The Syndicater: A Dangerous Dark Romance (Dark Verse Book 6)

Last night had been intense. Zephyr couldn’t stop crying the entire time Luna had been speaking, her horrors pouring out of her lips as the timid girl who had always felt out of place took a stand and stood facing them all. It had hurt her heart deeply, not only listening to the pain dripping from her being but imagining what tragedies had awaited her own sister, happened to her own sister, that she’d never known about. It bothered her that Zen had never confided in her and that was something she’d have to live with for the rest of her life.

Zephyr didn’t know if the intensity of the previous night was the reason she was completely off-kilter, but there was a knot of stress balled up in her stomach that she couldn’t explain. She’d been lying awake for a good part of the morning, seeing the dark of the night be chased by the dawn, her husband’s arms around her, and yet, she felt adrift, anxious… as if waiting for something bad to happen.

Something was not right.

Zephyr got up with the heaviness in her chest, her heart beating too fast, unable to stay put any longer. She couldn’t explain what it was. It was a gut feeling, a feeling she didn’t get often, but when she did, she knew not to ignore it. The last time that she had, her sister had died and Morana had been shot, and she’d promised herself to never ignore it again.

Quickly slipping out of bed, her movements waking her husband by her side, she picked up her phone from the floor of the room where it had fallen the night before and unlocked it.

3 missed calls.

Her mother had called her three times.

Her mother, whom she hadn’t spoken to in days, had called her three times.

Something wasn’t right.

Zephyr immediately called back, her heart in her throat, pacing the room. Her movements must have alerted him even more to the gravity of the situation because her husband turned on the bed, fully awake when he saw her like that, one side of his face creasing with concern.

‘What’s going on?’ he grumbled out.

The phone line wasn’t picked up, so she rang again. ‘My mother called—three times. Something is wrong.’

No one picked up this time, either. She dialed her father’s number. Same.

Her heart began to thunder, and the first vestiges of panic crept into her body. Unable to explain what was happening to her as she stood, she knew, just knew in her heart, that something bad had happened.

Alpha immediately picked up his phone from the bedside table. She saw him press Victor’s icon at the top of his call list and put him on speaker.

‘Alpha,’ Victor said on the line after two rings.

‘Vic, go to Zephyr’s parent’s place,’ Alpha instructed. ‘They’re not answering. Something is wrong.’

‘On it,’ Victor said immediately. ‘I’ll update you when I get there.’

That would take about twenty minutes from Victor’s place to her parents. Twenty minutes too long. Zephyr didn’t know how she would hold onto her emotional distress for twenty minutes until she knew.

Alpha came around the side of the bed to her, grabbing a hold of her shoulders and rubbing them in a soothing motion, trying to ease the tension she could feel gathering there.

‘Let’s go down,’ he suggested after a few minutes of Zephyr just frowning at his chest. ‘We can be in company. It’ll distract you while we wait.’

Alpha didn’t like any company but knew she did, so for him to suggest it, he had to be worried, too. She nodded. It was the best thing she could do. Keep her mind occupied and keep herself from panicking. It could all be for nothing, and she just had to wait. For all she knew, both their phones broke at the same time for some reason. There would be an explanation for it.

They quickly dressed as he did and went down to the gazebo where Dante and Amara sat, discussing something. Their faces looked the same grim as the other, and Zephyr didn’t know what was going on. She didn’t want there to be some bad news here as well.

‘What happened?’ Alpha asked, seeing their looks.

‘Morana went to meet the Shadow Man alone,’ Amara informed them, her tone severe. ‘She told me to let others know if she didn’t respond in an hour. I didn’t wait. It’s going to be an hour in a few minutes.’

‘Have you told Tristan yet?’ Zephyr asked, adding another concern on top of her own. Morana was smart, but what the hell had she been thinking about going out alone to meet the man, especially after the bullet she’d taken not that long ago? Especially after the night before. Luna might call him hers, and Zephyr had been safe with him, but still. They knew nothing about the man.

Amara shook her head. ‘Not yet. If she answers, she can tell him herself. He’s had a rough night.’

Yeah. Rough was an understatement for the night they’d all had, listening to a girl who never spoke more than a few words go on a rampage, admitting her past, that she was not only the Shadow Man’s lover but his wife, and most of all admitting to killing Hector brutally and enjoying it. Zephyr didn’t fault her for that. In fact, she was grateful to the girl because if she had had the chance, Zephyr would have done it, too. But it had been particularly rough for Tristan, and it had broken her heart to see the usually stoic man so emotional in the face of a girl half his size.

Amara looked at her phone as her timer rang, looked around at them, and called Morana.

