Chapter Fifteen Abby

Iwas waking up.

It should have been a relief.

It wasn't. I had never been more scared in my life.

The pounding in my head was relentless, a drummer gone mad against the inside of my skull. I blinked open my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, the early morning light creeping in through curtains I didn't recognize. My brain felt like it was wrapped in cotton, thoughts emerging sluggish and disjointed as I tried to make sense of where I was.

"Stay down," a deep male voice commanded from somewhere in the room. I…knew who it was, and it sent a shiver down my spine. His voice snapped me back to reality, or at least as much as my concussed mind could muster. I couldn't place the voice, but I knew that I knew it, and there was no mistaking the authority behind it.

I obeyed without thinking, lying flat again as a wave of dizziness threatened to pull me under. The nausea that followed was a sharp reminder of my vulnerability, that whatever happened last night had left me in this state. As I fought off the urge to vomit, fragments of memory started piecing themselves together—a mosaic of horror that I wished I could forget.

I saw it all again: the flower shop's backroom, the stark finality of a lifeless body sprawled on the floor. An unidentified man leaving with some guy as if they hadn't just exited a scene straight out of hell. Then there was Nate—or whoever he really was—covered in crimson, his hands methodically dismembering what once was a person. My breath hitched at the recollection, every detail etched into my mind with sickening clarity.

Abby,I reminded myself silently. Keep it together.

My training at Quantico hadn't prepared me for this—not really. No amount of simulations or case studies could have simulated the cold dread that filled my veins now. I had to stay alert, play it smart if I wanted a chance to get out of this alive. I had to remember who I was—an FBI agent, not just a scared girl in over her head.

Even if I was also that.

Taking a steadying breath, I focused on the present, trying to anchor myself in the now rather than the terrors of last night. I was wearing an oversized t-shirt, not the dress I'd been knocked out in. A minor detail, but one that told me someone had changed my clothes. That someone had cared enough to do that—or maybe it was just a necessity for them.

Maybe it was just a necessity for him.

"Who are you?" I dared to ask, my voice a mix of fear and feigned ignorance, hoping to gain some insight into the man who seemed to hold my life in his hands.

"You know who I am, Abby," he said. He sounded tired.

Right then, his presence came into terrifying sharpness, regardless of my swimming head.

Nathan. The man from the flower shop. The one who I had caught dismembering a body.

He had let me live. I didn't know why, but he had.

I sat up slowly, trying to ease the ache in my head and the way my vision swam. Nathan's gaze was unflinching, his features unreadable. "What do you want from me?" I pressed on, my palms clammy as they gripped the sheets beneath me.

"Your silence," he replied curtly, and I could almost feel the weight of those words pressing down on me, threatening to suffocate me. My heart hammered against my ribcage, a relentless reminder of my fragility in this scenario.

Lying there, trying to appear smaller, less significant, I couldn't help but wonder why I was still breathing. A man like Nathan—who was obviously ruthless—why had he spared me? It didn't add up. I was too smart to believe he'd let me go after whatever I'd stumbled upon. And yet, here I was, not dead but definitely not free.

"Listen, if it's money you want, my fa—" I started, but the sharp look he gave me cut off my words. I knew better than to bring family into this; it was a line I couldn't afford to cross. I needed to keep my dad away from all this shit for as long as possible.

"Money isn't what I need from you," he said flatly, so just negotiating a simple ransom wasn't going to get me anywhere. I knew that it probably wouldn't; if this man was who I thought he was–a Triad operative, someone high up given that the FBI hadn't ID'd him–he was probably one of the richest motherfuckers in all of San Francisco.

"Then what is it?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. Maybe if I understood his motives, I could find a way out of this. Or at least, I could see it coming when my time ran out.

He didn't answer, his silence as ominous as the gun I knew he kept close. I had to assume he was weighing his options, deciding whether I was more valuable to him alive or dead. And as the sun began to rise, casting an eerie glow through the tinted windows of the high-rise apartment we were in, I braced myself for whichever verdict he would deliver. It almost felt like an alternate reality, sitting here with a man who could snap my life like a twig.

"Abby," Nathan's voice cut through the silence, and I focused on him, his casual stance belying the gravity of the situation. "Tell me about last night."

"Last night?" My mind raced back to the flower shop.

"Red Lantern," he prompted, his eyes not leaving mine.

"Ah." A flicker of understanding passed between us, and I clung to my cover story, which I was coming up with on the fly. "I lost my phone and thought I may have left it at work. Went back looking for it. Ended up at the flower shop by accident."

