Anime Guy didn't straight up laugh at me, but he looked like he was thinking about it.
"No, I am Han," he answered. Then he waved a hand toward Danger. "This is Victor."
My heart dropped all the way to my feet.
A Chinese boy, my father had called him.
But none of the boys I knew had muscles. As mean as Jake and his buddies had been to Byron, none of them could fight like that. And none of them had ever looked at me in a way that froze me in place because my body couldn't decide whether to throw up or run away screaming.
"Hi, I'm Dawn," I somehow managed to squeak out to Victor in Japanese anyway.
The not-a-boy at all signed something back, but I didn't understand.
"He's saying you can speak English," Han translated for me. "He doesn't talk, but he can understand it."
So he wasn't deaf after all. Either that, or he was really good at reading lips.
I swallowed, trying to get some water into my throat.
"Oh, okay. Nice to meet you, Victor," I eventually managed to lie. I was all sorts of self-conscious even though I didn't have to struggle through English the same way I did with Japanese.
There came a long, intense moment of silence. Then Victor raised his hands to sign some more words I didn't understand.
But his signs weren’t directed at me, as it turned out. As soon as Victor lowered his hands, his friend and his teacher started to clear out.
"It was nice to meet you," Han said in English as he grabbed his stuff and headed for the door. Maybe it was his accent, but it sounded like he was mocking me.
In any case, he disappeared out the door before I could say anything in return. The teacher didn't even bother with goodbyes. Just bounced.
And then suddenly it was only Victor and me.
Him, silent and looming. Me, frozen and afraid.
My dad had been wrong.
Victor wasn't a boy.
He was something else entirely.
And now…
Now, I was all alone with him.
2
VICTOR
This was a mistake.
Victor realized that almost as soon as Han and his martial arts teacher left him alone with his specially ordered tutor. The girl who’d introduced herself as Dawn seemed unable to unglue her eyes from the floor. He didn’t believe it was due to deference.
He'd been anticipating this meeting all day. He'd even pushed back his regular sparring session with Han to happen right before it. He’d hoped to tire himself out so as not to appear overly eager when she arrived.
But now, doubt, a feeling he was most unfamiliar with, began to creep in…along with a chill from the sweat he’d broken during his ill-advised pre-tutoring workout.
She had appeared so relaxed and natural when he’d first seen her on the dance floor of one of the clubs his triad owned in the Roppongi district.
The fact that she was both rounder and browner than most of the other women in the club had been enough to draw his attention from the VIP balcony. She had long curly black hair that ran wild down her back without rhyme or reason, like hanging foliage that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be ivy or flowers or both. Her outfit was overly practical in the way of American tourists. A swing top and jeans paired with brightly colored sneakers. Her shirt was loose at the bottom but clung to her large breasts as she danced.
At first, he’d merely watched her, absently wondering what it would be like to fuck someone who looked such the opposite any woman he’d had before.
But when she’d started signing with her dance partner, he’d become transfixed. And oddly jealous—even though boyfriend obstacles were easily cleared with money or violence. Or both.
Was the tall boy she was dancing with her boyfriend? No, he decided upon closer look. He was tall and thin, while she was short and wide, but other than that, they’d looked very much alike. Their skin was the same shade of light brown, and they both had wide but slightly upturned eyes—perhaps one of their parents was Asian? They also had matching smiles, happy and breezy.
Neither of them looked old enough to be in this club. Yet, they didn’t seem concerned about drawing too much attention to themselves as they enthusiastically danced to an American rap song, encouraging everyone in the club to get tipsy. Then, as if the track had given them ideas, they’d headed toward one of the club’s three downstairs bars.
Victor was supposed to be pretending to care about whatever business his father was discussing with the Nakamura-gumi crime syndicate leader. But he’d risen from his seat to track her progress, unable to stop watching the girl who shouldn’t have been in their club.
Her hands flew as she and her brother waited in line, and she kept on bubbling over with laughter. Real, wide-mouthed laughter. She didn’t cover up her joy with a hand like so many girls in Japan did.
It had killed him that he couldn’t comprehend her version of sign language. He’d never in his life wanted to understand someone more.
“Do you wish to have her?”
The inquiry came in from his left, like a wind whispering secret desires.
Victor unglued his eyes from the girl to find his father regarding him with an amused look.
In the background, Daizo Nakamura and his syndicate members were making moves to leave. All the bottles of champagne they’d ordered now sat on their sides, emptied of their intoxicating wares. And the girls the triad had arranged to entertain them all during their meeting had been transferred to arms for later assignations at nearby love hotels.
Nakamura’s showy “face guard” was already at the stairs, scanning for possible enemies to assure his bosses’ safety. He was a large black man with no visible tattoos, and he’d towered over everyone else on the VIP balcony.
An unorthodox choice for the head of one of Japan’s oldest syndicate’s to be sure, but Victor