The phone was out of reach.

They all exchanged heavy looks, knowing this did not bode well for any of them. And it all happened just as Tristan and Luna walked from the lake, his arm around her and hers around him, somehow having brought them closer last night. It was good to see that they’d both still bonded and were a good evolution of their relationship.

They looked up at the group, their matching small smiles falling off their faces as they approached them. Tristan’s eyes immediately scanned the space. ‘Where’s Morana?’

Amara swallowed. ‘She went to meet the Shadow Man.’

Tristan’s whole body stilled, his eyes blazing. ‘Alone?’

Amara nodded. ‘And she’s not available on her phone now. She told me to call and check on her, and I’m… worried, Tristan.’

It was fascinating to see the way he changed from a quieter intensity to a loud one. She had seen a similar side of him when Morana had been in the hospital recovering. The man moved swiftly, pacing as he took his own phone out and dialed his girl. It went unreachable for him too. He gripped his phone so hard it almost splintered in his hand.

Luna glanced at him, her look contemplative, before leveling Amara with a look, her stance slightly protective. ‘When did you speak to her?’

‘An hour ago.’

Luna nodded, looking around at them all, hesitating for a second before reaching into her jacket pocket and taking out a small phone. Quietly, she pressed a button and then waited.

Zephyr watched as, within a minute, her phone rang. She looked around at all of them before picking up the call.

‘Hi,’ she said softly into the phone, and it hit Zephyr. She’d just called the Shadow Man. Holy shit.

‘Can I put you on speaker?’ she asked, and Zephyr glanced and saw everyone’s faces wear different expressions of shock, same as hers, as Luna pressed a button and suddenly, static filled the space.

No one said a word. Dante stood up from his stone seat. Amara put a hand to her mouth. Alpha stiffened. Tristan glared at the phone but waited for his sister to do whatever she was doing.

Luna bit her lip, and spoke. ‘Is Morana with you?’

And then, for the first time, they all heard his natural voice. A very hot voice, Zephyr noted. Nothing much. Just one word. ‘No.’

The Shadow Man was real. A real man with a real voice. Wow.

‘When did she leave?’ Luna asked him, her voice different, darker, more tender as she spoke to him. It was such a subtle difference watching her, but she stood straighter, her shoulders back, her neck angled as she spoke to him, her entire posture not of the quiet girl they had come to know but someone else, the girl who had evidently killed a terrible man and enjoyed it. Zephyr could not have imagined Luna doing something so dark but watching her hold the phone, her stance different, her voice different, the look in her eyes different, she could see this girl do it.

‘About fifteen minutes ago,’ the hot voice said. ‘What’s going on?’ That was a funny question coming from the man who seemed to know everything. It was a question all of them had been asking him to no avail.

‘She’s unreachable, asshole.’ Tristan stepped to the phone and gritted out.

Silence was on the line for a long minute, before words came. ‘Then I’m your only hope of finding her in time, Predator.’

It was then, hearing him speak to Tristan, that Zephyr realized how different his tone had been with Luna. It had been softer for her, more intimate even as he knew he was on speaker, almost like he didn’t care who heard him but talking to his girl as he wanted. His words to Tristan were delivered in a tone that sent a shiver down her spine, reminding her of the fact that this was the same man no one wanted to meet face to face for the reputation he had made for himself. It was a sobering reminder that he could be dangerous to everyone she loved.

Tristan’s jaw clenched. ‘Fuck off.’

Luna admonished him. ‘Tristan. He’s not your enemy. We talked about this five minutes ago!’

Tristan didn’t say anything; he just fisted his hands and stood there. Luna sighed. No one moved for a few seconds as the static stayed online. Finally, Dante stepped up, taking over when Tristan didn’t make a move at all.

‘Dante speaking,’ he said on the phone, giving Tristan a look. ‘I should have known it would be you, Blackthorne. It couldn’t be anyone else.’

Zephyr gasped, remembering the hot, intense guy from the party who had flirted and focused only on Luna. She’d even told her husband about the man, telling him she hoped Luna would find him hot, much to her husband’s exasperation at her hopeless romanticism. Holy shit, that guy was the Shadow Man? Meaning he’d come there while he was already with Luna? Damn.

Before things could spin out of control, Luna refocused the conversation. ‘Please find her for me.’

There was silence for a beat. ‘For you, anything, flamma.‘

Swoon.

Zephyr saw as Luna blushed at the words, her eyes flitting around to everyone and how they had all witnessed him talk to her. Zephyr was happy for the girl. She deserved love and care—especially after hearing her heavy past—and clearly, he was giving it to her.

