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, but this was how things were done in the Red Diamond.
After the prayer came a listing of the Boston snakehead’s crimes. It was a short list. Stealing, and therefore serving his triad with the ultimate disrespect.
After that, it was finally time for the part the snakehead had probably been dreading the most while pissing and shitting himself the entire way to Tokyo.
From what Victor had seen, this next bit was even worse than the death that would follow it.
First, Phantom brought out a switchblade, lifted his hand, and cut off the fingers of the snakehead’s right hand.
Quickly and efficiently. The ritual was meant to be a bit of a show (and a warning) for those who weren’t participating. But it was also crucial that everyone perform their part of the betrayer ceremony as quickly as possible. The show would be rather anticlimactic if the betrayer bled out before the ritual was completed.
Still, Phantom was awarded for his efforts with a nice spray of blood across his white suit. So was Han when he stepped forward to cut the fingers off the man’s left hand. Good thing they had duct-taped his mouth. The snakehead’s muffled screams would have been heard for blocks if they had been allowed to come out unfettered.
Now it was his father’s turn.
Raymond stepped forward with a scalpel held tight in one hand. Meanwhile, Phantom grabbed the sobbing snakehead by the back of his neck so that he couldn’t move his head, despite his abject pain.
It was an impressive display of Phantom’s strength. The man was screaming now and thrashing wildly below his neck to escape what came next. But Phantom made sure the guy’s head did not move as Victor's father raised the scalpel and brought it down for one precise slice.
Phantom’s expression barely changed as blood from the man's sliced-off nose sprayed across Raymond’s crisp white suit.
After Victor's father was done, Phantom finally let the snakehead go.
This was no mercy. The severely deformed man thrashed like a dying fish upon the garage’s concrete floor, blooding oozing from his face and hands.
Luckily, he’d been muffled. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to hear Raymond when he turned to the other Red Diamond, waiting in the shadows, and yelled out, “Betrayer!” in Cantonese.
“Betrayer!” they called back in unison as Victor stepped forward with his gun.
Strange, after what happened to him, Victor had wondered if he would feel any reservations before taking part in this first ceremonial transfer of power.
But he raised the gun without a second thought. His was a role finally played out on stage after a lifetime of rehearsal. There were no doubts in his head as he pulled the trigger. Only intent.
He wanted to be the new Red Diamond snakehead for Boston. And this man was the only thing that stood in his way.
So he had to be removed. Simple as that. Victor emptied the gun in him without a moment of hesitation.
And he smiled when the man finally stopped thrashing, his eyes glazed over with the loss of life.
He turned around with the gun raised high, and he was rewarded the other Red Diamond awarded him with a long round of applause.
“Successor!” his father called out. “Successor!” the rest of the Red Diamond called back.
It was done.
There was nothing left to do in the ceremony, save for his father's announcement of him as the new snakehead of Boston. Then first thing tomorrow, he would receive his tattoo, the same as Phantom.
But the clapping abruptly died, and everyone, including his father, turned to look at something in the distance, over Victor’s left shoulder.
Victor lowered his gun arm, and a bad feeling came over him, even before he turned around to look in the same direction.
His heart s
ank as soon as he saw what the others did.
Phantom was walking back into the garage, his hand wrapped around the arm of a new prisoner.
Dawn. It was Dawn. And from the terrified look on her face, she had seen everything.
“Look who decided to drop by unannounced,” Phantom called out in the silence that greeted their arrival. “Again.”
17
DAWN
I had no intention of witnessing a murder. But there’s a reason that saying “curiosity killed the cat” is a thing, and I found out why that night.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I’d caught a glimpse of Victor and an older guy, rounding the corner of his apartment building as I was approaching it. I recognized the older guy as the one who’d talked to my dad that night at the club, and I figured he must be Victor’s father. He was shorter but had the same broad shoulders and confident way of walking.
When I followed them, it wasn’t with any creeping intention. But I wasn’t sure how much Victor had told the guy who seemed to control his entire life about me. So, I hung back since I no longer had a phone to send Victor a discreet text.
I was still debating about what to do when the super narrow conversion van that the Japanese used pulled into the other side of the open-air garage.
I thought it was a delivery van filled with something his father and Victor would have to carry. I was honest to God, going to ask if they needed my help. That seemed like a nice, low-key way to introduce myself.
But my voice jammed in my throat when instead of a delivery man, Phantom jumped out…and handed Victor a dark object that looked like a gun.
Everything only got worse after that. So much worse.
At first, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing when Phantom pulled a writhing man out of the back of the van.
Then, I just plain didn’t believe what I was seeing when they started slicing him up.
Looking back at it, I think I was half-rooted to the spot in horror, half-hoping that this was a nightmare that I would wake up from any minute.
Either way, I held my breath for Victor’s innocence.
Even after Phantom and Han cut off all 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 the vicinity of everywhere Dawn had applied, stilled. “Tufts University? Where is that?”
“It's in Boston,” Victor answered.
Raymond frowned, deepening the wrinkles in his craggy face. “You thought you would be able to handle running Red Diamond Boston from a dorm room?”
“No, not from a dorm room,” Victor signed back, frustrated and insulted. “I would get an apartment off-campus. I’m not stupid. Or naïve. I understand the job, understand what it entails.”
“You say you understand,” his father answered. “Yet here we are arguing about whether or not you can go to university.”
“I can handle both!” Victor’s hands flew over his declaration more emphatically than he wanted them to. This emotional display was probably doing the opposite of convincing his father to sign on for either of Victor’s plans. But he had to convince him. “I can do this, I promise you.”
“I…” His father let out a long sigh. He looked away from Victor, much in the way Victor did when he no longer wished to talk to someone about an uncomfortable subject.
But Victor didn’t let his father’s refusal to look up deter him. He waited, waited for his father’s return to the conversation. He would wait for a century if that was what it took.
After what felt like hours, his father finally lifted his head.
But before Victor could raise his hands to further plead his case, Raymond said, “I’ve come to a decision.”
Victor stilled. Decisions were always Schrödinger’s cat’s when it came to his father. Until Raymond spoke, two futures hung precariously in the balance:
In one, his father would trust him as Victor had pleaded, let him go to Boston, and assume the snakehead position he had earned when he completed the betrayer succession ritual. The other future was much grimmer. His father would forbid him to see Dawn again. He might even kill her himself if Victor was unwilling.
Victor: Her Ruthless Crush Page 12
