Victor: Her Ruthless Owner: The VICTOR Trilogy Book 2 [50 Loving States, Rhode Island] (Ruthless Triad)

by Theodora Taylor

  He seemed to be listening intently to every word I said, just like when we were in high school. But then he asked, “What do your parents think of your new job?”

  My heart stilled in my chest. And my signs were much less enthusiastic when I answered, “I um… haven’t told them I’m not in New York yet.”

  His gaze continued to hold mine like a powerful magnet, refusing to let go. “What about the holidays?”

  I shifted in my seat. An uncomfortable heat came over me as if there was a fire burning underneath my chair. “I…um told them I was going to my friend Lena’s house for the holidays.”

  He cut his eyes to the side. “Your friend Lena who now lives in California. The one you never talk to anymore.”

  A guilty pang went through me at the thought of how I’d ghosted Lena. But how did Victor know that I hadn’t been in communication with her? Was he tracking my phone?

  Oh, who was I kidding? Of course, he was.

  Not so lovely feelings about my situation rose inside of me. But I pushed them down, determined to make Operation Good As New a success.

  “What did you think of dinner?” I asked, scrambling to change the subject. “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Yes.” Just one sign. No “thank you” included.

  But again, progress. This was way better than him sitting across from me in the back of a Bentley, threatening to destroy my family if I didn’t accept his ten-year prison sentence.

  I guess that’s why I raised my hands and started signing as I spoke again. “Thank you. This was nice for me. It’s been a little lonely here.”

  More than a little, really. I didn’t realize how starved I’d been for company until he showed up.

  Victor’s eyes flicked away, then came back to me. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. I enjoyed dinner too. It was very informative.”

  Wait, had he just told me he enjoyed our dinner together with more than a bare minimum of signs? My face split into a happy grin.

  Victor stood up and held out one hand to me while signing with the other, “Come.”

  My stomach flipped, releasing a ton of butterflies as I took his hand. But I couldn’t say I wasn’t excited for this part of the evening too.

  I’d kept my nose in those books while I was at college. But unlike Lena, I also knew how to let my hair down when it came time to party.

  My father had been right, not just about black guys but American ones in general. They didn’t mind some junk in the trunk, especially when it came to hooking up. I’d never made time for a serious boyfriend, but I’d gained a lot more experience since Victor. I enjoyed sex, and I’d come to expect it at least once or twice a semester.

  But this past year, it’d only been me and the handheld “back massager” I’d picked up at Bed Bath & Beyond. I was more than ready to get it on with someone who didn’t buzz when he was taking care of me.

  Had I been mad about him showing up out of the blue earlier? Now I was beginning to think that my absent husband just might be the wedding anniversary gift I’d been needing.

  I was actually smiling as he led me back into the house and through the kitchen. I even called out a cheery good night to Yaron, who was standing in the living room door as we headed toward the stairs—

  I stopped short, goosebumps suddenly breaking out across my skin.

  Wait….Why was Yaron in the living room?

  He’d always made a big deal about not coming into the house unless I needed help with something like carrying groceries. I almost always only made dishes that didn’t require a knife because those were impossible to eat standing up with Yaron in the driveway.

  Besides, it was after eight. That was when the night guard I’d never formally met was supposed to come on duty.

  So what was Yaron still doing here then?

  The question lodged in my throat, and a bad feeling came over me just as Victor let go of my hand.

  “Come, I want you to watch this,” he signed. His face was a work of stone above his hands.

  Then he headed into the living room.

  Leaving me, his possession, to follow.

  9

  I didn’t want to follow. But in the end, I did, like a puppet on his string.

  Yaron had pushed the couch back up against the wall the living room shared with the front hall. He’d made an empty space in the middle of the room. But why? Why?

  “What’s going on?” I asked Yaron for some reason, even though it was Victor who’d told me to come in here.

  Yaron didn’t answer. Just looked away. Like he was too afraid to talk to me now. He’d been wearing his usual suit earlier. But now, he only wore an undershirt.

  “What’s going on?” I asked again, this time gathering the strength to direct the question at Victor.

  But Victor didn’t answer either. He simply walked into the freshly opened space and stood directly in front of Yaron. And nodded.

  No words were spoken or signed. But somehow, Yaron seemed to know exactly what to do.

  He pulled a phone out of his back pocket and, with shaking hands, pressed his finger into its touch screen a few times.

  After he was done, Victor pointed at the phone. Then pointed at me.

  Yaron came over to me but stopped at least three feet away.

  “He wants you to hold this,” he explained to me.

  He held out the phone to me, and I took it. There was a three-minute timer going on the phone. A countdown. But to what? I didn’t understand.

  Then suddenly I did when Victor threw the first punch, which Yaron just narrowly missed.

  Fighting…they were fighting! Some kind of mix between martial arts and bare-knuckle boxing. What the hell?

  More than thirty seconds had come off the clock by the time they started, and Yaron dodged and weaved like a pro for the next minute. I began to hope that the countdown would conclude before anyone got hurt. But then Victor connected a hit, kneeing him in the gut.

  Yaron staggered. And it was all over after that. I spent the last thirty seconds watching Victor coldly eviscerate him. Landing hit after hit.

