Chapter Twenty Nathan

Icouldn't shake the image of Abby's tear-streaked face, even as I lay there, pretending to be asleep. Every cry she had stifled echoed in my ears, each one a bullet to the chest.

The room was silent now, but it was a lie. It was like the quiet after a storm, deceptive and heavy with the scent of rain-soaked earth.

I waited, listening to her breathing steady out, telling me she had finally succumbed to exhaustion.

I'd always considered myself many things—ruthless, cold, a necessary evil in this city that never slept. But this, what I'd done to Abby, this violence that left her curled up and broken beside me, was a new kind of hell. My hand twitched, itching for the comfort of soil against skin, for the delicate care of tending to my orchids, something pure and untouched by the filth of my world.

The darkness in the room wasn't just from the night pressing against the windows; it was inside me, suffocating and dense. My father, the Serpent, he raised me to be a weapon, sharp and unforgiving. Yet not once had I ever raised my hand to a woman with intent to harm.

Until last night. Until Abby.

She provoked all kinds of feelings in me…feelings I'd never had for another woman. She was just a barista, no one important—but she brought out the best and the worst in me.

I should have killed her last night.

Now, I was in bed with her…my cum leaking from her gorgeous pussy.

She breathed softly, life in the stillness, her chest rising and falling with an innocence I'd torn away. In my mind, the principles I'd studied at Stanford clashed with the instincts honed by years at the Serpent's side. Kant, Confucius, Socrates—they all spun a web of moral dilemmas I could no longer navigate. It was supposed to be simple: kill or be killed. But Abby... she complicated everything.

I needed her dead.

That was the only logical choice.

But as I watched her sleep, the freckles on her fair skin stark against the bruises I'd left, the monster inside me recoiled. I wanted her alive because I liked her, respected her, enjoyed her company. And Fangs…Fangs wanted her alive to play with. To mold into the perfect fuck doll.

It was that want that terrified me more than anything else.

Abby shifted slightly, a soft sigh escaping her lips, and my heart clenched. I had to make a choice. A part of me whispered to end it, to do what had to be done. And yet, I couldn't. Not now. Not when every fiber of my being screamed against it.

The night wore on, a silent witness to my internal war as sleep failed to take me. I wanted her more than I'd ever wanted anything in my life. But wanting her meant protecting her, and the person she needed protecting from most was myself.

I was all twisted up inside over one girl.

With the weight of my decision heavy on my shoulders, I slipped out from the sheets, each movement a study in silent precision. The digital glow of the bedside clock marked the lateness of the hour as I punched a code into the locked drawer that sat like a silent.

It clicked open, revealing its contents—a collection meant for restraint and control, a contingency plan I'd stashed here in case I ever needed to keep a captive somewhere secret and safe, out of reach of my family. Zip ties, duct tape, but it was the pair of cuffs that caught my attention, their cold metal gleaming with promises of captivity. My fingers closed around them, and they felt so damn certain in a night filled with doubt.

Turning back to Abby, I hesitated. She was a mess, her brown hair tangled around her face, green eyes hidden beneath lids bruised by tears and sleep. Yet even now, marked by violence, there was a beauty about her that knotted my guts. I'd seen plenty of women in my life, but none quite like her.

She stirred something within me that should have been dead.

Taking a deep breath, I moved to her side of the bed, the cuffs weighing heavily in my hand. As a child, my mother had taught me to be gentle, to cherish life's delicate things—Abby looked every bit the part of something precious, and here I was, ready to chain her down. Disgust surged hot and bitter in my throat.

"Sorry, Abby," I whispered, not sure if I was apologizing for what I'd done or what I was about to do. It didn't matter; both were unforgivable.

Her wrist was slender beneath my grip, her pulse rapid against my fingertips. She jolted awake, a startled gasp escaping her lips as her eyes flew open, locking onto mine with a terror that clawed at me. I swallowed the lump in my throat and snapped one cuff around her wrist, the click of the metal a grim punctuation to the silence between us.

"Please," she whimpered, her voice cracked from screaming, "don't do this."

