Seven months after Victor’s ninth failure, Kuang invited him to his mansion overlooking Gramercy Park for what the Chinese called the White New Year’s. He was pleased, Kuang told him that January 1st, more than pleased with their partnership. And he was impressed that The Silent Triad had managed to establish themselves as a global organization, with corporations and snakeheads operating out of six of the seven continents in such a short time.

“If I do not watch out, you will soon become more powerful than even the 24K.”

Though he said this in a jovial tone, his eyes were direct and sharp.

“I would like to offer you my daughter. She is in her final year of business school, and I’ve told her she can delay no longer. She had some wild years in her youth. But she has calmed down now. She is very intelligent. I assure you, and she will make for a gentle and beautiful wife. I am hoping that after you two meet, we might plan a wedding for next fall.”

Victor thought about Kuang’s words and the implications of his offer.

Then for the first time in nearly a decade of partnership, Victor raised his hands to say the only thing he had ever directly signed to Kuang.

Han translated after he was finished: “Next fall will be perfect. And I will be ready.

15

DAWN

“I’m sorry, Dawn, but I can’t make any changes to the schedule,” Jacoby Pirelli, the director of the Animation MFA program, told me from behind his super avant-garde desk made entirely out of wires. “As I said at the beginning of the school year, I have sole discretion in picking the thesis presentation dates, and they are all set in stone.”

Yes, he had said that at the beginning of the year. And I’d hoped and prayed all of the first semester that I wouldn’t draw the May 25th slot. But here we were at the beginning of my last semester of grad school, prayers unanswered. Ugh!

I swallowed to clear the way for the colossal whopper I was about to tell. “But that’s my parents’ wedding anniversary. And we already planned a huge party.”

Jacoby lifted his silver eyebrows which somehow managed to be razor thin and bushy at the same time. “Wow, you are a very dedicated daughter. I’m truly impressed. If I remember correctly, you also threw them a very special anniversary party last year. According to the notes left by the head of the Experimental Animation program, that was why you weren’t able to make it to the Group B grad thesis showcase, even though all second years were required to attend.”

My stomach twisted with guilt. But I pressed past it to say, “After all my parents have done for me, it’s the least I could do.”