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

Gladestone had too many abandoned warehouses.

Lyla stood in front of one of the smaller ones in the industrial district. There were blocks and blocks of abandoned areas like this in the city going to complete and utter ruins, factories and companies either shutting down after the turn of the century or moving to greener pastures. There was nothing green about the city. It was a concrete jungle cloaked with corporate greed while hiding crime underneath. Lyla had never really been in the city much, but whatever little she had seen from the windows of cars she had traveled in, it had left her feeling numb.

She looked up at the sky, seeing nothing but gray, not a star visible in sight, and sighed. She missed the skies in Bayfjord. Lyla hadn’t known skies like that could exist in real until she’d seen them herself—skies so vast and endless and open she felt like she could fly just looking at them; skies the grayest when roiling with clouds and the bluest when clear and the orangest when burnished at sunset; skies the blackest canvas at night with the brightest stars splattered across it like the most surreal painting. The view of the mountains and the sea from the deck outside the bedroom, the freedom to roam the property knowing the best security was working around the clock at the border, the people she had made connections with, she missed all of it. She missed home.

But she had to do this.

‘This is for meetings.’ The voice made her turn her neck to look at the man at her side, the one holding her hand in his gloved one. He stood next to her in a black hoodie and jeans, the casual attire not hiding the sheer danger he wore around him, holding an overnight bag in his free hand. He led her into what looked like a dilapidated little warehouse from the outside, punching in a code and opening the rickety-looking door that appeared like it was going to fall any second.

A gasp left her as she stepped in, the inside not matching the outside at all. It was like an office but cozier and smaller. High ceilings were covered with beams that gave the building more structure than it looked like. A pair of armchairs sat on a rug on the left. A coffee machine, mugs, and snacks occupied the far left corner of the space. The major portion was taken up by a long table she’d seen in the offices in movies, mostly in boardrooms, with ten chairs around them. A projector was fixed on one of the beams, pointing to the back wall that was painted white.

‘What kind of meetings is this for?’ Lyla asked, taking it all in.

Dainn walked to one of the armchairs, dropping the bag down on it. ‘The clandestine kind. Some people like to have meetings completely off the radar, with no paper trail, and places like this are for such.’

Lyla followed him in, going to the middle of the space and looking around. ‘Really?’

He chuckled, the tone dry. ‘You’d be surprised. Humans are pretty predictable in some ways.’ He moved to her. ‘The more power they get, the more important one thing becomes.’

‘What’s that?’ she asked, fascinated by how he thought.

He bent, his face close to hers. ‘Secrets,’ he said, like sharing a secret between them. ‘People will do anything to keep secrets.’

She swallowed, realizing the truth in his words. ‘And you?’

‘I hoard them,’ he told her, his hands coming to her waist. ‘Use them. Manipulate them.’

It shouldn’t have turned her on, the way he spoke about manipulating and playing people, but it did. Knowing him as she did, seeing how he was with her in contrast to the persona he shared with the world, made her feel in on the secret. It gave her something she’d never had before—power. She realized that while he hoarded and used others’ secrets, he had given her all of his. And it was a rush knowing that and keeping it close to her chest, just something between the two of them, no one in the world privy to their bubble.

And what a bubble it had been, especially the last twenty-four hours.

Lyla was so sore, more happily sore than she’d ever been in her life. She could feel him in every step she took, her pussy battered and her thighs still shaking in the aftermath of what had been the most intense, insane sexual marathon of her life. He had bent and twisted and turned her every which way, and she had pushed and bounced and moved back, their touches tinged not just with desire but with desperation, memorizing each other, gorging on each other to keep themselves satiated for longer during the separation.

She placed her hands on his chest, feeling the solid beat of his heart underneath a hand, as if she could soak his innate confidence. ‘What should I tell them?’

He nuzzled her nose, the gesture so soft it made her heart clench. ‘Anything you want.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Anything?’

He shrugged his broad, muscular shoulders she’d witnessed hold his weight so many times it had become a constant core memory. ‘Tell them whatever you want. It’s your truth and your choice. Yours. You decide how much to share, when to share, who to share it with.’

‘Except with you,’ she clarified. ‘You get all my truths.’

‘And all your lies. And everything in between.’ He looked pleased. ‘Just don’t mention Blackthorne yet.’

It fascinated her every time he mentioned his different personalities like that, like they weren’t the same man wearing different masks. ‘What about the Shadow Man?’

A twitch near the corner of his lips. ‘If Morana is as smart as I believe, she already suspects who you are to the Shadow Man.’

She felt her eyes narrow at him. ‘What did you do?’

