I could barely pay attention in my Advanced Character Design seminar after that. Maybe I should ditch the rest of today’s classes, I thought as I walked out of the classroom. I could pick up an order of Chicken Gang Jeong and Seoul Beef Soup from my favorite Korean restaurant and maybe catch up on all those watching assignments for my World Animation History elective.
The buzz of my secret phone interrupted those thoughts. I fished it out of my Aggretsuko tote and found it lit up with Byron’s number.
I frowned. Byron never called me. I was always the one who called him.
“Hey Ronny, is everything okay?” I asked as soon as I picked up.
In my heart dropped when he answered, “No, everything’s not okay. It’s mom.”
18
VICTOR
In his study, Victor was sitting behind his desk when one of his men knocked on the door and walked in with an announcement. “Excuse me, Boss. There’s a woman here to see you. She said her name is Nora Kuang.”
Victor never used sign language with anyone in their triad, save for Han and Phantom. But neither of them were here now. Phantom was handling some “personal business, don’t ask” in New York. And Han had returned to Hawaii for a second time to finish cleaning up a mess the 24K had made. Han hadn’t been happy about the assignment when Kuang first sent him down to Oahu the previous summer. It involved the fallout from a sex trafficking ring bust, the one place where Han drew the line.
But Kuang had called it a special favor, and an alliance was an alliance. Kuang knew how they felt about that business. And he wouldn’t have asked Han to do this if it wasn’t important. So Han was now taking care of Kuang’s issue in Hawaii.
That meant Victor could only communicate with his men through text messages and notes, which he wrote out on a notepad app these days as opposed to scratch paper.
Victor pulled out his phone and typed into the notepad app, “Send her in.”
A few moments later, Nora Kuang came through the door. She’d worn a pretty dress when they’d met a few weeks ago. And she was still just as beautiful, but she was dressed much more casually in jeans and a bright graphic T paired with a blazer.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Victor asked, standing to greet her.
“Oh, I was just in the neighborhood visiting one of my friends,” she answered. “An American pop star. Baba told me you lived in the same neighborhood, so I decided to swing by.”
Victor almost asked which pop star. When they first bought a house down here, Westerhaven had been dotted with mostly family estates. But since then, more celebrities had decided to make it their home.
However, he had a feeling Nora hadn’t come here to exchange celebrity gossip.
“Can my man get you anything to drink?” he asked before motioning for her to sit in one of his desk chairs.
“No, thank you,” she answered, taking the seat he’d proffered with a demure smile.
Victor dismissed the man who had escorted her up to his study.
But as soon as the door closed behind him, Nora said, “Actually, I will take something to drink. Perhaps some of that whiskey in the decanter behind you.”
Inwardly, Victor lifted an eyebrow. He inhabited a world filled with power plays. So he had to wonder if she had purposely waited until his man left to ask for a drink. Perhaps she wanted to see if her future husband was willing to serve her.
He wasn’t.
But there was no need to argue that point. At least not before the wedding.
He stood up and poured two fingers of whiskey into crystal tumblers. One for each of them.
He handed it to her then settled behind his desk, waiting for her to talk.
She took the glass but immediately set it aside to excitedly sign, “I had an idea I wanted to share with you. That baijiu company you bought…my American pop star friend was really curious about it as she has been looking for partnership opportunities that will help her increase her fan base in China. I don’t know if you have any interest at all in becoming a legitimate business. But if you did, I believe that brand, if marketed right, could be worth billions—real billions, not washed billions.”
Victor tilted his head. This was not the discussion he thought they would be having when she sat down. But he couldn’t say he disliked the topic. The Rustanovs were rumored to be trillionaires now. And that was because, under the leadership of Alexei Rustanov, they’d become a legitimate operation at just the right moment in history. Could this be their moment?
“Tell me more,” he invited Nora after a few moments of consideration.
“Sure. All you would have to do is…” Nora launched into a concise explanation of how to grow their baijiu business from Asian-only markets to trending ones in America. Then she concluded with, “I honestly think this could be the next big thing.”
Having never attended university, Victor tended to do business as his father had. With his gut. He liked that Kuang was the same.
But Nora had studied these things formally, and her ideas held merit.
“I will talk this over with my Silent Triad partners and perhaps your father as well. It seems like it could be a great way forward into the future. And perhaps he would like to come on as an investor.”
A pleased smile spread across her elegant face. “Truly? You would talk to my father about this?”
“You seem surprised.”
She dipped her head, her expression a bit sheepish. “My father never listens when I share my ideas. He thinks I’m still a little girl. The same spoiled brat who used to only care about shopping and high school.”
So she resented her father. Victor tucked that new piece of information away before signing, “Thank you for showing me that his assessment of you is obviously not true.”
Still, she shook her head. “It would be better for you to claim this idea as your own. He might dismiss it outright if he hears it comes from me.”
“We’ll see,” Victor answered. “I’m good at reading the room. I will decide for myself which way to go the next time I meet with your father. Thank you for your good advice either way.”
A silence settled between them. At first comfortable and warm. But then slightly awkward.
She picked up the whiskey and finally took a sip before asking Victor out loud, “Is it okay if I don’t use sign language this time? The truth is, I’m only so-so at it. And I want to make sure I’m fully understood.”
Victor disagreed with her assessment of her signing skills. Like him, she took great care to ensure that her signs were crisp and precise.
But he held back his thoughts on the matter. He was more curious about what she’d truly come here to talk about than eager to compliment her.
She took another sip of whiskey. Then a deep breath before saying, “I have been informally engaged to you since I was in secondary school. I never even bothered with boyfriends. I told Baba, ‘What’s the point? You’ve already picked my husband.’ I wonder, though, if perhaps it hasn’t been the same for you.”
Victor stilled, his chest chilling over with the feeling of having been caught doing something he shouldn’t. “What do you mean?”
“Is there someone that you must explain our engagement to?” she asked. “Someone that you love?”