"By accident," he echoed, skepticism etched into every syllable as he pushed away from the wall, the gun still in his hand but pointed down, away from me. For now.

"Yeah. You know I work there, right?" I asked, trying to keep my breathing even. It wasn't easy. There was something unnervingly intimate about the way he watched me, like he could peel back the layers of lies with just a look.

"Bad luck for you then," he said, almost sympathetically. But there was no real warmth there, just a cold calculation, as if he was piecing together a puzzle of his own.

"Seems like it," I agreed, my mouth dry.

We were two players in a game of cat and mouse, and I was acutely aware that I was not the one doing the chasing. The realization was terrifying, but also invigorating. It was a challenge, a dangerous dance on a knife's edge. And despite everything, part of me thrived on it.

You don't become an FBI agent unless you're a little crazy.

"Sleep well?" he asked suddenly, as if we were discussing something mundane over breakfast rather than having a standoff at gunpoint.

"Like a rock," I lied, offering a small, tight smile. The truth was I felt like I'd been hit by a truck–not a truck, just a man built like one–my mind foggy and my body aching from…fuck, had he given me drugs? I didn't think so but I felt so off, he might have.

"Good," Nathan replied, his tone unreadable. He stepped closer, and I fought the urge to recoil. Instead, I held his gaze, refusing to show any weakness.

"Because you'll need your strength," he added, and something about the way he said it suggested he wasn't talking about physical endurance. There was a deeper meaning there, a warning of what was to come.

I swallowed hard, wondering what kind of hell I had woken up to. And more importantly, how I was going to survive it.

I squinted against the early morning light that managed to seep through what I assumed were heavily tinted windows. The fabric of the unfamiliar white shirt I found myself in brushed against my skin as I shifted uncomfortably on the bed, trying to piece together Nathan's true identity. There was no way he was just Nathan from the flower shop—not with a gun in his hand and an aura that screamed danger from every pore. The guy in this room with me wasn't the sweet stranger who'd given me flowers; he was a predator, plain and simple.

"My strength for what?" I asked. "Are we going to arm wrestle?"

Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

"Who are you, really?" I asked, my voice steadier than I felt. It was a gamble, but I needed to know what I was up against. And since he was in the mood for conversation, fuck it. I was going to take advantage of it.

Nathan's lips twitched as if amused by my question. Then, out of nowhere, he hit me with a question of his own, "Ever heard of the Serpent's Fang?"

The name coursed through me like ice water. Of course, I had—he was the stuff of whispers and nightmares within the Bureau, an assassin whose identity remind a mystery. But I couldn't let on how much I knew. My life depended on it.

"Sounds familiar," I said, feigning a casual ignorance, "Aren't they…some gang assassin? Very hush-hush."

"San Francisco's most feared agent," he stated simply, as though describing the weather rather than his reputation as a harbinger of death.

My heart thudded against my ribs, but I refused to let my fear show. If Nathan really was the Serpent's Fang, then I was in deeper than I thought. Yet, here he was, revealing himself to me. So if I managed to get out of this alive, I would have information that the Bureau had been dying to find for years.

This could be a chance to gather critical intel—if I played this right.

"Sounds like it's very impressive," I managed to say, keeping my tone light, hoping he didn't detect the pounding of my heart or see the calculations behind my eyes. I stared right at those dark eyes, then asked a question I didn't even know I should ask. This one wasn't calculated, this one was about survival. My muscles coiled tight, ready to spring, but I held still. "Why am I here again? Did we hook up or…"

The question hung between us, but I didn't think he was buying it. I could play the fool, act like I was concussed.

He was smart, though. He'd evaded identification this long.

And now, I was nothing more than a loose end.

Nathan's gaze didn't waver from mine, the gun in his hand an extension of his calm yet threatening presence. "I haven't decided yet." His voice was even, betraying nothing of his intentions.

"So you brought me here?" I asked, my face pale.

"I did."

He was so calm that it made me even more panicky. I was afraid–more afraid than I'd ever been. "And where is here? Where are we?"

I glanced around the sparse room, searching for clues that might reveal more than he was willing to.

"Top floor of an empty high-rise in South Beach," he answered, and something about his straightforward honesty sent a chill through me despite the warmth of the room. "Fully secured, tinted windows. No one will find you here."

That didn't explain much; if it was his apartment, if I was his prisoner. The biggest question for me was why I wasn't dead, when for all intents and purposes, I should have been made a casualty of the Triad hours ago.

Still, I got the message: I was at his mercy.

And I was fucked.