Serpent King's Bride: A Dark Mafia Romance Trilogy

But whatever it was for, when he slammed the door behind himself, it sounded like a gunshot.

And for a second, when I looked at The Golden Serpent’s face, it looked like it might as well have been.

Chapter Nineteen: Abby

Nathan was afraid.

I hadn’t ever seen him afraid, but he was afraid then; rushing me out, making excuses about early appointments. Soon, we were in his car speeding back toward his apartment. The night had thrown its thick blanket over San Francisco, but the tension inside the car felt heavier than any darkness outside. I watched him from my peripheral view, the lines of his usually unreadable face furrowed in a rare display of distress. His hands gripped the steering wheel with an intensity that matched the chaos of the evening.

I hated it, the silence between us. It was like a wall I couldn’t climb or break down, no matter how much I wanted to reach him. I supposed I deserved it, but right then, I was watching the shadows swallow him whole.

And all I could feel was dread.

I leaned my head back against the seatrest, closing my eyes as I tried to fight back a headache. It had gotten worse and worse during the fight and now my head was pounding, my ears ringing.

“Your boss was right. Matthews was dirty,” Nathan said abruptly.

My head snapped toward him. “What?” The single word came out more as a gasp than a question.

Nathan didn’t look at me, his eyes focused on the road ahead, but I could see the muscles in his jaw working, a sure sign that he was grinding his teeth.

“Matthews. He was dirty. Taking bribes, dealing on the side. Working for the Serpents.”

A heavy pause hung between us, filled with the weight of what he’d just revealed. Part of me wanted to demand details, to dig into the how and why of it all, but another part—the part that was slowly but surely falling for this complicated, dangerous man—wanted to comfort him, to brush away the troubles lining his handsome face.

“Okay,” I finally said, my voice steadier than I felt. “Okay. We can deal with that. Does Kenny know about what happened to him?”

Nathan’s gaze stayed locked on the darkened street ahead, headlights from passing cars briefly illuminating his profile, casting shadows across the stark lines of his jaw. “My father,” he corrected me with a tightness in his tone, “believes Tyler’s just missing. He doesn’t know he’s dead.”

“Doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know?” The question slipped out before I could stop it, and I winced inwardly at my own boldness.

Nathan’s laugh was humorless, a short, sharp exhale through his nose. “With Kenny, it’s hard to tell what he wants to believe.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Ba said they lost a valuable asset in the FBI. Dirty agents don’t come often, so after that, it was a simple process of elimination.”

I mulled that over, biting the inside of my cheek as I considered the implications. There was every chance Tyler had told his father about me, although I guessed I would already be dead if he had. Maybe that was why he’d come straight to Nathan’s house–to get rid of me without drawing attention to himself for fucking up so very badly.

Fuck, I had to tell him about Diane now. There had to be a way we could make this work for us.

“The call I got earlier,” I began, watching as his jaw clenched ever so slightly, “it was from Diane Hayes at the FBI.”

He shot me a look, sharp and penetrating, before turning his attention back to the road. “You took a call from the feds while you were at my parents’ house?”

“Well, Nathan, I am an FBI agent. That’s not something I can just turn off because of where I am or who I’m with,“ I reminded him, my tone even. “And if I don’t answer my phone, people come looking for me…and then they end up in the composter.”

“What did she want?”

“To meet,” I said. “She said we needed to have an in-person meeting.”

“Great,” he said, his voice growling with annoyance. “Another fucking thing to worry about. You have to go.”

“I know, but maybe this could be good for us.”

He looked at me, his brows knitted. “What?”

I shifted in my seat, clutching the leather strap of my bag like a lifeline as I mustered up the courage for what I was about to propose. “There might be a way to get more information on the fires…maybe even figure out who’s responsible.”