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

by Theodora Taylor

  Victor stared at her. All the pennies dropping. He could almost hear Phantom’s yelling triumphantly, See! Told you she was too good to be true.

  “Does your father know?” he asked her, his signs slow and deliberate as his brain worked to catch up.

  Bitterness twisted across her face. “Yes, he knows. We have had many tearful fights about it. But he doesn’t care. There is a path he has set out for me. And he wants me to walk it. He does not believe I have a choice in the matter.”

  Her answer did not surprise Victor in the least. He couldn’t imagine any dragon in Kuang’s position simply allowing his daughter to “live her truth,” as the Americans sometimes termed it. The global Chinese mafia was becoming more and more modern every day, but daughters were still what his dad used to refer to as “the chips you don’t play until you’re ready to win big.”

  “Your secret puts you in an interesting situation,” Victor signed, careful to keep his feelings about any of this off his face.

  She nodded in rueful agreement. “I’ve been in an interesting position since I first realized I liked girls and only girls. I am in love with another. And I don’t want this marriage. But I will endure it. I’m sure you’ll tire of me eventually, especially after I become pregnant. I hope you will allow me my love, as long as I play the part of the dutiful wife. And of course, I would be happy for you to keep a mistress.”

  Victor now understood why she had opened with such sound advice for his baijiu company. She had simply been warming him up for the actual request. It was as his father once told him: everything in this life is a negotiation. Everything except death.

  However, this was not something he was willing to negotiate.

  “I cannot allow that,” he answered without the slightest pause of consideration. “If you are caught, I am the one who will lose face, no matter how dutifully you act. You are free to do as you please now, but you should wrap up whatever outside business you have before the marriage ceremony. After that, I cannot guarantee the safety of your love.”

  He put extra emphasis on “your love” so that there would be no misunderstanding about what would happen if Nora attempted to continue this relationship of hers.

  Nora’s eyes filled with bitter tears. “I thought that would be your answer. None of you dragons care about your wives or daughters. We’re only pawns for you to move around your chess boards. But I had to try. There was no way I could face her if I didn’t at least try.”

  Victor still did not love disappointing women. Even the ones who preferred other women to him.

  “I wish I had a better answer for you,” he confessed. “But we all must play our part in these games. Not just the wives and daughters. All of us.”

  Nora eyed him curiously. “So you do have someone you love. Just like me. Someone you will have to disappoint.”

  As bad as Victor felt for Nora, revealing his pathetic situation would not make either of them feel any better about their upcoming nuptials. Instead of answering her, he escorted her out of their mansion himself.

  “I’ll be back in town this summer. I’ll see you then?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he answered. “I look forward to it.”

  Then they exchanged a cool kiss on the cheek before he put her in her car, a cute little Porsche 911 that seemed perfect for a mafia princess.

  Nora seemed resigned to her fate by the time she drove away. And Victor found himself grateful that she had shown her true colors much earlier than Dawn did.

  Dawn…

  The image of her hugging that man once again floated through his mind, for what must have been the thousandth time since Wayne had sent him the picture a few weeks ago.

  Asher Peretz. A visiting grad student from Pittsburgh.

  He’d checked her school account directly after the incident and looked over all of their exchanges. But nothing inappropriate had been said. Mostly it was boring back and forth about school assignments.

  There was no reason to be jealous. Dawn was aware of her invisible chains even if this Asher was not. Also, she’d had little to no opportunity to hook up with boys. Wayne dropped her off every morning and picked her up when she was done at school. If something was going on with the visiting grad student who had hugged her, it most likely wasn’t physical.

  But then Victor recalled how hard he himself had fallen for Dawn before the first time they had sex. Really, before they even kissed. Did Asher feel the same way about her? Did she return his feelings?

  An itch to check the security cameras came on even stronger than before. He even brought his phone out. But no…

  Victor couldn’t destroy his progress. He hadn’t checked the feeds since his engagement meeting with Nora. And he needed to ensure he was wholly broken of that terrible habit before the wedding.

  It was only four more months now. He could make it until then.

  However, the phone erupted with a FaceTime call just as he was about to re-pocket it. Victor frowned when he saw the name on the caller ID.

  It was from Wayne.

  What could he want? And why would he be calling him on FaceTime?

  The answer to that question was, he wouldn’t.

  Dawn appeared on the screen when he answered the call, not Wayne.

  And she looked like she had been crying.

  Victor’s heart stopped. Had someone hurt her? That old protectiveness, which he still couldn’t control, surged inside of him.

  As if in answer to his unspoken question, she said, “I stole the day guard’s phone. I wouldn’t have done that if it wasn’t important—and if his password wasn’t 123456—but mostly, it was important. It’s my mom, Victor. They found something on this liver biopsy she didn’t tell Byron she had to get until today. Something cancerous. And now they have to do surgery to cut it out.”

  Dawn let out a shaky breath. “But she can’t get in touch with my dad, and Byron has some important thing this weekend. That leaves just me. I have to go to her. So I’m calling to ask permission…I need permission to fly down to Texas to be with my mom.”

