But Darrell’s revelation had thrust him unceremoniously out of the past and into the present.
And the present—to borrow a word from his American-born cousin Phantom—sucks.
But this is only temporary, Victor reminds himself.
Fighting back the encroaching sea of remorse and regrets, he slips on his wedding ring and puts himself through his usual morning workout. Adding extra reps to his strength training to make it much more brutal.
You can fix this, you can fix this, you can fix this! Victor chants inside his mind as he hits and kicks a punching bag with weights strapped around his ankles and wrists.
You can fix this, you can fix this, you can fix this! He makes that vow to himself as he showers and gets dressed. It would be like that game of hers he refused to play nine years ago. Operation Good as New. But this time, it would work. He’d restore them to how they were in Japan. Before….
Before he ruined everything with ten unnecessary years of punishment.
He looks at the guy in the mirror. The one who has dark circles under his eyes from another piss poor night of sleep…and missing the woman he pushed away so many times.
You have to fix this, he tells that guy before making his way downstairs. The alternative, letting her go? He can’t even bear to think about that.
Luckily, Han was able to arrange a meeting with Luca Ferraro for today. And this meeting will be the first step to getting Dawn back. Victor ruthlessly focuses on that as he charges down the stairs to the dining room where their in-home chef has set up the usual breakfast buffet for Victor, Han, Phantom, and any staff and Silent Triad members who happened to be on the premises. However, it was an unspoken rule that only the three dragonheads were allowed to avail themselves of the buffet before 9 AM.
Phantom is already at the table when Victor arrives, eating one of those massive breakfasts favored by Americans.
“Hey, cuz, what’s up?” Phantom says through a pancake-stuffed mouth after Victor joins him with his own relatively light breakfast. Just a bowl of congee and some milk tea.
Not for the first time since Han arranged the meeting with Luca, Victor wonders if Phantom is up for the job of acting as his translator at this crucial event.
Of course, Victor would prefer his chosen brother. But, unfortunately, Han still hasn’t returned from Hawaii.
Han agreed to come back to Rhode Island after the fallout with Kuang. But then, just a few days later, he called Victor and Phantom on a group FaceTime to say that he was “working a plan” which he couldn’t talk about over the phone and needed more time in the Aloha State.
That call took place over two months ago, back in the spring. Now it was nearly halfway through the summer.
Has it really been over six weeks since Victor saw Dawn in any way, shape, or form? This is the longest he’s gone in fifteen years without knowing exactly where she was at any given hour of the day or having access to her whenever he wanted—though he’d gone out of his way to avoid using that easy access over the last ten years.
What a fool he’d been.
A hollow, lost feeling sweeps through him. A little boy crying in a tiny room. But he’s not that little boy anymore, he reminds himself.
He can fix this. I will fix this.
“Are you ready for the meeting?” he asks Phantom instead of returning his cousin’s greeting.
Phantom once again doesn’t bother to finish chewing before answering.
“As ready as I can be, considering that we’re walking into this shit on Ferraro’s turf with zero intel. For all you know, these Italian bitches will gun us down as soon as we walk in.” He spears another bite of pancake, this time adding a slice of bacon and some scrambled eggs on top of it. Perhaps he is challenging himself to see just how much food he could stuff into his mouth before becoming completely incomprehensible?
“No weapons allowed,” Victor reminds him. Not to reassure his cousin, but because he knows Phantom will try to sneak something in any way if he isn’t given a direct order.
His cousin throws him a severely grumpy look before asking, “What happened to letting this chick go on May 26th?”
Victor answers Phantom as he plans to answer Dawn. “She left before fulfilling her part of our agreement. So now her let go date is very much up in the air.”
“You know you sound like a psycho, right?” Phantom asks.
Yes, Victor does know that.
But after six weeks without Dawn, he can’t bring himself to care.
Less than an hour after breakfast, Phantom and Victor arrive at Luca’s warehouse on the Jersey side of the Hudson River. It’s a large red brick building with casement windows and a sign painted on the front that declares it the home of Ferraro Disaster Management.