The other cuff closed around the bedpost with an air of finality. Abby's body tensed, twisted against the restraints in a futile effort to escape. Her green eyes were wide, shimmering pools reflecting a thousand silent accusations. The freckles scattered across her cheeks made her look so innocent that I cursed myself for hurting her even as I wanted to make her dirty again.

I wanted to keep her…wanted to destroy her.

I had no idea what I was going to do with this girl who had shaken me to my foundations.

"I have to," I muttered, even though every part of me screamed to do the opposite.

The fight drained out of her as quickly as it had flared up, leaving behind raw despair. Tears brimmed in her eyes, spilling over and tracing paths down her pale cheeks. "I'd rather die than let you..." Her voice broke, choked off by sobs that wracked her body.

Her words echoed inside me, reverberating through the hollows of my soul. I had never intended to hurt her, not really. Despite everything I was—a Zhou, the oldest son of the Serpent, a man feared on the streets—harming women was a line I'd sworn never to cross. Yet here I was, having crossed it in the most heinous way possible.

"Abby," I started, but no more words came. What could I say? That I didn't mean it? That I wished things were different? In the end, would any of it change what I'd done?

She turned her head away from me, her body still shaking with sobs. I stood there, bound by duty and desire, feeling like a monster in the skin of a man. My dragon tattoo seemed to tighten around my chest, a reminder of the oath I bore—the same oath that now forced me to imprison the only person who might have seen beyond the beast.

I had wanted her, yes. But what I wanted now, more than anything, was to undo the night's dark work. To rewind time, to take back the pain and replace it with something tender.

I hesitated, the cuffed wrist in my hand feeling like a shackle on my own soul. "I still don't know what I'm going to do with you," I muttered, the words tasting like ash on my tongue. I drew small circles on her wrist, and I could see her flinch in response. She feared me.

She should.

"Isn't it clear?" Her voice was ragged, but razor-sharp with accusation. "You took me so you could...so you could fuck me."

Her blunt words hit me harder than any punch I'd ever thrown. A dark laugh, cruel and void of humor, clawed its way up from my throat. "And would it make you feel better to be treated like my fuck toy? Is that it?"

"Seems I already am," she shot back, venom lacing her voice.

It cut through me because it was the truth—a truth I despised. The beast inside me raged against the bindings of my human conscience, urging me to quell the dissent, to assert control over Abby as I had done with countless others.

But something in her gaze, green and fierce even through the tears, stopped me. "I'm going to shower," I growled, my voice low and strained, trying to escape the web of self-loathing that threatened to consume me. "Wash off the blood and sex." The words felt like dirt in my mouth.

"And me?" she said. "I'm covered in…you've made me so fucking filthy—"

"Good," I snapped. "That's what a fuckdoll should be."

Without waiting for her response, I turned on my heel and shut myself in the bathroom, slamming the door behind me with more force than necessary. The sound reverberated through the tiny, tile-laden space, mirroring the chaos in my head.

As the hot water cascaded down from the showerhead, it seemed as if it were trying to wash away more than just the physical grime—it was a futile attempt to cleanse the stains on my soul. Standing there, letting the scalding streams punish my skin, I grappled with the guilt gnawing at my insides. Each drop that struck my chest where the inked dragon lay dormant seemed to hiss against my flesh, a reminder of the life I had chosen—or rather, the life that had chosen me.

"Fuck," I cursed under the roar of the water, my hands braced against the cold wall. My thoughts raced back to Abby, cuffed and broken because of me. This wasn't just business; this was personal—a line I never should have crossed.

How many times had I stared into the mirror like this, searching for a glimpse of the man who brought his mother flowers, who kept a garden, who helped his sister set the table?

How many times had I drowned in showers hoping to emerge reborn, only to find that the monster within clung to my bones more stubbornly than my own shadow?

I knew all about compartmentalization, about locking away parts of myself to survive in this underworld we called home. But tonight, the walls I'd built were crumbling, and the fragments were slicing through me, leaving me to bleed out beneath the relentless stream of water.

