Serpent King's Bride: A Dark Mafia Romance Trilogy

“Go on,” he said, his voice low.

“By feeding the FBI details, we can help them help us—help you—in rooting out the rat in your operation.”

“So you’d go there and double cross Agent Hayes?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “I’d just do my job. Get the info we need. Keep my head down so nothing comes down on either one of us.”

He considered this for a long quiet second.

“Abby,” Nathan’s voice cut through the tense silence, “you’d better not fuck me over with this.”

The threat in his tone sent a shiver down my spine—not of fear, but of anticipation. “I won’t, Nathan. I promise.” I reached out, my fingers brushing against his arm in a gesture meant to comfort, to connect.

But he recoiled, jerking his hand away as if my touch burned him. His black eyes were hard as obsidian, unreadable and cold. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

The sting of rejection pulsed through me, but I swallowed it down. I cleared my throat, looking ahead, at traffic.

“Is Justin okay?” I asked, hoping for some normalcy in our conversation.

“What kind of question is that? Obviously not,” he shot back, his voice sharp. “Justin just put himself right in Ba’s crosshairs.”

“What do you mean?” I pressed further, needing to understand the gravity of what was unfolding within the Zhou family. I got it; some of it, anyway, but I needed to hear it from Nathan.

“Ba might preach about family being everything, how we protect our own at all costs,” Nathan began, his tone laced with something dark and bitter, “but let me tell you, Abby, he’s never been shy about hurting us when it serves his purpose.”

I remained silent, digesting his words.

The shadow that loomed over Nathan was starting to take shape in my mind, and his name was Kenny Zhou.

As we approached his apartment, the atmosphere inside the car thickened. I turned to Nathan and asked gently, “Do you want to talk about it?”

He didn’t respond immediately, parking the car with a precise maneuver that seemed second nature to him as he slid into the garage beside the Mercedes. After a moment that felt like an eternity, Nathan finally turned to face me. His brown eyes drilled into mine.

“Listen to me,” he said, his voice low and steady, “all you need to know is that Kenny Zhou is an exceptionally dangerous man.”

I opened my mouth to ask for more details, but he kept going.

“I’m serious, Abby,” he said. “He’s not to be trusted—under any circumstances. Not with Justin, not with Derek, and certainly not with you.”

“But…but why?” I asked, partially because I needed to know as an FBI agent, but also because I did want him to unburden himself. “You said he would do anything for the family. Tell me about him, Nathan.”

Nathan’s lips parted as if he would spill all the horrors of his world to me, but then he seemed to think better of it. “You don’t want to know,” he finally murmured, his voice almost lost to the hum of the idling engine. “You don’t want to know the things my father does to women.”

“Maybe I need to know,” I countered, my voice steady despite the tremor I felt within. “Maybe I can handle more than you think.”

But he just shook his head again, a grim set to his jaw. “Some things,” he said, “are better left in the dark.”

A cold understanding began to form in my mind, but I pushed against it. “I’m not afraid of the dark, Nathan.”

He looked at me, quiet, unwavering. “Yes,” he said. “Well, maybe you should be.”

Chapter Twenty: Nathan

Iwanted that to be the end of it…but she just kept pushing.

Just like always.

“Talk to me, Nathan. Please.” Her plea followed me into the warmth of the living room, but it did nothing to thaw the ice inside me.