His grooves in the corner of his mouth deepened but he stayed silent, his hands firm on her waist. She basked in the presence, his warmth and his scent, for a few moments before laying another one of her fears out in the open for him. She was scared of everything—meeting all the new people she had never heard of until a bit ago but who had known of her for years. She was also scared of being… less. From what she’d found, Morana was a tech genius, Amara was a renowned psychologist, and Zephyr had been a hairstylist but was now working with her husband. Even Zenith, her old friend, had been working with people and helping them. Lyla was none of those things. Through no fault of hers and because of her circumstances, she hadn’t had the opportunity to be something, her focus always on survival when it hadn’t been on death. Even now, she was barely learning herself, her own likes and dislikes, little things about her that she’d never known before.

‘What if… they are disappointed? I don’t know how to… be. Who to be.’

He pressed a hard kiss to her lips. ‘You’re perfect. You burn so bright you could blind a man, flamma.‘

‘What if others don’t see it?’

‘I don’t want anyone to see it,’ he stated plainly. ‘Man has tried to steal fire from the sun since before the dawn of time.’

She took that in for a few seconds.

‘I just want you to promise me one thing,’ he told her, his tone serious. ‘Promise me to take care of yourself. Eat and sleep. Drink your tea. Talk to Dr. Manson at least once every two days. And,’ he slid a phone into her hand, one similar to one that he kept in his office drawer. ‘Keep your phone with you all the time. There’s a tracker inside. I will watch it.’

Oddly enough, that calmed her down. ‘Okay.’

‘Oh, little red,’ he kissed her nose, something warm in his mismatched eyes. ‘Look at you feeling relieved that the big bad wolf to watch you.’

Lyla gazed up at him. ‘My big bad wolf.’

Gripping her jaw with one hand, he pressed a hard kiss to her mouth. ‘Trust me still?’

She nodded.

‘Then close your eyes and count to ten.’

Lyla complied, her heart in her throat as he kissed her again, as if he couldn’t help himself, and she clung to him, opening her mouth, letting him in and tasting him, that lava that lived in him melting, pouring, solidifying into her. They kissed, tongues dancing, sensitive lips becoming more so, but she didn’t care.

It was over before she knew it, his mouth leaving her, his hands leaving her, his presence leaving her.

Lyla counted to ten, her heart thudding and sinking, and then opened her eyes.

She was alone.

He had gone back to the shadows.

***

Lyla spent an hour alone. An hour pacing, going to the coffee station, and making herself a cup before putting it down, her nerves too taut, too high-strung to let her stay still. She sank into one of the armchairs, bringing the bag closer. He’d packed and stashed it in his helicopter before they’d left Bayfjord, which told her that he’d been planning to tell her the truth and expected her to leave even before they had started their journey here. He was always going to let her go and meet her past.

She kept a hold of the bag, not opening it, not wanting to, not yet. She would look into it and see what he had packed for her when she was in a new space and needed to feel a sense of belonging.

Quietly, she set the bag to the side and sat on the edge of the plush chair, her legs nervously fumbling and her limbs jittery with anxiety and with anticipation.

The sound of a vehicle coming closer and closer to her location sent her heartrate spiraling, her mind blanking to thought as a flush of adrenaline filled her. It could be a stranger, it could be someone just passing by, or maybe something more dangerous. She immediately discarded the thought. He wouldn’t have left her here alone if he wasn’t sure of her safety. That only meant it had to be someone purposely heading her way.

She sat with baited breath, her heart pounding in her entire body with one thump after the other, as footsteps approached. Seconds later, the door rattled, someone trying to break in. It got harder and harder for her to try and move, her body freezing in her spot as she watched the door with wide eyes.

The wood splintered and someone shouldered it, and then there was a tall man silhouetted against the frame, a gun in his hand as he entered the space, his face coming into the light.

From the photographs she had seen, she recognized him as Dante Maroni, her brother’s friend. Lyla felt a drop of sweat roll down the back of her neck under the collar of the blazer she was wearing—an attire she had put a lot of thought in to try and make the best first impression and appear less like the damaged goods that she was compared to the rest of them.

She watched from the left side of the entrance as Dante Maroni scanned the space, photographs not doing justice to how handsome he was in real. His eyes went over everything with quick precision before finally moving to the side, to her.

She saw his mouth part as shock flitted across his face, his hand with the gun going lax and falling to his side, his dark eyes taking her in. He pressed something in his ear. ‘Got her.’

Lyla gripped the seat on her sides, her arms trembling, coming to terms with the fact that this was a man, right there, who had looked for her and helped her brother for so many years. She tried opening her mouth to say something, greet him and be less odd, but words strangled in her throat, her eyes blurring as she blinked rapidly to clear the mist, not knowing what to say.

He didn’t either, but he was more in control of his faculties because his face gentled, and he gave her a smile—a big, warm smile that reached his eyes.

