Chapter 349: The Jade Garden
The entrance to the Jade Garden looked nothing like what Nash had pictured. No flashy door, no bouncer built like a tank crossing his arms in front of a red velvet curtain like the dive clubs in Sector 6. Just a smoked glass double door, framed in polished brass, with two men in dark suits posted on either side, discreet earpieces, sharp eyes hidden behind black sunglasses.
"Papers," said the first one, without even raising his voice, holding out a gloved hand.
Nash pulled out an ID. The agent scanned it on a small tablet, waiting for the green beep before handing it back without a word.
Saya held out hers, her fingers trembling slightly despite her best efforts to look relaxed. The second agent studied it for a moment, longer than necessary, before she remembered — a bit too late — the small card Monique had slipped her earlier that evening, a thick black card with no visible markings, just a discreet pattern engraved in one corner.
"And this," she said, her voice coming out a little too fast, pulling it from her inner pocket.
The agent took it, turned it over between his fingers, then frowned slightly, a subtle shift in his otherwise perfectly mechanical demeanor. He glanced at his colleague, who gave an almost imperceptible nod.
"One moment," he said, raising two fingers to his earpiece. "I’ve got a priority entry. Delabite-level card."
There was a silence, broken only by the distant hum of an indoor fountain somewhere behind the glass doors. Then a reply, inaudible to Saya and Nash, that seemed to satisfy the agent. He handed the card back to Saya with the start of a bow — brief, barely there, but unmistakably more respectful than the standard welcome they’d just received.
"You were expected," he said, stepping aside slightly. "A personalized reception has been arranged. Please, follow me."
The glass doors slid open with a soft hiss. Saya felt her stomach knot a little tighter. Expected. The word hung in her mind a beat too long, a chilling confirmation that Monique really did hold every string, down to the smallest details of the evening.
A third man, in a suit more polished than the two guards at the entrance, was already waiting on the other side, an eternal smile fixed on his face, hands clasped in front of him.
"Welcome to the Jade Garden," he said, bowing slightly toward Saya, then toward Nash, his gaze lingering just a fraction of a second too long on the latter’s build, a slight readjustment in his posture, almost instinctive. "We’re delighted to have you with us tonight. If you’ll follow me, I’ll guide you to your respective spaces."
Nash simply nodded, keeping his face unreadable, playing the part of the slightly impressed but not entirely overwhelmed newcomer to perfection, exactly what Victoria had advised him on the ride over.
The man turned, starting to walk at a measured pace toward the interior of the building, inviting them along with a wave of his hand.
Saya threw one last glance at Nash before stepping forward, searching his face for any trace of tension. There was none. Just that quiet calm, almost unsettling in a place like this, as if none of it could really touch him.
She drew a light breath and followed the man inside, Nash right behind her.
The interior of the building was honestly way too fancy. It was the kind of place that felt like it was trying too hard to be elegant, with marble floors that had grey and gold streaks running through them. There was a fountain in the middle where the water just slid over stones without making a single sound. The air smelled strongly of jasmine and sandalwood, and there were these rice-paper lanterns that gave off a soft glow against bamboo walls. It looked exactly like the "serenity" the golden sign outside had promised, but it felt kind of fake.
Saya followed the guide, taking slow steps and trying her best to keep her face blank. She didn’t want to show any emotion. Nash was walking right behind her with his hands in his pockets. He looked relaxed, but he was actually scanning everything. He noticed the hidden cameras in the corners of the ceiling and the guards in dark suits standing every few feet. The guards were pretending to be chill, but they were definitely watching them.
Was there a specific order to keep an eye on him? With the cameras above, it would make the quest more difficult.
They passed a hostess near a low table.
She was carrying a tray of drinks and wearing a sheer black bodysuit that was cut really high on the hips. She had a little white bunny tail on her lower back and matching bunny ears on her head. The outfit was so thin it basically didn’t hide anything, you could see her boobs and tits as if they were painted directly on. She had this fake smile on her face, the kind that looks polite but doesn’t actually reach her eyes.
She gave a small bow as they walked past her without saying a word.
A bit further down, they reached the main lounges.
It was full of men in expensive suits sitting on velvet couches. Some were fat with soft faces, others were thinner and older with sharp eyes. Nash recognized one of them right away. He was a governor who popped up on the news all the time, always giving speeches about how important it is to "protect the family."
Another guy looked just like a high-ranking senator who was famous for talking about morality and human rights. They were laughing way too loudly, while their hands were moving all over the women serving them drinks.
Human rights, yeah, maybe they were just checking the humanity in these bodies.
In a semi-open room to their right, there was an older man with a balding head and a big belly that his expensive suit couldn’t hide. He was sitting in a wide massage chair, holding a glass of champagne. Two young women were on either side of him. One was kneeling, using her mouth on his cock, working him slowly while saliva dripped down her chin. The other woman was pressing her bare breasts against his chest, whispering something in his ear while stroking the back of his neck. The man just had his head tilted back with his eyes half-closed. He looked bored, like this was just a normal Monday for him.
Saya felt her stomach flip. Nash’s jaw tightened, but he kept moving forward.
They kept walking through a maze of hallways. Every hallway looked a little different, one had real bamboo growing all the way to the ceiling, and another had fancy calligraphy paintings on the walls. All of them led to numbered doors that were closed.
When they turned a corner, Saya suddenly stopped. She gasped, her breath catching in her throat.
