Lib Novel Page 97
The tea room, with its delicate porcelain and whispers of steam, felt too small all of a sudden. The implications of what she wasn’t saying spiraled in my mind.
“Abby.” Her voice brought me back from the edge of the precipice my thoughts were teetering on. “We need to be careful. If Kenny ever found out—“
I nodded, my hand trembling slightly as I reached for my own cup of tea. I needed to drink something, but I wished this was a glass of whiskey and not tea. Evelyn’s revelation had opened up a chasm beneath my feet, and I was free-falling into the unknown.
“Is Knuckles…is he Nathan’s father?” The question slipped out in a whisper, betraying the fear of what her answer might entail.
Evelyn’s gaze met mine again, steady and unflinching. “No,” she said firmly, but the single word held volumes of unsaid truths, heavy with the burden of years of secrecy. “But Justin…”
“Justin?”
She nodded. “Kenny was in Hong Kong for most of the time when Justin would have been conceived,” Evelyn continued, her voice a mere whisper that carried the weight of a confession long held at bay. “Vincent is Justin’s father.”
The room seemed to shrink around me, the walls closing in with the gravity of her admission. I could imagine the chaos, the violence that revelation could unleash if Kenny ever discovered the truth. A man like him, the Golden Serpent, would see such a betrayal as a festering wound to his authority, one that demanded the harshest of remedies.
“Then we keep it buried,” I said, my words sounding far braver than I felt. The tea in my cup had gone cold, but I took another sip, needing something to do with my hands, to anchor me to this moment.
“Good,” she said. “That’s what I was hoping to hear.”
As I placed the cup back on the table, a question loomed large between us. “Why are you telling me all this?” My voice sounded steady, despite the tempest of thoughts swirling in my mind.
Evelyn leaned in closer, her expression solemn. “Because secrets have a way of coming to light, and when they do, we need to be ready. We need people we can trust.” Her gaze held mine, unwavering. “I trust you, Abby.”
That was a surprise. It was my turn to watch her, to wait.
“Abby,” she began, her voice low and laced with determination, “I’ve watched you. You’re not just some girl who wandered into our lives by chance. You care for Nathan, don’t you?”
“I love him.”
“And during the Initiation, your eyes…I saw the same hatred for Kenny that burns within me.” The way she spat out Kenny’s name, it was like venom on her tongue. Kenneth Zhou, the Serpent’s Head, her husband and the cause of so much pain.
My heart raced at the mention of that night—the Initiation, where blood oaths were sworn and loyalty to the Golden Serpents was etched in flesh. Where I had glimpsed the depth of corruption and cruelty that Kenny embodied. A shudder ran through me, but it wasn’t fear—it was revulsion.
Evelyn leaned forward, her gaze piercing. “I want your help, Abby. Together, we can take Kenny down.”
For a moment, everything stopped. My breath caught in my throat, and I could feel the weight of her request settling on my shoulders. This was no small favor she was asking. This was a declaration of war—a war that could consume us all if we weren’t careful.
Fear clawed at me, whispering of the dangers that lurked in the shadows. If this was all a ruse, if Evelyn’s intentions were not as they seemed, I could be signing my own death warrant. But looking into her eyes—eyes that held a lifetime of sorrow and strength—I found my resolve.
I reached for the Triad bracelet encircling my wrist, its intricate metalwork cold against my skin. It was a symbol of the life I had infiltrated, a life that was becoming more entangled with my own with each passing day. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself for the words I was about to utter.
“Okay,” I said finally. “So what do you need me to do?”
Chapter Forty-Five: Abby
Stepping out of the cool night, I closed the door behind me with a soft click. My pulse throbbed in my ears, a relentless drumbeat that mirrored the chaos churning inside me. Evelyn’s words were like shards of glass in my mind, jagged and impossible to handle without getting cut. I’d left her place with a heavy heart, the weight of secrets threatening to split me open.
She wanted me to deliver this news to Nathan…and to ask him to keep everything calm while she put the pieces in place to replace Kenny with Vincent Chen.
How the hell was I going to make this happen?
“Hey, Nathan?” I called out as I dropped my keys onto the entryway table, the sound echoing off the walls, unanswered. The house was silent, unsettlingly so.
Fuck.
I checked the kitchen first, where the pots still sat on the stove from our rushed dinner earlier, the remnants of spaghetti clinging to the sides. Nothing. Next, the living room—his favorite leather chair empty, the TV dark. The stillness pressed in around me, amplifying my worry.
“Nathan?” My voice was louder this time, edged with anxiety, but it was met with only more silence. I moved through the rooms, each one as deserted as the last until I spotted the open balcony door, the sheer curtains fluttering like ghostly fingers beckoning me forward.