Serpent King's Bride: A Dark Mafia Romance Trilogy

…but Lily’s name didn’t flash across the screen this time.

It was Ma.

And that was so, so much worse.

“Hello?” I answered immediately, worry gnawing at my insides.

I told myself she was just calling to see if Abby had broken the news to me about the affair, the fires…that she was fine.

But then I heard a loud crash, and I knew she wasn’t fine at all.

“Ma?” I asked, my voice betraying my fear. The line crackled with her sobs.

“Nathan, you have to protect Justin. Your father, he knows everything,” she gasped between cries. “Please, go to him.”

“Ma, what’s going on? Are you safe?” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, but it was like trying to smooth ripples on water.

“Your father is…he’s coming for—“ Her sentence was cut off by sounds that didn’t belong on a phone call: a loud bang, a scream that twisted my guts into knots.

“Ma!” I shouted into the phone, but there was no response—just an ominous silence and then the stark, gut-wrenching beep of the disconnected call.

I pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at it in disbelief, as if it might somehow reanimate and explain itself. My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat screaming urgency and terror.

“God, Nathan, what was that?” Abby’s eyes were wide with concern, her voice steady despite the chaos.

“Is Ma okay?” Justin asked. He had gone pale, his confusion replaced by the kind of fear that paralyzes a man. “Is she…what the hell is going on, Nathan? You’re really fucking scaring me.”

“Ma,” I started, stumbling over the words, “she said Ba knows about…everything.” I couldn’t elaborate, not when every second counted, not when every fiber in my body screamed for me to move, to act. “I have to get to their house. Now.”

I bolted toward the door, my mind a whirlwind of fear and urgency. Abby’s hand shot out, her grip firm on my arm, tethering me for a moment.

“Wait, Nathan, I’m coming with you.”

I shook my head, my voice a low growl of desperate authority. “No, Abby. You need to stay here, keep Justin and Derek safe. Ba could send people for them, too.”

Derek’s voice cut through from the kitchen threshold, laced with confusion. He was standing there in sweats and a t-shirt, holding a tray of coffee cups as if we were at brunch and not the end of everything. “What’s going on?”

“Please,” was all I could muster, my eyes locking with Abby’s, begging her to understand without words. The world had tilted off its axis, and I needed her to be my anchor for them.

She stepped close, and I wondered if she was about to slap me…but then she was kissing me, her lips crashing against mine in a kiss that was equal parts fear, defiance, and promise. She tangled her fingers in my hair and I poured all of myself into that kiss—all the pieces I wanted her to keep if, god forbid, I never made it back.

When she pulled away, her eyes blazed with fierce determination.

“I’ll keep them safe,” she whispered fiercely. “But you better come back to me in one piece, Nathan Zhou.”

I nodded, the weight of her plea anchoring me amidst the storm. And with that, I spun on my heel and darted out the door, the echo of my pounding heart chasing me down the stairs.

Chapter Forty-Eight: Nathan

The engine roared beneath me, a wild beast I barely kept in check. My hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white as bone as the houses blurred past my fevered gaze. This was madness; every logical sinew in my body screamed it, yet here I was, barreling towards what could very well be my own end.

Ma wouldn’t be fed to the wolves—not if I had anything to say about it.

At a solitary red light, the only one I didn’t run in an effort to get to her faster, I snatched those precious seconds. My fingers fumbled with the glove compartment, popping it open to reveal the steel nestled within: a loaded gun, its weight a grim reassurance. I shut the compartment just as the green light gave me leave, and I was off again, racing against fate.

The Zhou residence loomed into view, grandeur tainted by the fleet of black SUVs that infested the driveway like carrion birds. Ba’s backup—his personal legion of shadows, those mysterious guards he’d had stationed all around the den last time I’d been there. He had prepared for this, brought in outsiders with no allegiance to me or my mother…and now he’d chosen to act.

I didn’t know if it was because of my mother’s dinner with Abby; I didn’t know if he’d been listening in, or if he’d figured this out on his own.