But Dawn grabbed the wrist of his striking arm before he could. She used all of her body weight to pull his arm in the other direction so that it could not go forward again.

“Victor, please!” she pleaded with Victor. “I don’t want anybody dying because of me.”

Dawn’s voice broke through his red haze. She was begging…

Begging for him to let go of the man she really wanted to be with after May 25th.

“I was warned about you before we began this partnership. A former Red Diamond told me that you were brilliant at crime. But stupid when it came to a girl once. So I decided to give you a woman. A beautiful one with an outstanding pedigree and background. My own daughter. But I suppose that American saying is true. ‘You can’t fix stupid.’”

Kuang regarded him from across the table of the very public and well-lit bar Victor had chosen for this conversation.

Phantom shifted in his seat. He was acting as Victor’s translator for this meeting since Han was still in Hawaii. But diplomacy wasn’t his cousin’s strong suit. He looked over at Victor, not sure how he should respond to Kuang’s insult.

Victor simply repeated to Kuang what he’d said at the beginning of their conversation, making signs that Phantom translated in real time: “I cannot go through with this marriage, but our partnership can continue to thrive without it. I will do whatever it takes to ensure that. Simply name your price, and you will have it.”

Kuang dipped his head, seeming to consider Victor’s counter offer. But then he said, “There are consequences for stupid actions. That’s something you must learn. Someone will have to teach you that lesson, once and for all.”

With that not-so-thinly-veiled threat made, Kuang then stood up and left without a further word.

“Well, that went well,” Phantom said in Kuang’s wake. “Guess The Silent Triad wasn’t so great at this buddy-buddy shit after all. Lucky for you, I still excel at fucking up bitches who to try to cross us.”

Victor smiled at his cousin’s coarse-yet-accurate summation of their current situation with Kuang.

“Thank you for your continued loyalty, Hak-kan,” he signed to his cousin with a solemn head bow.

Maybe because Victor so rarely called him by his Cantonese name, Phantom returned the bow. But then he picked up the beer he ordered and grumbled, “Hope she’s worth it.”

“She is,” Victor assured his cousin before signaling for the check.

Yes, things with Kuang would most likely become messy. But choosing Dawn again…it felt right in his chest.