Page 17 of Serpent King's Prisoner

Not that I was spending a lot of time enjoying my evenings lately.

Inside, the pulse of electronic beats wrapped around me like a second skin, the air thick with sweat and the sweet tang of spilled liquor. I scanned the crowd, their faces a blur of pleasure and abandon—a stark difference from the stone set of my own expression. This wasn’t pleasure. This was business.

I made my way to a private booth shrouded in shadows, where bottle service awaited—crystal glasses and a bottle of the finest scotch, the amber liquid promising a temporary escape I wouldn’t take. As the son of the Serpent, indulgence was a distraction I couldn’t afford.

“Hope you haven’t been waiting long,” a smooth British voice cut through the din as Jack Kensington slid into the seat across from me. His tailored suit was a sharp contrast to the casual revelry around us.

“Jack,” I nodded, the formality of my tone matching the grip on my glass. “Just got here.”

“Good to hear.” Jack surveyed the club with disinterest, then turned his attention back to me, fixing me with a gaze as sharp as a knife’s edge. “So, what’s so urgent that Nathan Zhou himself comes calling? You know it isn’t easy to get away from business in San Diego for a little trip like this.”

“Let’s cut the crap, Jack,” I said, leaning forward. The heavy beat of the music became a backdrop to our quieter, more dangerous conversation. “We’ve got a rat in the ranks. You owe me, and I’m here to collect.”

“Someone’s undermining the Serpents?” His eyebrow quirked up, betraying interest. “That’s a serious accusation.”

“Which is why I need serious intel.” I met his gaze steadily, my hand unconsciously clenching and unclenching, the smeared ink of a hastily scribbled phone number on my palm a reminder of something—or someone—I tried not to think about.

“Any idea who it might be?” Jack’s question pulled me back from the brink of distraction.

“None that solid,” I admitted with a tight jaw. “But that’s where you come in.”

“Of course, Nathan.” Jack’s smile was all charm, but his eyes held the weight of our world—one built on favors and blood. “Let’s see what we can dig up.”

The night was young, but in the world I inhabited, darkness held court regardless of the hour. Inside Fusion’s VIP area, the music throbbed like a living thing, and I settled into the leather booth that reeked of money and spilled secrets.

“Been ages since I’ve been to this city,” Jack mused, swirling the ice in his glass with a casualness that belied the tension in his shoulders. “And seriously…even if I didn’t owe you a favor, you could have called. We’re friends, Nate.”

“Friends are hard to come by in this business,” I muttered. “But…thanks, Jack. I appreciate it. How’s San Diego?”

“The old man’s putting pressure on me—reckons it’s time I found a girl, settled down,” he said. “Wants an heir, all that noise.”

“Settle down?” I echoed, snorting at the thought. As if men like us could ever truly settle. “My father’s been on my case about the same damn thing. But with the way things are shaking out...” I trailed off, a shadow crossing my mind, something I couldn’t bother with—not now.

“Too crazy for love, huh?” Jack’s lips quirked up in a half-smile, a silent challenge in his eyes. There was no room for softness in our line of work, no space for anything as fragile as romance.

“Something like that,” I muttered, taking a sip from the glass in front of me. The burn of the alcohol was familiar, a fleeting distraction from the chaos that brewed beneath the surface of my life.

The bass pulsed through the club like a heartbeat, vibrating against my skin as I lounged back in the booth. Across from me, Jack played with the rim of his glass, the ice cubes clinking—a sound oddly serene amid the cacophony of music and chatter.

“Ever think about it, though?” Jack asked, breaking the lull that had fallen between us. “Having someone to come home to?”

I glanced down at the number scrawled across my palm in faded ink, remembered green eyes and a kind smile. It was a nice fantasy, but Abby didn’t belong in my world. Bringing her into it…it would just be cruel. Men in my line of work tended to die young, and their women ended up getting used as collateral more often than not.

“Nah,” I said, smudging the digits with my thumb until they were just a blur. “It’s nothing.”

Jack raised an eyebrow but didn’t press further. He knew the drill—the unspoken rules that governed our lives. Attachments were liabilities, and liabilities got you killed.

Shifting in my seat, I leaned forward, elbows on the table, the noise around us fading into a dull roar. It was time to talk shop. “So, let’s get down to business. You hear anything about who’s hitting the Serpents?”

Jack’s eyes narrowed, a calculating glint surfacing as he tapped a finger on the table. “There’s some chatter,” he said carefully. “But nothing solid yet. You know how these things go.”

“No word down in San Diego?”

“Just rumors about what’s happening,” he said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but people are saying your dad’s weak—that maybe he’s gone soft. It’s not exactly promising when a man can’t keep his own house in order, and if the next hit actually happens in Chinatown…”

“I’m well aware of how it looks,” I muttered. “At first I thought it was the Cranes or the Ghosts…but I’ve got nothing on them, they’re minding their own business while we fall apart from the inside.”

“Yeah?”

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