Page 76 of Serpent King's Revenge

"Yeah." He ran a hand over his face, looking every bit the broken man who had nothing left to lose. "The heat on us…it wasn't just business. It got personal, and she was at risk."

"Personal doesn't cut it when you're dealing with family," Alex snapped, his words like a punch.

"Look," Knuckles continued, shifting his feet awkwardly. "I didn't know Justin would be at the club that night. But the choices I made, I made them for Evelyn."

"Choices…" I echoed, the word tasting like bile. "You call almost killing your own blood a choice?"

"Love can push you to the edge, make you do crazy stuff," Knuckles said, and there was a plea in his tone, a plea for understanding. "You know about love, don't you? The things you'd do for it?"

I glanced at Abby. Yeah, I’d done some insane things for love.

But…

“The flower shop,” Abby was the one who cut in, said was I was thinking. “Why that? You killed the clerk there—”

“It wasn’t us,” Kenny said. “That one was your father. He was starting to suspect you, figured anything you had on him would be there…so he burned it.”

The room fell silent, heavy with things unsaid and feelings too tangled to unravel. Even Alex, always quick with a sharp word or a fist, just stood there, his jaw set hard but eyes that had lost their fire.

It was Lily who found her voice first, cutting through the quiet like a knife. "I can't believe she's gone."

That hit me harder than any punch I'd ever taken. The silence returned, thick and suffocating, as we all tried to wrap our heads around a world without Ma.

Then, out of nowhere, I felt a hand slip into mine, warm and steady. Abby. She was looking at me with those sad eyes that saw too much. "We should put her to rest, shouldn't we?"

I nodded, feeling a lump rise in my throat. Abby's touch was grounding, pulling me back from the edge of whatever madness was creeping into my mind—visions of Ma's ghost or some crap like that.

"Right. Put her to rest," I said again, the words feeling strange and foreign on my tongue. It was final, closing a chapter that none of us were ready to end. But it was necessary—Ma deserved that much.

Knuckles straightened up, his voice rough. "I've started putting things together for Evelyn…if you'll come with me."

He didn't wait for an answer, just got up and moved toward the door. We followed, a silent procession. My mind was racing but my feet moved automatically, Abby's hand still clasped in mine.

We walked out of the dim room, our steps echoing softly in the hallway. People were everywhere, talking in hushed tones, some casting us curious looks. They parted like the sea, giving us room to pass. Knuckles led the way, sure and steady despite everything.

As we approached the windows looking out over the ocean, I saw flickers of candlelight dancing in the air moving though the old warehouse. A crowd had formed, their backs to us, heads bowed.

They were all there for her, for Ma.

Knuckles stopped short, and we came up beside him. There, against the glass, an altar glowed with candles and was littered with offerings. In its center was a picture of my mother, her smile lighting up the room even now.

"Damn," Alex muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. He'd never been one for showing emotion, but his words were heavy with it now.

I stared at the photo, the sight of it knocking the wind out of me. She was everywhere and nowhere, all at once. Abby squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back, grateful for the touch, the connection.

"Ma would've liked this," Lily said, her voice soft but clear.

"Yeah," I agreed, my throat tight. "She would've."

A hand brushed against my arm, tentative like someone reaching through a fog. I turned to see an older man, his face lined with years of hard work and tougher times. He looked at me, and his eyes held stories I'd never heard before.

"You have her eyes," he said in Mandarin. "You look just like Evelyn."

I averted my gaze. “She was my mother.”

The man nodded. "She helped us when we had nothing, when we came to this country. We've got our own little shop now, all thanks to her." His voice cracked, but he pushed on. "We had to come back, y'know? To remember her."

I looked back at the crowd, really saw them this time. Their faces were open books of grief and gratitude. People from every corner of life, here because of Ma. She'd touched lives in ways I hadn't even imagined, fighting battles I never knew about.

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