was important, he had to admit. Olivia had worked damn hard to find and hire another OB so that she’d actually be able to take maternity leave without guilt when the time came. He wasn’t going to get in the way of that.

  So he circled back round to his original argument. “Then let me stay here. Let me try again to put a baby in you.”

  Her face softened a bit. “I know you’re disappointed it’s taking so long. But at my age, we have to lower our expectations. Also, I really like your grandma. I don’t want her to die.”

  Phantom shook his head. “Don’t know if you heard about this yet, but she’s ready. And you don’t know it’s you. It could be my swimmers holding us back. I was reading a bunch of articles on male fertility when you were gone, and in general, that shit’s on the downslide. I should stay here to get some test instead of spending ten days in Hawaii alone.”

  She crooked her head at Phantom with a bemused look. “By alone, you mean with your friends and family. And I think you may be the only man in history who’d volunteer for fertility tests to get out of going to Hawaii.”

  She was still laughing, but Phantom rested his hands on her hips to level with her. “You don’t understand how much I want this for us. This baby—she’s going to be half of me and half of you, and she’ll have both of us in her life growing up. Plus, I know getting pregnant would make the decision about whether to marry me or not easier for you.”

  Her gaze softened, and Phantom could tell she got it. They’d both grown up without birth mothers, so starting a family of their own meant something different to them.

  But then she told him, “Actually, I’ve already decided to marry you whether we have a baby or not.”

  Phantom stilled underneath her, but everything inside of him….everything inside of him vibrated as he asked, “You shitting me?”

  She shook her head shyly. “I’d never do that. Maybe we could get married just to satisfy Dad’s conditions when you get back, then have a real wedding so that my mom doesn’t lose her mind later on?”

  “No,” Phantom answered immediately—but only because it wasn’t
soon enough. “Let’s do it now. Today.”

  “No, Hak-kan,” she chastised with a laughing shake of her head. “You have the wedding.”

  “You have no idea all the shit I’ve done for Victor over the years. He’d understand.”

  “But I’d feel guilty about it, and you know how I get.”

  Phantom opened his mouth to argue with her some more. But then she said, “I’m keeping my name if you don’t go to the wedding, but if you do, I’m willing to hyphenate it. Dr. Glendaver-Zhang. How does that sound to you?”

  How did that sound? Phantom flipped her over on her back and let her know exactly how excited he was to make that happen…to make her his wife.

  But six days later, he was sorely regretting the deal he’d made.

  Guess what sucked even harder than being apart from Olivia for six more days after already being apart from her for two weeks before that?

  Having to watch other people be happy when he couldn’t be with her.

  He’d texted her that, but her response had been a little underwhelming.

  Try to enjoy Hawaii. You’ll be back here soon enough.

  Not exactly a reassuring love note. And her answers to his follow-up texts were even shorter and more curt. The one time he managed to get her on the phone, she’d been in such a rush, she couldn’t talk for more than a minute.

  Dr. Glendaver-Zhang….that should have been enough to get him through the ordeal of being away from her. Plus, the guards he had posted outside her clinic assured him there was nothing wrong. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right with her. With them.

  By the time Victor’s wedding and reception rolled around, Phantom felt crazy on edge.

  She’d sounded fine on the phone a few days ago, but she hadn’t even bothered to return his last text. Maybe she was getting him back for how he’d ghosted her in December—he wouldn’t blame her, if so. And he’d be more than happy to apologize some more in bed.

  But a bad feeling churned in his gut.

  “Is our marriage fake?” Jazz demanded, interrupting a conversation Phantom was having with Han at the groom’s table about possibly cutting out early from the wedding, taking place at her sister Mika’s swanky beachside villa.

  Jazz held Victor and Dawn’s sleeping baby Joi in her arms but looked like she was ready to punch Han out.

  “Hell, no,” Phantom answered on his fellow Dragon’s behalf since he’d been the one who’d had to bust his ass last September to make that shit legal.

  “Where is this coming from?” Han asked, standing up to address his irate wife.

  “I don’t know.” Jazz softened out of her defensive stance. “I was talking to Mika, and she got in my head.”

  “Jasmine.” Han tilted his head and reached up to cup her face on the side of her body that didn’t currently have a sleeping baby. “You know she hates me.”

  “I know,” Jazz answered with a laugh. “I’m being stupid. We’re good. I’m sure of it.”

  “Yes, we are good and happy and so many other things I would not have been able to imagine before I met you,” Han agreed—then he smirked and asked, “Were you really very upset at the thought of not being married to me?”

  “I mean, yeah….” Jazz rolled her eyes. “But don’t go getting a big head about it.”

  “Oh, I am getting a big head,” Han assured her. “We will sneak into the house, and I will show you just how big my head is getting at the thought of how much you want to truly be my wife.”

  That was all the warning Phantom got before Jazz transferred Victor’s spawn into his arms, and Han and his wife ran hand-and-hand off toward the house.

  Leaving him behind with the sleeping baby.

  He’d never actually held her before. And it wasn’t…well, it wasn’t horrible. His baby cousin was kind of cute. Dawn’s face and Victor’s serious countenance—like, don’t sleep on me just because I’m cute, bitch. I could be The Silent Triad’s first woman Dragon someday.

