Lib Novel Page 36
“Sit,” he said, his voice low and even. His hands clasped together on the desk, a monolith behind the rich mahogany expanse of his desk.
Taking the seat, I felt the weight of his gaze, sharp and assessing. It was the look of a man who played life like a game of Xiangqi, always several moves ahead.
I couldn’t help but wonder if he saw me as an ally on his board or a potential threat to be neutralized.
“Is everything alright, Ba?” I ventured carefully, my mind racing through possibilities, anticipating his next words as if they were the key to a lock I hadn’t known existed.
“I have news,” he said abruptly, and my pulse quickened. My thoughts darted to Abby, wondering if her secret had been unearthed.
“News?” My voice was steady, but inside I was a taut wire, bracing for the reverberations of whatever he was about to divulge.
“An operative we placed within the FBI has gone dark.” His fingers drummed a silent beat on the desk’s polished surface. “It’s been several days with no contact.”
A chill skittered across my skin, though I kept my expression carefully neutral as I processed Ba’s words. Abby’s new handler had mentioned that Tyler may have been compromised…and this was on the edge of a confirmation it was true.
The question was—why hadn’t he told my father about Abby?
“Is there reason to believe he might have been exposed?” I ventured cautiously, probing for signs of any suspicion falling closer to home—closer to Abby.
Ba regarded me with eyes that had seen decades of this clandestine chessboard. “There’s always a risk. But so far, nothing concrete has surfaced.” His voice was even, but it carried a note of warning that resonated through the room.
“Understood,” I replied, already turning over scenarios in my head. There was a delicate balance to maintain, a line to tread carefully. If Ba caught even a whiff of Abby’s true allegiance…
“So what do you want me to do about it?” My voice was steady, betraying none of the turmoil beneath.
“Stay vigilant, Nathan,” he instructed, leaning back in his chair with a heavy sigh. The weight of leadership seemed to press upon him, etching deeper lines into his weathered face. “The Serpents are still under attack, and now we’ve lost our eyes and ears within the FBI. Keep your circle tight, trust no one outside it.”
I nodded once, sharply, the gravity of the situation settling on my shoulders like a lead weight. With a final glance at Ba, whose expression remained impassive and inscrutable, I rose from the chair, ready to rejoin the others and don the guise of dutiful son once more.
The air in the kitchen was thick with the scent of spices and something savory as Ba and I left his office. My father’s words about vigilance clung to me, but as I stepped into the dining area, the knot in my gut loosened just a touch at the sight that greeted me.
Abby was helping with something on the stove, her laughter mingling with Lily’s and Ma’s over some shared joke or memory. The tension that had built up inside me began to ebb away as I watched her. Abby caught my eye between peals of laughter, her smile radiant and infectious. It tugged one out of me, an unbidden curve of my lips that felt foreign yet right.
For a moment, the weight of our secrets and the danger we courted faded into the background.
I remembered I loved her.
“Who’s sitting here?” Ba’s voice cut through the warmth, his finger tapping on the back of an empty chair.
I followed his gaze, about to answer, when the front door swung open, carrying with it a brisk October breeze that seemed to sweep the last vestiges of my ease away. Ba stood to his full height, a signal for silence, as Justin crossed the threshold. Close behind him was a young man with red hair, whose presence set every nerve in my body on alert.
As my father moved to take his seat at the head of the table, I couldn’t rip my gaze from the newcomer who’d dared to follow Justin home.
Not because I was angry at Justin’s companion…but because only a fool would step foot inside this house willingly.
Justin had been an idiot to bring this man.
The air in the dining room grew thick, charged with an unspoken tension that seemed to close around my throat. Ba’s face was a mask of composure, his eyes giving nothing away as Ma breezed past him with a warmth that defied the sudden chill.
“Justin, dear,” she exclaimed, reaching out to hug him. Lily trailed behind Ma, grinning—and it occurred to me that she knew this man. It ached, knowing my younger siblings had a whole life I wasn’t privy to.
“Everyone, this is Derek,” Lily chirped, her voice piercing the silence with an ease that made my chest tighten. She locked eyes with Ba like she anticipated conflict, and I saw her eyes narrow the way they always did when she was ready to provoke the most dangerous man in San Francisco. “Derek is Justin’s boyfriend.”
Chapter Eighteen: Abby
The air in the Zhou family’s sprawling dining room felt tight, like a rope being pulled to its snapping point. I watched as Justin introduced Derek to Nathan, his voice barely above a whisper, and I couldn’t help but notice the stark tension etched into Nathan’s expression. It was a look I had seen before, during late-night calls that left him pacing and riled up; calls that made me think about the kind of life he led.
And when he’d found out the truth about me.