He was still on the speaker when Alpha’s phone rang, Victor’s name flashing on it, making her heart drop as the reminder for what had been bothering her came back.

Alpha put his phone on speaker as well. ‘What’s happening, Victor?’

Victor was silent for a beat. ‘Her mother… killed him.’

It took her a few seconds to process the words.

Her mother… killed him? Him? Her father?

That wasn’t possible. They loved each other. They had been together for so long. Her father loved her mother and vice versa. Zephyr had never doubted that, in fact, it had been seeing them together that had made her such a romantic. Victor had to be wrong. Or she was getting it wrong. There was no way.

‘Him who?’ Zephyr asked, because this was just a misunderstanding and it would be some robber or intruder that her mother had killed. Maybe the intruder stole her father’s phone and that’s why she was calling Zephyr so many times. That had to be it.

Victor hesitated. ‘Your father.’

Zephyr felt a wave of dizziness come over her, her knees trembling. Suddenly, Amara steadied her, wrapping her arm around her shoulder. Her husband looked at her with so much turmoil in his only eye, his mouth turned down at the corners.

No.

Not her papa.

Not so soon after Zen.

Memories flashed across her eyes as her body shook, her hands gripping Amara for life.

Everyone heard the words, letting them sink in before Alpha cleared his throat. ‘Tell me.’

Victor’s voice was low. ‘She found a file in his old stuff. It’s bad, Alpha.’

‘How bad?’

‘Bad enough that he adopted Zenith because The Syndicate asked him to keep an eye on her after she escaped.’

The words fell like bullets to her heart. No. No. It couldn’t be true. Not her gentle, sweet, kind papa. Not him. Not her sister.

She heard a noise and realized it was coming from her mouth, hiccups in her throat and so much shivering she couldn’t stop. This had to be wrong. Her father had loved them. Zephyr had never ever questioned his love for them both. More memories went over her mind—him picking them up from school because her mother had been working, him taking them out for ice cream on Sundays because it was just their father-daughter time, him fighting their mother and taking a stand with the girls when they wanted to move to the city farther away from them, him telling her and Zen that they were beautiful and they could do anything they wanted with their lives, and so on, and so on, and so on. So many memories, of nothing but love, for her, for her sister, for her mama. How could Victor be talking about the same man?

‘Are we sure about this?’ Alpha asked, his troubled eye on her form as she grappled with this.

‘I wish I could say no,’ Victor cursed. ‘But fuck. I saw the file. There’s a letter in there. Zen had gone to the cops and there was a ruckus at the time, so to let it die down, they instructed him to foster her for a while. It then became instructions to adopt her and just wait for further instructions. The last letter had been six years ago. Maybe there’s more but this is all I can find right now.’

Zephyr felt her mouth open, a wounded animal noise leaving her at each word hitting her newly healing heart, opening the scabs that had formed recently and bleeding it out all over again. Her husband grabbed her close, pulling her into his wide chest, his large hand cupping the back of her head as she shook into his body. His scarred body, scars he got because he was attacked. She remembered what he’d said about his attack, the man keeping the girl, the man he had heard before talking to Hector. It had been her father. Her father who had attacked the boy she’d loved and made him lose his memories, made her feel lost for a decade before she found him. The fact that she’d had her father over so many times for dinner and he’d just sat there, knowing what he had to her husband. He’d sat there knowing what he’d done to them. Hell, he’d lived his life knowing what had been done to her sister.

Zephyr broke down.

It was everything, all at once, too soon.

How many times did the gray come before she was gone? How many times could she take this? Betrayal after betrayal, pain after pain, hurt after hurt.

Alpha rubbed her back, his face in her hair, kissing her over and over on the head to soothe her. She didn’t feel soothed. She felt distraught, disgusted, disillusioned. She could feel a chasm in her heart as the world she knew went upside down again.

‘What about my…?’ she couldn’t get the words out between her hiccups.

Her mother. Her mother, whom she’d been in a standoff with, her mother who had loved her daughters too, even though she was stubborn, her mother who had killed the man she’d loved because of what he’d done to her babies. Her mother who must be realizing that her own husband had been the danger and not her daughter’s. A cry left her at the thought of her mother doing what she’d done out of love, even though she’d not talked to her for days.

‘She’s been arrested,’ Victor said. ‘I’m trying to get things ironed out here. She’ll be out, and I’ll take care of things here, don’t worry. I’m so fucking sorry, Zee.’

Zephyr listened to the words, going numb as everything settled around her; her past turned to dust, the only solid thing the arms that held her silently locked in.

Zephyr let herself break again.