  He thought about the baby he was trying to make with Olivia and wondered how—

  The baby’s eyes suddenly popped open, and her alarmed wail cut off all those thoughts of having a kid of his own one day.

  Phantom panicked. How did you turn this thing off? What was wrong with her? Was it hunger making her cry? Shit in her diaper? Or maybe she just didn’t like him the same as her mother?

  Luckily, Victor came through like a superhero and took the ticking bomb back with a signed, “Thanks, Phantom.”

  Joi immediately calmed down when she was back in her father’s arms, so odds were it was waking up to Phantom’s mean mug that pissed her off.

  Whatever….

  Without Han to talk to or a baby to defuse, Phantom was kind of on his own, so he got up and went out to the beach to stare at the ocean and call her. Because she still hadn’t texted him back and because he wanted to hear her voice.

  But all he got was her telling him to leave a voicemail.

  “Fuck, I’m not good at voicemail,” he told her after the beep. “I’m in Hawaii without you. And the ocean’s beautiful, but it doesn’t have anything on you. So I guess I’m just calling to say I….”

  So many words trembled on his tongue, including one that started with L. But that wasn’t a phone conversation. He wanted to do that shit in person as soon as he saw her again. So he opted for, “I miss you. That’s all. See you tomorrow.”

  Phantom decided to cut out of the reception soon after that without bothering to say goodbye. He’d flown down here private with Victor and Han, and the flight back wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow.

  But maybe he’d look into paying for an earlier flight. He wanted to get home. He wanted to get back to Olivia. The desire to be with her beat crazed and urgent inside his chest.

  His phone rang just as he made it to one of the many Hawaiian Silent Triad fleet Infinitis parked outside the mega villa.

  And Phantom’s mood immediately lightened when he saw Olivia’s name pop up on the Caller ID.

  “Hey…” he started to say.

  But she cut him off before he could tell her that he’d been thinking about her and coming home early. “Hak-kan...”

  Phantom stilled. She sounded upset. She was over four thousand miles away, and she was upset.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, no, I’m fine,” she answered. Though the tears in her voice told him she wasn’t. “It’s just—I’m sorry, but I can’t…I can’t marry you.”

  “What?” That was the only word Phantom could get out with the triple bomb explosion going off inside his mind, chest, and stomach.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about it this week, and we’re just too different. You’re barely two steps from being a criminal, and you were right about the danger—I’m not safe with you. I should have given that more consideration.”

  Somehow, he managed to push words past the throat that had closed on him. “I’m going legit—you know that. That’s the whole reason I moved to New York to take over VIP Bai3. And you’re the one who said you didn’t want a guard escort to work. I can keep you safe. Just let me—”

  “I don’t want to be kept safe. I want to live my life without looking over my shoulder for your enemies,” Olivia answered, her voice flat and resolved. “That’s why I’ve decided to end this relationship.”

  Phantom clawed at his chest. Her tone was so cold and impersonal, no flowers, no molasses. Did she not understand that she was ripping his heart out of his chest? “No, no, you can’t do this. I’m coming home right now. We’re going to talk.”

  “No, stay in Hawaii, please. I’m not going to be here when you get home. It’s my life, my decision to make—please, don’t be like Han and Victor. Just stay away.”

  “O, I can’t. I can’t do that.”

  “You can!” she insisted, her voice more vicious than he’d ever heard it. “This is a breakup. I’m breaking up with you. I’m allowed to do that. So please,
don’t embarrass me by making me take out a restraining order against you.”

  Cracks. Cracks were running up the seams of everything he knew. In his body. In his reality. Threatening to shatter him. “O, why are you doing this? Don’t do this. Don’t—”

  The line went dead before he could finish begging her to stay with him.

  27

  She hung up. She just hung up.

  Not that it mattered. Phantom still did exactly what he’d been planning to do when she called.

  He took the first direct flight out of Honolulu, headed to New York, and landed at JFK around the next morning. But the penthouse was empty when he arrived, all her things gone, just like she promised.

  And when he went to find her at her brownstone, he found it also empty with a For Sale sign in the window. Even weirder, when he checked on the listing, the realtor told him it was already in escrow.

  “Would you like me to put you on the list of potential buyers if it falls through?” she asked.

  The house was already off the market? Real estate was The Silent Triad’s money-washing bread and butter, so he knew how long it took to get something on the market and all the way into escrow. One to two months minimum.

  How long? How long had she been planning to leave him?

  “Sir? Sir, are you still there? Would you like me to put your name on the list?”

  “No,” he answered the real estate agent, his throat raw even though he’d barely said a word to anyone since getting that call.

  Next stop, the clinic.

  “She’s not available,” Bernice told him as if he was a stranger who’d just walked in off the street.

  “When will she be back?” he asked.

  “When she’s back,” she answered with a cold blink.

  “Wrong day,” he growled. “Wrong damn day to fuck with me.”

  Before Bernice could answer or stop him, he barged through the door between the reception area and the clinic’s main part.