  Yaron didn’t last long under the assault. He fell to the ground, and with more than thirty seconds to go, Victor raised his foot to….

  I don’t know what, but it was right above Yaron’s face, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t let Victor hurt him, possibly end his life.

  “No!” I screamed, charging forward. I shoved Victor and sent him tumbling onto his back.

  I caught Victor just enough off-balance to make him fall. But he wasn’t down for long. Like something out of horror martial arts film, he arced up with more core strength than I could have ever imagined and came right back to his feet.

  “Get out of my way,” he signed. “There is still time on the clock.”

  “Who cares about the clock!” I yelled back at him. “I’m not going to let you kill him!”

  An old-fashioned car horn sounded somewhere in the distance. The timer going off, I dimly realized. I must have dropped the phone when I charged forward. But I didn’t dare to move from where I was standing.

  Victor went over to where I dropped the phone. He’d just gotten into a knock-out fight with Yaron, but he hadn’t even broken a sweat. His movements were precise as he bent and picked up the phone, almost elegant. No shaky hands for Victor as he stopped the old-fashioned horn from blaring.

  God, how many people must he have hurt or worse before to be this damn unbothered after nearly beating a man to death?

  He pocketed Yaron’s phone and signed. “I’ve set the timer for three more minutes.”

  He made an upward motion with his hand. And like a zombie, Yaron rose to his feet. Swaying, but weakly dragging up his fist for another three minutes of fight.

  “No…” I said, my stomach rolling. “You’ll kill him.”

  Victor gave me a dead-eyed blink. Then he signed, “Move. Now. If you disrupt it again, I will reset the timer for five minutes. And I will not stop until it is done.”

&nbs
p; Oh, God! Oh, God! How did this evening escalate to murder so damn quick?

  When I didn’t move, Victor pulled out his phone to make good on his threat.

  “Please!” Yaron said behind me. “You’re only making it worse.”

  I could see that now. But I couldn’t just let Victor kill him.

  “Wait! Wait, I’m not disrupting,” I yelled out. “I’m subbing in. I’m saying I’ll take Yaron’s five minutes. I’ll do whatever it takes for you not to kill him. He has a little girl. Please, you can’t do this. You can’t take away someone’s else father.”

  Victor stills. I can hear Yaron behind me, his breathing ragged and wheezing. But other than that, there’s no sound in the room.

  Then Victor tilted his head to both sides like a prizefighter. But then he signed two letters: “O” and “K.”

  Okay…okay, we’re going to fight.

  Fear ripples through me. I don’t think those hand full of kickboxing cardio classes I took at the gym had truly prepared me for this scenario.

  But you know what? Math tests, ten-year marriage sentences, physical fights with Chinese gangsters….all I could do, all I could ever do, was my best.

  I swallowed and raised both fists.

  But instead of raising his own fists, Victor walked over to the couch and spread his legs wide.

  “This is how we will spend our five minutes,” he said, leaning back.

  Then he used a series of extremely graphic signs to tell me what to do next.

  I froze. My face burned, and my legs wobbled like my body was deciding whether or not to faint while my mind scrambled to catch up.

  “If you don’t want to honor my request, I am happy to resume the original fight,” Victor let me know. His smile was even more malicious than last year when he presented me with the wedding ring I’d hidden away in my nightstand drawer next to my back massager.

  I glanced at Yaron, who was still swaying on his feet, then back to Victor.

  “He will stay where he is,” Victor answered my unspoken question. “He must learn to.”

  What he was asking…what he was commanding me to do was cruel. It was humiliating. Immoral was just one of the many terrible words to describe it. What he was doing broke all the rules of right and wrong that I’d been taught during college.

  Consent… Female agency… personal autonomy… all the things I’d learned in college….they vaporized as he sat there before me, chin raised like a king waiting for his servant to do his bidding. Like fairytales based on legends that may or may not be true.

  And that memory invaded again. Victor standing over a man his family members had maimed beyond all recognition…and emptying a gun into his destroyed body. Without a second of hesitation.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Yaron, who had been so kind and helpful to me.

  His biggest regret was that he hadn’t been more attentive to his girlfriend until she asked him to move out a couple of months ago. And now he was trying to prove he could be the boyfriend she deserved. The reason he hadn’t been at his post today when Victor arrived was because he’d gone out of his way to make it to her recital in Boston, even though he knew he’d be bored out of his mind.

  He’d never, ever tell his ex-girlfriend that my adobo was better than hers, even after she dumped him. In fact, he liked this job because it held zero danger. And he’d been talking about moving them to Rhode Island and putting a down payment on a house. He’d told me that he could give them a whole house here in Providence for what a one-bedroom apartment costs in Beantown.

  Yaron was a human being with hopes and dreams. And Victor gave zero fucks about that.

  There were no rules when it came to this monster.

  The opposite of love wasn’t hate; it was Victor.

  And our so-called marriage? This first anniversary? It was about punishment. And only about punishment.

  Somehow I’d forgotten that while playing my girlish game of Good As New. And trying to live my best life despite.

  But I remembered now.