"Get it together, Fangs," I muttered to myself, a nickname that now seemed too fitting. "You can't fall apart. Not now."

And yet, as I stood there, letting the water scorch my skin in penance, a treacherous thought surfaced: What if I could free her? What if I could undo this one act, give her back her dignity, let her walk away from the darkness that was my world?

It was a fleeting fantasy, gone as quickly as it had come. I knew the reality—I was who I was. Nathan Zhou, eldest son of the Serpent's Head. There was no place for mercy in my life, no room for weakness.

If I let her go…both our lives would be on the line.

Freshly showered and wrapped in a towel, I stepped out of the bathroom. The steam followed like the ghost of my conscience, seeping into the room where Abby lay bound to the bedpost. Her green eyes, once vibrant, were now dull with resignation…or was it undying defiance? It was hard to tell through the tangled mess of her brown hair and tear-streaked face.

"Abby," I said, my voice barely above a whisper, my feet rooted to the spot as if the distance could somehow absolve me of what I'd done.

She didn't respond, didn't even flinch at the sound of her name on my lips. I cleared my throat, trying to dislodge the guilt that seemed to have taken residence there.

"I—I want to let you go." My words were strangled, fighting their way out. "God, I want to."

Silence stretched between us, a chasm filled with unspoken words and shattered trust.

"But I can't," I continued, the sentence feeling like a life sentence for us both. "You know too much. And it's not just my life on the line—it's my family's. The Triad... they'll come after you, after us. They won't stop until—"

"Until what, Nathan?" she interrupted, her voice hoarse but strong. "Until they kill me? Isn't that what you're going to do anyway?"

I flinched as if she'd struck me. She wasn't wrong. Her fate had been sealed the moment she'd crossed paths with me. But hearing her say it, knowing I was the harbinger of her doom—it made the truth a poison in my veins.

"Maybe," I admitted, hating myself more with each passing second. "But not by my hand. Not tonight."

"Then when?" Her eyes flashed with a mixture of fear and challenge. "When does my time run out?"

I clenched my jaw, looking away from the raw pain in her gaze. "I don't know."

"Then what are you waiting for?" she pressed, a single tear forging a path down her freckled cheek. "If you're going to kill me, just do it."

The plea in her voice stabbed at me, twisted and turned until I was the one who felt caged.

"Believe me, if there was another way…" My voice trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished. Because there wasn't another way. Not in this world. Not in my world.

"Go ahead, Nathan," she dared me with a broken laugh that held no humor. "Shower off my blood and walk away. I know you'll just use me until you finally decide to kill me."

I stood there, her words a noose tightening around my neck. The air between us was charged, and it made me want to hurt her again—or at least, to hurt someone. Without another word, I turned my back on Abby, her accusations echoing in the hollows of my chest.

The silence stretched out like a chasm as I left the room, the click of the door behind me barely registering. I needed to find that shiv, to figure out how she could have hidden it from me, but my thoughts were a tangle of thorns, each one barbed with guilt and confusion.

Moving through the darkened corridors of the apartment, I felt like a ghost haunting his own life. Every step was heavy with the burden of actions I couldn't undo, choices I wished I'd never had to make.

When I reached the spot where I'd tossed the sharpened plastic, my fingers closed around the shiv. It was crudely fashioned, yes, but the balance and edge were too perfect for something made in haste. This wasn't the work of desperation; it was the craft of someone trained, someone who knew exactly what they were doing. Alarm bells began to ring in my head as I turned the weapon over in my hand.

"Damn it," I muttered under my breath. My gaze flicked back to the direction of the room where I'd left Abby. Could she be more than she seemed? An art history degree didn't equip someone with the know-how to create such a tool. But maybe…

…fuck. I didn't know who the hell I'd brought into my life, and now she was learning all my secrets, slowly but surely.

"Abby Harper," I whispered her name, testing the weight of it against the reality I was beginning to piece together. "Who are you really?"

I needed to find out. And if she got hurt…well, maybe she shouldn't have crossed me in the first place.