A door down the hall on the left had been left open. Maybe the staff was too overwhelmed or in too much of a hurry to close it properly. It was just open enough for a part of the room to be visible from the hallway.
Saya felt Nash freeze behind her, and just like her, he froze completely.
Inside, the bed was a total mess.
The sheets were torn and soaked with fluids. Pillows were tossed all over the floor, and there were empty bottles and used condoms scattered across the carpet. A young woman was sitting on the edge of the ruined mattress, completely naked. Her body was covered in handprints and bruises of different colors. There were bite marks on her skin and streaks of drying fluid running down her thighs and across her stomach. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her eyes looked empty, almost like a wounded animal.
Two staff members in white, wearing uniforms looking like medics were standing over her. One was holding a damp cloth to clean her. The other spoke in a flat, robotic voice, like she was talking to a toddler who was throwing a tantrum.
"You have been given two hours to recover," the staff member said. "A client has already booked you for cuddling and sleeping overnight. Use your time to rest a little. Do you understand?"
The woman slowly lifted her head. For a second, her eyes were blank, like she wasn’t even there. Then, something inside her seemed to snap.
She screamed.
A broken scream, a terrifying, but also terrified scream. She reached out and grabbed the staff member’s sleeve with both hands, her nails digging into the fabric. She started sobbing violently.
"Please... please just let me sleep alone... just once... I can’t... I can’t do it again tonight... please!"
The staff member sighed. She pried the woman’s fingers off her sleeve and kept talking in that same empty tone.
"You will rest for two hours. Then you will report to Room 14. The client paid for the full package. Don’t make this difficult."
Saya slowly put her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were wide, staring at the open door. Her brain couldn’t even process everything she was seeing. The smell coming from the room, a mix of sweat, sex, and something that smelled like metal, made her stomach lurch.
Nash’s fingers closed around her elbow.
"Keep walking," he whispered, his voice so low only she could hear. "Keep your head up. Act like it was nothing, but look right at it. Make sure the camera gets every single detail."
Saya forced her legs to move. She kept her eyes locked on that open door until they finally walked far enough away that she couldn’t see inside anymore.
They kept moving forward. The employees they passed — hostesses, suited agents, a few staff members pushing linen carts — all gave him the same kind of look: a quick glance, a slight readjustment of posture, before looking away and continuing on without a word.
His build, his shoulders, that quiet but undeniably imposing presence seemed enough to discourage any curiosity from lingering too long. No one tried to strike up conversation with the man following Saya like a bodyguard, and she herself felt it too.
That massive presence at her back, like some monster that could tear the world apart but would never turn on her. So that’s what it feels like, a man’s protection?
In the villa’s living room, the mood was nearly as tense.
Dahlia, leaning forward in her chair, watched face after face pass through the frame of Saya’s hidden camera.
"That one," she murmured, pointing at the screen, "I’m almost sure I saw him at a budget hearing broadcast two months ago."
"Congressman," Victoria confirmed, not looking away from the screen, her voice strangely flat. "Third district of San Pedro."
Dahlia slowly straightened up, something terrifying revealing itself as the faces kept passing — a regional governor, recognizable by the distinctive scar on his left cheek, an older man whose name escaped her but whose face had shown up often enough on the news that she knew he held some senatorial seat somewhere in the upper ranks.
"It’s not just Hector," she said finally. "It’s..."
"It’s everyone," Victoria finished, arms crossed, eyes still locked on the screen. "Or at least enough of everyone that it amounts to the same thing."
A silence settled over the room for a moment, broken only by the quiet hum of the monitors.
"If all these people are mixed up in this," Dahlia said softly, "even if we release everything we have on Hector, it won’t be enough to actually bring anything down. They’ll just... cover for him. Protect him."
"No," Victoria said, her voice regaining some of its usual edge. She leaned forward, eyes narrowing, staring intently at the screen. "Think about it. If it’s hidden like this — this level of discretion, these special access cards, these perfectly maintained massage parlor fronts — it’s because they need it to stay hidden." Her fingers tightened slowly around the armrest. "Even Hector, with all his power, all his influence, never dared cross certain taboos. There are lines even he knows better than to cross in the public eye."
Dahlia turned her head toward her, slowly understanding where Victoria was going with this.
"You’re saying these images," she said slowly, "that’s exactly what Nash’s plan is."
"Exactly," Victoria said, a smile slowly spreading across her lips. "Not just proof against Hector. A weapon of mass destruction against every single person who shows up on this recording. Every politician, every governor, every senator we see in there — they’ve all got a lot more to lose than we do if this gets out." She let out a short, humorless laugh. "Hector thought he built an impenetrable fortress. Turns out he built his own noose, and everyone else’s little rope too."
A different kind of silence settled over the room this time, heavier. Hina and Miko exchanged a look, while the other girls in the room slowly drifted closer to the main screen, drawn in despite themselves by the weight of the moment.
Every head turned, almost at once, toward the central monitor, where Nash’s camera feed showed his point of view, silent, unshaken, as he kept moving through the golden hallways of the Jade Garden.
Victoria stayed quiet for a long moment, watching his figure move across the screen, that same familiar tension knotting her chest, the one she always felt watching him walk toward something she couldn’t control.
"I believe in you," she murmured finally, so quiet only Dahlia, right beside her, could really hear it. "So please... don’t do anything risky. Not tonight."