  “I’ve reset the timer,” he informed from his seated position. “It’s now or never.”

  All my hesitation time was up. Releasing a shaky breath, I got down on my knees, kneeling between the legs he’d spread wide. Victor watched me with those icy-cold, black eyes as I unbuckled his belt with trembling hands.

  He liked that I was upset. Savored it like the fine wine he’d thrown away. I found him hard and ready when I pulled him out.

  My throat went dry at the sight of him, remembering the first time I encountered him like this. His cock looked even bigger than I remembered. Long, thick, and pulsing.

  “Show Ears who owns you,” he instructed above his cock.

  Ears…that must have been the name sign he chosen for Yaron.

  I hated him. I hated him so much. But I didn’t want Yaron getting hurt or worse because of me. His life wasn’t worth my pride.

  Closing my eyes, I took Victor in my mouth. I began bobbing my head up and down energetically. The plan was to suck him off as quickly as possible to bring this ordeal to an end.

  But he nested a hand in the back of my hair and forcibly pulled my head back.

  “Eyes on me,” he signed one-handed. “Suck me slow while I watch you.”

  His words were cruel. Not just because I knew he wanted to relish my humiliation. But also because they sent a new wave of heat through my body that had nothing to do with embarrassment.

  This was supposed to be a perfunctory act—something I was doing under duress. But a weird, aching desire flooded my body at his command. It made my breasts feel heavier and my core squeeze on instinct.

  I did as he said. Kept my eyes on him, slowed down my pace, and did my best to ignore what was happening inside my traitorous body.

  Luckily it was a blow job. That meant I could turn my mind to other things. Like calling in sick tomorrow and day drinking until I passed out in front of Rap Star Wives. Sweet, sweet oblivion. Enough wine to make me forget this night ever happened.

  But before I could get too far into that alternative fantasy, he signed. This time with both hands. “Masturbate. Make yourself come while you suck my cock.”

  His signs were so mean and graphic, but another wave of heat rippled through me. The opposite of disgust. A puppet on his strings, I found my pussy underneath the band of my silk panties and started rubbing my fingers over my little button.

  You think it would be hard to do both things at once, like rubbing your stomach and patting your head. But almost immediately, I found a natural rhythm. And soon, I began to whimper around his dick as I got closer.

  He abruptly pulled my mouth off his cock just as I was about to arrive. At first, I thought maybe he was going to come all over my face like all those guys in porn videos. Which I really didn’t think I would enjoy, but okay.

  Instead, he yanked me up and spun me around. And the next thing I knew, I was sitting in his lap. Facing Yaron directly.

  Victor’s hands were underneath my skirt, pulling my panties aside…

  He wouldn’t.

  I found out in the very next moment that he would. His cock plunged into the pussy I prepared for him, and he tore open the front of my dress.

  My chest was so much smaller since the weight loss. I no longer bothered to wear bras with dresses that had well-constructed tops like this one.

  But the yellow skater dress wasn’t as durable as I’d thought. It shredded apart easily with just one yank from Victor. My naked breasts came spilling out. His dominant hand came up to seize one, kneading mercilessly while the other hand clamped down on my hip, using the hold for leverage as he pumped inside of me.

  He was fucking me so hard. And Yaron was watching as part of my punishment. As part of my humiliation.

  The way he was fucking me like I was his property should make me feel sick inside. But something about being claimed like this made everything inside me go nuts. I didn’t want to come. Didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Bu
t the pleasure built so fast as he ruthlessly took me.

  There was no nausea. Only fire. Burning hotter and hotter. I came with a long, helpless keen just as the old-fashioned horn went off again.

  I could feel him pulsing inside of me. He was close, too. That brought me a tiny, tiny bit of solace. Until he pushed me forward, practically shoving me off his cock. I went tumbling to the floor, landing on my hands and knees.

  The next thing I felt was a hot spurt against the back of my bare thighs.

  It was his cum. I knew that in an instant. He’d pulled out again, refusing to come inside of me.

  If his objective was to debase me, to humiliate me… it worked. Hot shame curdled my stomach, and my knees gave out, collapsing me down to the floor.

  The old-fashioned horn stopped blaring. And, somewhere in the distance, I heard the door open, followed by the sound of feet leaving. A tiny sliver of relief cut through the thick cloud of shame. He left immediately, just like last time. At least there was that.

  But then, Victor suddenly dropped into my eye line. Crouching in what I’d come to think of as the Asian way when I was in Japan. His knees were flexed outward, and his butt was nearly touching the ground.

  Oh, God. My husband. My monster. He was still here.

  “We’re not done yet,” he signed.

  My heart sank, and my body heated. Aching for its silent owner.

  Yeah…Operation Good As New had definitely been a bust.

  10

  VICTOR

  She was beautiful when she slept.

  He wasn’t sure how long ago he’d woken up in the bed he’d bought for her prison. But as soon as he had, he’d become entranced by the sight of her brown body underneath white sheets.

  She was darker than when he’d seen her last. Most likely due to her daily bike rides back and forth to work. But her hair now looked nearly the same as it had been in Japan. She’d straightened it, but last night’s activities had returned it to its base state. A mess of curls without rhyme or true definition.