I didn’t complain. It was Abel’s space. It suited him in a weird way, but I was glad to be out of the “dungeon.”
We were in the back door of the restaurant, the kitchen bustling with activity, when Chen turned right.
He opened a door and I followed him through and up some stairs, feeling and hearing Wei and Xun behind me.
At the top, Chen dug in his track pants, pulled out a key ring, opened the door, and let us in.
I didn’t have the chance to look around before Chen spoke.
“He’s different.”
I looked to him, knowing exactly what he meant. “I know.”
“He can get intense,” Chen went on.
Boy, was he not wrong about that.
“I’ve noticed,” I replied.
Chen moved toward me, dipping his chin to keep my eyes, but stopping several feet away. “He loves with a love that’s bigger than anything you’ll know. He’s loyal beyond reason. He’d die for any of us, endure the worst kind of torture and die. He’d kill for any of us. If we were hurt, he’d avenge us and he would make that painful and messy beyond anything you can imagine. He’s the best kind of man you could know…the best son, the best brother…times about fifty thousand. Knowin’ that, you understand his intensity. Knowin’ that, you’ll eventually understand everything.”
When he finished his speech, I wasn’t sure if I felt better or more weirded out.
So I just said, “Okay.”
“I hope to God there will be a bunch of days in my life I’ll never forget,” Chen continued. “When I find the woman for me. When I make her mine. When she gives me kids. But I know one thing deep in my heart. I will never forget yesterday, when my brother found what he needed to take away his pain.”
I swallowed again, feeling my eyes sting, and I nodded.
Now that made me feel better.
“He’s protective of us. He’s protective of Ma…to extremes,” Chen went on. “It is not a surprise to any of us that that’s ten notches higher with you.”
“Okay,” I repeated.
“So don’t let that shit freak you,” Chen finished.
I nodded again.
Chen held my eyes for a while before he nodded back and stepped away.
I looked to Xun and Wei and saw their eyes on me. They were watching me intently, their faces void.
And I knew they thought this was a test.
A test I had to pass.
I had to accept their brother as he was, cut him some slack, get to know him, get to understand him.
And I could do that, because, as my father had said, when I found what I needed, I’d win it no matter how I had to do that, including making these three loyal brothers believe I could.
“Yeesh, dudes, give me a break,” I said. “Found the man I’ve been waiting for all my life and he’s an overprotective werewolf vampire who drinks bagged blood for breakfast, has the strength of ten men, the speed of a superhero, not to mention we have people who want us dead. This is not something a girl takes in stride. At least give me to lunch.”
This got me three smiles and a room with a lot less tension threading through it.
“I’ll take your crap to the bathroom,” Xun muttered.
“I’ll go tell Ma you’re up here,” Wei stated before turning and using the door.
“I’ll park my ass in front of the TV,” Chen said, moving to the couch.
That was when I took in the space, and at the same time, took in a breath, for the apartment above a restaurant did not look like an apartment above a restaurant but an Asian décor showplace (and a posh one at that).
It was beautiful. Rich woods. Richer materials. Lacquer. Inlays. Intricate carvings. Strikingly formed hinges and handles. Amazing curios—jade, cloisonné, and polished wood statues of foo dogs, dragons, and elephants. Wall hangings, pictures, and a four-paneled freestanding screen in one corner, all of these last depicting delicate birds and flowers.
It was not cluttered, stuffy, and overdone. It was elegant and refined.
I loved it.
“Wowza, your mom could be an interior designer,” I told Chen.
“Yeah, makes every place we go awesome,” Chen answered, clicking on the TV. “But you haven’t tasted her food yet.” He looked over the couch that appeared to be covered in red silk Damask, with dark, woven material at the sides and back. It had carved wood for feet and ornamentation. It was a couch I would not park my ass on to kick back and watch TV. It was a couch I’d probably be afraid to eat on for fear of ruining it. “When you do, you’ll know where her talents really lie.”
That meant I was suddenly seriously looking forward to lunch.
“I’m gone,” Xun stated, coming back into the room from the hall.
“North?” Chen asked mysteriously.
“Yeah. I’ll send Wei south.”
“Won’t be south, brother,” Chen told him. “A man comes out of the bay buck naked, a biker will give him a pair of jeans and a bottle of Jack and ask no questions. He does that shit down south, they’d call the police.”
This was something I knew about Serpentine Bay. As much of a biker mecca as it was, it was also an old northwest coastal town, a beautiful one at that, so it had its ritzy side. But the ritzy side and the uppity folk who lived in it kept well to their areas of fancy restaurants, boutique shops, and cliffside mansions down south, while the bikers and their hangers-on did their thing in the bars, pool halls, and poker rooms up north.
“You’re still going after him?” I asked, knowing from their words that they were going to keep searching for the werewolf.