It was a good question. Too good. The molten black rage that had been simmering inside of him for four years rose to a boil. He wasn’t sure who he was angrier with at the moment. Phantom for asking the obvious or himself for not having a strong and comprehensible reply.
The easy answer to Phantom’s question was that simply murdering Dawn would’ve been too light a punishment. The harder and truer answer was that if Victor were capable of killing Dawn, he would have done so already.
He had no good excuse to give for this weakness. And he doubted his cousin would have excepted his best answer: She’s an open wound that I’m trying to heal. You don’t put bullets in open wounds.
“She’ll be out soon,” Victor assured Phantom without replying to other questions.
“You sure about that?” Phantom asked when another few minutes passed without any sign of her at the town hall’s double glass doors.
No, Victor wasn’t sure about that. Why hadn’t she arrived yet? Had she made a run for it, escaped through a bathroom window like in so many American movies? No. Where was there for her to go? Surely, she had guessed after waking up in the back of his car that wherever she went, wherever she tried to hide, he would hunt her down.
But then, Phantom introduced a possibility Victor hadn’t considered. “Let me tell you, these American chicks are real fucking fragile. Sure you don’t want me to go in there? Make sure she didn’t slice her wrists in the toilet or something?”
The thought of her doing that to escape made Victor’s throat burn. But he still carried his father’s voice in his head.
Show no weakness. He didn’t allow Phantom to go in after her. Victor held the course, and another two minutes passed. Phantom didn’t say anything else. But Victor could almost hear what his cousin was thinking as they watched the door.
That he was an idiot. That this whole plan was idiotic. That if Dawn had run away or offed herself, it would be what Victor deserved for being the idiot who had come up with the idiot plan.
Just when Victor didn’t think he could take it anymore, Dawn pushed through the town hall’s front entrance.
The sight of her hit him even harder than when Phantom first dumped her in the Bentley’s back seat.
He’d very rarely seen her out of her school uniform back in Japan. But now she was wearing a college t-shirt with a pair of cotton sports shorts. The outfit showed off all of her curves, hugging her hips and her large breasts. Meanwhile, the waist-length black braids she wore her hair in now swayed as she came bouncing down the stairs.
It was like watching a slo-mo reintroduction to the grown woman who’d replaced the girl he’d once known. And his body responded the same as it would have when he’d been a schoolboy. His cock stirred, and the kind of need he hadn’t felt in years—hot and urgent—suddenly flooded his body.
A memory floated back to him. Dawn sitting on his lap as they made out, and him having to shift her away from his instantaneous erection because he didn’t want to scare her with how fucking hard she made him.
He hated that his body still responded to her like this. Hated that she could make him feel anything when all the other women he had taken since her only made him feel numb.
“What took you so long?” Phantom demanded as she approached the car.
She looked directly at Victor as she answered his cousin’s question. “I had to use the bathroom—like, really had to use it. I’m not sure how long ago you two kidnapped me, but I’m figuring it’s been hours. And before that, the judge held me back for a little conversation. Pretty sure he thought you were trafficking me like dear old dad.”
Rage spiked inside of him that she would dare bring up his dead father. Also, they didn’t traffic women anymore. Han had insisted on cutting girls out of their product offerings when Victor asked him to help him create The Silent Triad. And they’d already let Kuang know that this was the one part of his business they refused to touch. But he didn’t want to give Dawn the satisfaction of telling her that.
And apparently, neither did Phantom.
“Congratulations, Mrs. Zhang,” he said with a mocking tone as he opened the back door. “Hope you had a nice shit.”
“I did. Thanks for asking, Phan-Phan!” she answered, her tone ten times as mocking. “And congratulations to you, too. I just thought you were a little off when you broke into a high school to threaten three underaged boys. But you’ve really upped your psycho with this kidnapping stuff.”
For once, Phantom didn’t have a smart comeback. And even if he had, she slipped into the car before she could receive his retort.
Something visible ticked in Phantom’s jaw as he asked Victor through clenched teeth, “You sure about this, man?”
No. No, Victor wasn’t sure at all.
She had changed, Victor noted. Gone was the girl who could barely look him in the eye. The sweet teenager who had always tried to be kind to his glowering cousin despite Phantom’s enmity was nowhere to be found.
That girl had been an illusion, Victor reminded himself. She had been playing him all along. He couldn’t let himself forget that he decided as he climbed into the car.
No matter how hard she made his cock.
Ten years. Ten years for her to rot, the same as his father would have if he had lived.
Ten years for him to inure himself to her. His only weakness.
He’d leave Dawn her family at the end of the sentence as he’d promised. But by the time he was done with her, family would no longer matter. He planned to break her, to destroy her mind and soul. The girl who played him for a fool would never hurt him again.
And then, he would finally be free. This, he assured himself as they drove away from the town hall.
4
DAWN
“Are you taking me back to New York now?” I asked as soon as Victor got into the car.
We’re married. Married! But he still sat across from me as an adversary. Not beside me like he used to insist on when we were in Japan.
“No,” he answered. Man, he loved that sign to death these days.
“Then where are you taking me?”
He didn’t answer.
And just in case you were wondering…no, getting the silent treatment from someone who can’t talk didn’t feel any less irritating.
“I have to report in for an internship in New York on Monday,” I pointed out. “It’s a little clinic, and they need me there.”
He began to sign before the words were entirely out of my mouth. “Actually, you’ve already been replaced.”
My stomach iced over at his answer. “What do you mean?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a device shaped like a rectangle.
My eyes widened because it looked like the iPhone 3GS that Steve Jobs had just announced at a special conference. But it couldn’t be. They weren’t even out yet.
Yet, here Victor was, extending a phone that looked exactly like the one showcased in the latest “Stevenote” to me.
I took it. Partly out of shock. Partly out of curiosity. “Is this an iPhone 3GS?” I asked. “But how did you get this? I thought they weren’t coming out until June.”
“Check your email,” he signed as if he didn’t hear any of my other questions.