  19

  DAWN

  He said no. I begged him. I pleaded with Victor to let me fly to Texas so that I could at least be there for my mom during her surgery on Sunday. But after only a moment of pause, he signed over FaceTime, “You cannot leave Rhode Island without permission from me.”

  Then the picture blinked out before I could answer that I had only tricked the day guard into believing that there was a raccoon loose in the kitchen so that he’d abandoned his phone and I could call Victor to ask for his stupid-ass permission.

  But he hadn’t given it. He’d hung up on me. Just hung up.

  And the day guard returned from not finding that fake raccoon before I could hit the redial option.

  “Try something like that again, and I’ll put a real raccoon in the bed with you the next time you sleep,” he threatened before snatching back his phone.

  Hate is a strong word. But have I mentioned how much I hate the day guard?

  Seriously, the only person I despise more is Victor.

  Victor, who would do God knows what when he found out I had snuck out.

  But I had to take the chance. I had to get to my mom.

  I remember all the words that came up during my conversation with Byron… biopsy…partial hepatectomy…and liver cancer.

  She had never called to talk to either of us about a personal problem or a health issue before, not even when things between her and me had been good. She must have been so scared if she did so with Byron. Not for the first time, I wondered how my father could’ve done that to her. Left her all alone in a house far away from her children while he went off to do God knew what.

  But who was I to talk? The only thing worse than my mother’s set up with my father was mine with Victor. Both our marriages left a lot to be desired.

  I had to go to her, but I knew I didn’t stand a chance of getting out past the day guard. Especially now that he was pissed off about m
y phone con.

  When I gave him a shopping list in hopes of getting him to leave me alone at the house so I could sneak out, he just snatched it from me and said, “You’ve got plenty of food in the fridge. This can wait till tomorrow.”

  Ugh!

  But I reset. I figured my best opportunity would come with the switching of the guard. I could pretend I was asleep when the night guard arrived, then sneak out when they thought I was tucked into bed.

  So I laid low after the failure of Operation Shopping List. I did my part of the homework for my Advanced Character Design group assignment. I also squeezed in some pre-work on a few assignments that would be due on Monday. And when dinnertime rolled around, I ordered takeout just like I always did. Not that I was hungry. Homework, TV, eating, putting my braids up in an oversized sleep cap—it was excruciating to go through the usual routines. How could I do everyday stuff when my mom was in Texas, probably freaking out.

  But eventually, night came along with the opportunity to sneak out.

  I grabbed my official phone and texted someone from my project group. “Know I said I’d get those character sketches to you tonight, but I’m tired and worried this won’t be my best work. I’ll come back at them fresh tomorrow morning and get them to you then.”

  The truth was, I’d finished the project earlier that afternoon. But I knew Victor monitored my phone, and this was the perfect cover story for me going to bed way earlier than usual. I probably would send the renderings bright and early tomorrow.

  I’d just be at the airport.

  After sending that text, I went upstairs and grabbed my old undergrad backpack, so that I could fill it with the few things I’d need to go to Texas.

  An old memory from fifteen years ago hit me like a Mack truck.

  I remembered packing just like this, my heart bouncing like a basketball inside my chest as I prepared to run away from home to be with Victor.

  Regret soured my stomach in the present. What would have happened if I had stayed in our apartment that night? If I had taken my father’s punishment without question as I had for the eighteen years before that moment? It would all be so different now.

  But I shook the thoughts away. No time… No time for bitterness and regret. I had to get out of here.

  The master bedroom was right above the carport. So even though I was pretending to be asleep, I knew exactly when the time arrived to make my escape.

  The buzz and electric rattle of the gate opening told me that the night guard had arrived. I held still while I listened to the voices below exchange a few lines in Cantonese. Just a few short lines. Good. Maybe the day guard wasn’t a total tattletale about what happened earlier.

  Soon after that short discussion, there came the electric clamor of the gate opening again, along with the sound of a car backing out. The day guard leaving for the night.

  Okay, this was my chance. I’d tiptoe downstairs and sneak out through the back door, then around the left side of the house while the two Audis were do-si-doing on the right side.

  I quietly slipped out of bed and grabbed my backpack.

  But then, just as I began to head toward the door, a click sounded in the dark, right before the whole room flooded with light.

  I looked toward the door and froze.

  Victor. Victor was standing there.

  I stared at him. And he stared at me, his shrewd gaze so obviously putting together that I was about to sneak out.

  I braced, not sure what he would do. Threaten me for sure. Maybe even worse. He could not only keep me from seeing my mother but also make me submit to one of his punishments.

  If he truly wanted to break me, that would be the perfect tactic.

  The silence stretched on for what felt like centuries.

  Then he raised his hands to sign, “You’ve already packed. Good. We leave for Texas in the morning.”

  Part IV

  Dawn’s Husband!

  20

  VICTOR

  This was about punishment. That was what Victor told himself as he and Dawn climbed out of the car that had driven them from the airport to a non-descript house in Plano, Texas.

