Without signing anything further, he climbed out of the car. And left the door open. As if he expected me to follow.
So after about a thousand “What in the entire fuck”s, I did. I mean, what was the alternative?
He knew where my father was embedded for his undercover assignment.
And apparently, Victor could have him killed with just one call. He could also have my brother shot by some petty gangster with just one call—maybe the same call.
Maybe there was some way out of the situation, other than taking his deal. But if there was, I couldn’t see it.
2
Instead of following the signs that pointed toward the marriage license counter, Victor led me up a set of wide stairs inside the town hall. And by led, I mean he plunged ahead, seeming to trust that I’d follow behind him like a good little threatened dog.
He was right. I had no clue where Victor had been for the last few years or what he had done. But I believed that he would hurt my family just like he killed the guy in the garage.
Without blinking an eye.
We entered a door toward the back of the second-floor hallway without knocking and found a judge in full robes, sitting behind a large desk made of dark wood.
He stood to greet us with a hearty, “The future Mr. and Mrs. Zhang! Great to meet you!”
The judge had what I privately called a character look. A ring of white hair laid neat and combed around his otherwise bald head. And a pair of little round reading glasses sat perched on the end of his nose like they lived there, even when he slept.
My fingers itched to draw him as I took my turn, shaking his hand. I’d been ignoring those kind of drawing urges for the last four years. And today, it felt especially inappropriate, given the circumstances.
After confirming with Victor that he would be signing all of his responses to the ceremony questions, the judge gave me a wink. “I don’t understand sign language, but you’ll tell me if he messes up, right?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer.
But the judge didn’t seem to expect a response. He launched straight into the ceremony without pausing for me to laugh. And way too fast, we got to the part where he told us it was time to exchange rings.
My heart was beating so loudly as he talked. I was surprised I could hear what the judge was saying at all.
Was I really going to do this? Was I really going to marry the monster who was threatening to destroy my family?
I looked up at New Victor, searching his face for a sign—any at all of the boy I used to love.
But I couldn’t find a trace of him. New Victor just grabbed my hand and shoved the ring he’d shown me less than fifteen minutes ago onto my wedding finger.
Flutters went off in my belly when his hand made contact. This was the first time he’d touched me in four years….
He hated me now. But why did it feel the same as when we were seventeen-year-olds, and our hands accidentally grazed during our tutoring sessions? My hormones were all grown up, but they went just as crazy at his mere touch now as they did back then. Excited energy, dumb and electric, lit up all my nerve endings.
I jerked my eyes up to his face again. Had our first touch in four years affected Victor the same as it had me?
A weird hope lit in my heart, despite the circumstances.
But then he dropped my hand to sign, “This ring makes me your owner…I own you now.”
And that small hope fizzled out as quickly as it had begun.
Victor turned back to the judge, and his expression remained impassive as he made legally-binding promises in perfect ASL. He was a cold winter day at the beginning of summer.
When the time came for me to put a ring on it, he pulled another band out of his inside pocket. But instead of handing it to me, he pushed it on his own finger before motioning to the judge to do my part of the ceremony.
The ring itself was a shock. It was exactly the same as mine. Two raised bars of titanium sandwiched between a band of onyx. My teenage self might’ve found matching rings romantic. Now I saw the rings for what they were, a shackle and lead with an invisible chain going from my finger to his.
I repeated back the judge’s words, but I barely registered them. I was too busy staring at the ring he hadn’t let me put on him, just like cops don’t let prisoners cuff themselves.
“… I now declare you husband and wife.”
The judge’s words drew me out of my daze.
The ceremony…
It was done.
I looked up at Victor and found him staring down at me, his black eyes glittering with anger…and something else. My throat tightened. I guessed this was the part where we were supposed to kiss.
He took a step forward, hovering as close as you can without actually touching. It didn’t matter. He didn’t have to touch me. My hormones did that crazy zap-zap-ping through my body just the same.
He leaned forward, and I braced. But at the last moment, he stepped back.
“Thank you,” he signed to the man who married us.
Then he walked away. Just walked away, leaving me there alone with the judge.
It was obvious—so, so obvious that he expected me to follow him. Wherever he led.
Face burning, I turned back to the judge to murmur, “Thank you.”
The judge gave me a considering look like he was heavily weighing his next words.
“Listen,” he said. “I don’t know what this marriage is to either of you or why you both have decided to go through with it.…”
He emphasized, “you both have decided to go through with it,” like he was also trying to convince himself of that blatant lie. “But with these kind of marriages, the kind that begin in anger, my advice is to release the past, and whatever came before today. This marriage might have begun for certain reasons, but you and he can decide where it goes. You’re husband and wife now. Try to make this into the kind of union you want. I’ve seen others do it.”
Husband and wife.
It certainly didn’t feel like that. And as for this marriage being anything other than a total nightmare, that wasn’t something I could fathom. Not anymore.
But this judge was trying to be kind. So I murmured another, “Thank you” before following my new husband into a marriage that would be filled with anger and bitterness, no matter what the judge advised.
Ten years….
How the hell was I going to get through this?
3
VICTOR
“Did you marry her or kill her?” Phantom asked when Victor came down the town hall steps alone.
His cousin was smoking a cigarette next to the Bentley they only used on special occasions. Victor frowned at the sight. Phantom had quit smoking a couple of years ago. Now he only lit up when he was stressed. Which strangely, was never when he was cracking heads, making deals, or slicing off various body parts on behalf of The Silent Triad.
However, “this shit” stressed him out. Victor knew because Phantom had told him that exactly before they drove up to Western Massachusetts.
Victor also knew his cousin’s question hadn’t been in jest. Phantom wouldn’t have judged him if he had decided to end Dawn’s life instead of marrying her. He might’ve even respected him for it.
As if confirming Victor’s thought, Phantom muttered, “Killing her for what she did to your dad makes a helluva a lot more sense than this plan. Why didn’t you kill her again?”