She began to tremble, realizing that it was the first real smile she had received from someone who had known her. It was a good sign, one that made her hope that she might receive some more. She would hoard them and keep them close to her heart, not having been gifted such expressions of joy, not even having witnessed it often. Smiles in her dark world had been cruel. And her lover, he didn’t really smile with purity, his own soul as darkened as hers, more tarnished. The smiles he gave to the world were fake, and the ones he gave her were twitches of his lips tinged with warmth in his eyes. Dante Maroni’s smile was megawatt, radiant, having to adjust her eyes to it.

He made no move to get to her but stood at the door like a sentry in a protective stance.

Before she could think more about it, a screech of tires came from outside, followed by the rapid footsteps of someone running. A second later, a silhouette came barrelling at the doorway, stopping at the last second. Dante moved to the side, giving whoever it was at the door a silent nod.

The silhouette took a deep breath in, before walking into the space, his eyes searching it.

She saw him before he saw her. Short dark blonde hair, light eyes that she knew were the most vibrant blue, a tall muscular frame that held itself ready to move at a moment’s notice.

Tristan Caine.

Her big brother.

His eyes finally came to the side where she sat, and he stilled.

She saw his chest move rapidly and her own matched it, her heart galloping like a wild horse freed from the cage of her ribs, her arms shaking with the tight grip she had on the cushioned seat nect to her, their eyes locked.

His eyes traveled all over her, detailing every little thing about her that he could see, and hers did the same, taking in every little thing—from the shirt that was wrinkled to the scruff on his jaw that looked like he hadn’t touched it for days to the shadows under his eyes that looked like he hadn’t slept for days either. She took all of it in as did he, their eyes moving over each other, coming back and locking, and moving again, and coming back again.

Then, after seconds, minutes, hours of just taking in the other, he took a deep breath in, and took a step forward.

Her knuckles began to hurt with her grip.

He took another slow, measured step, watching her closely, as if she were a spooked animal that he didn’t want to scare away.

She stayed frozen, unable to form words, unable to process feelings, unable to do anything but just sit and watch.

Another step, and her nose began to tingle.

One last step and he was before her, so close she could touch him. She wanted to touch him. But her arms didn’t move, locked by her side, bound by chains she couldn’t see but feel tying them up.

He looked down at her as she looked up, their stare never breaking, the weight of the emotions in his eyes heavy but not something she could read. All she felt was its intensity and it made her own come to the fore, burning her eyes and condensing the vapors of her feelings into the tears that flooded them.

And then, without a word, seeing the moisture in her gaze, he went down on his knees before her. Suddenly, she was looking down at him while he was looking up at her.

They just looked, breathed in the presence of the other for the first time in decades, memories hanging between them, the ones she didn’t know and he couldn’t forget. He brought his hands up, roughened palms facing upwards, leaving it between them, just watching, waiting, his own eyes red and misted as hers.

She could see his hands shaking in her periphery.

Somehow, seeing that sent the epiphany crashing into her—this was her brother.

Her big brother.

The man who had looked for her since she had been missing.

The man who didn’t give up on finding her for over twenty years.

The only blood family she had left, the roots to the tree she had never been able to see.

Lyla didn’t even look at his hands, nothing in her letting her remove her eyes from his, but somehow, seeing his hands there broke the chains on hers.

She brought her trembling hands up, and slowly, placed them in his.

A breath shuddered out of him, his eyes closing for a second, tears that had been hanging in them falling down his cheeks and over his jaw.

Lyla felt her own fall, hiccups wracking her body as she tried hard not to make a sound, not to break this moment, her breaths short and tight.

He looked at her again, something so soft, so beautiful in his eyes it made a sob crawl out of her throat.

It was as if her sound triggered him. Before she could blink, he pulled her down on the rug and into his arms, drawing her smaller body into the large warmth of his, his big arms curling around her protectively, and the feeling of them broke her.

She had almost died believing she would never have this. She had lived her whole life believing she didn’t deserve this. Every time someone had broken her as a child, as a teen, as a young adult, before Dainn had found her, she had craved the arms of a brother that would protect her, dying on the inside when they didn’t come. The way he held her, crushing her to himself, broke her all over again, reminding her of every single time she had wished for this, begged for this, prayed for this, and never got.

Sobs wracked her body, her wails loud in the space, echoing, but she didn’t care, crying her heart, her body, her soul out, and she wasn’t alone. He was crying with her, not as loud but just as heavy, his body shaking with hers, his arms locked around her like he would never let her leave.

She was mildly aware of people coming to the door, but she didn’t even look, and neither did he. They didn’t care, a broken brother and a shattered sister.

The world could have ended, and they would have stayed locked there, both of them holding each other, crumbled on the ground, reuniting and restoring and repairing over twenty years of open wounds that had never stopped bleeding.