  There was no other plausible explanation. The chance to expose the marriage Dawn had gone out of her way to keep secret had to be the reason. It was the only way to explain why he not only reversed his decision about her going to Texas but also paid for a private plane ride into a small airfield in nearby McKinney that morning.

  They found her mother outside the house, gardening of all things. She was trimming back the flowering bushes below the house’s porch and didn’t appear to have heard them pull up.

  Gyeong Kingston.

  Victor had never actually seen her before. Back in Japan, Gyeong had simply been a character in Dawn’s many stories of family life. Back then, he’d known her as the woman who’d set Dawn’s strict bedtime and study schedule. Before their marriage, Gyeong had merely been a name on a list of people Victor could use as leverage against Dawn. And after he revealed that Dawn wasn’t attending med school, her mother had become a series of strident emails and texts…before eventually going quiet.

  But as they walked up the sidewalk, she became more and more real to Victor.

  Perhaps to Dawn, too. She’d been so determined to get here, yet her steps slowed as they approached Gyeong from behind. It appeared she was reluctant to alert her mother to their presence.

  Most likely, Victor had something to do with that.

  Dawn had been grateful for the ride—not so much for his announcement that he would be tagging along.

  “How am I supposed to explain you to my mom?” she’d asked early that morning before they boarded the plane. “The woman’s a guilt-tripping genius. Do you have any idea how bad it will be for me when she sees you?”

  “I don’t care,” he’d answered.

  That had been a lie. He did care, but not for the reasons Dawn thought.

  In order for him to feel okay about his concession, he’d had to make it part of his ultimate revenge.

  Dawn had managed to keep him secret for years. That ended today. Her mother would turn around to see him, the Chinese boy she had never wanted Dawn to tutor. Then she’d recoil in horror at how far her daughter had sunk. She might even yell and scream at Dawn for daring to bring a Chinese hoodlum to her door.

  This forced meeting would be even more satisfying than when he’d outed Dawn to her family nine years ago. And her mother’s upset would make up for any confusion he felt about not only allowing Dawn to leave Rhode Island but also escorting her all the way to Texas.

  He braced himself, more than ready for this confrontation.

  However, her mother didn’t turn around as they came up the sidewalk. Not even when they stopped right behind her and Dawn called out, “Mom. Mom!”

  Eventually, Dawn resorted to touching her mother’s shoulder, which made her mother jump and nearly drop her pruning shears before whipping around to see who had scared her.

  Gyeong Kingston was both smaller and more delicate than Victor expected. She was a couple of inches shorter than Dawn, with long black hair that she wore tied back in a loose braid. He now understood Dawn’s story about how her father insisted on calling her mom Doll. If you put an Instagram filter over the fine lines around her eyes and mouth and perhaps added an eyelid surgery, she would look exactly like a doll you’d find in a package.

  She gasped when she saw the daughter she hadn’t spoken to in nine years standing there.

  “Dawn?” she said, her mouth falling open with utter shock…right before her expression softened, and she threw her arms around her daughter. To both Victor’s and Dawn’s shock.

  “Dawn! Why didn’t you tell me you are coming down here to see me?” she demanded, drawing back to sign and speak at the same time.

  Her warm brown eyes so similar to Dawn’s landed on Victor. “And who is this man in a suit that you’ve brought with you?”

  “I tried to call you, but you never answered,�
�� Dawn told her, ignoring the second question.

  “Oh. I didn’t check my phone this morning!” Her mother waved a dismissive hand as if the technology everyone else considered essential was completely optional for her. Then she lamented, “No one ever calls me except for your brother and the doctors anyway, so what’s the point? That’s why you scared me half to death when you showed up here without any warning whatsoever.”

  Victor found himself suppressing a smile. Dawn had been right about her mother’s facility with guilt trips. She’d slipped that one in with seemingly no effort.

  “I shouldn’t have scared you,” Dawn replied. “I was calling your name before I tapped you on the shoulder. But you didn’t hear me. What’s going on with your implant?”

  Her mother huffed. “Oh, that silly ear of mine!”

  After a moment of confusion, Victor realized that “ear” must be how she referred to the cochlear implant she received shortly after returning to America.

  “Earlier this week, I accidentally got in the shower without taking the external processor off, and it shorted out! Can you believe that?” Her mother spoke-signed to Dawn.

  “What?” Dawn’s eyes widened with worry. “Mom, how are you going to get through surgery without being able to hear what everyone is say—”

  “What is this?” Gyeong seized Dawn’s left hand, cutting her daughter off. “You got married and didn’t tell me?”

  “We weren’t exactly talking,” Dawn started to say with an embarrassed grimace.

  She might as well have not wasted her breath.

  “You got married and you didn’t tell Byron to tell me,” her mother amended.

  Before Dawn could answer, Gyeong’s accusing gaze dropped to Victor’s hand with the laser focus of an Asian mother who thought her daughter was entirely on the shelf. “You got married to a Korean boy without telling me?”