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

‘I love him.’

His sister, his beloved beautiful sister, whom he hadn’t known long enough but never would have suspected of even knowing about the fucker, just sat there and told them all she loved him.

The fucker who had led them to her. Tristan didn’t know whether to kill or thank him. He was leaning more toward the murder right then.

He felt Morana’s hand slip into his, holding him back from doing or saying something stupid that could damage his very new relationship with his sister. She had always been smarter, more emotionally astute between the two of them. Sometimes, he wished she wasn’t. He wished she would let him rage and ask what the fuck his sister was doing with the asshole pulling the strings and leading them around on a merry chase like it was a game. What the fuck was she doing with someone who lived in a world so filthy it made Tristan feel sick? It wasn’t a fucking game. Fuck, he was pissed.

His jaw clenched tight, he realized he was glaring at his sister, who, for the first time in their entire time, looked him straight in the eyes. The docile, damaged girl transformed right before him into a darker, defiant one, one with confidence rather than confusion in her eyes. He loved the confidence but hated who it was for, who had inspired it. How could she feel confident just thinking of a fucker who wasn’t even there? Tristan would have suspected some kind of drug if he hadn’t been with her the whole time.

‘So, you do know who he is?’ Morana asked from his side, her voice even.

His sister let his gaze go and looked to his side, right at the woman who had started the whole conversation. ‘Yes.’

‘Who is he?’ Dante chimed in, leaning forward in his seat.

Luna turned to him. ‘He is… mine.’

‘You have to be specific, Luna,’ Amara encouraged her, more gentle than any of them, more gentle than Tristan was capable of feeling at the moment.

His sister took another deep breath, her hand going to the gold choker necklace she always wore. Tristan had wondered about it, about who had given it to her, why she wore it all the time, and when he’d asked, all she’d told him was it had been a gift. But she’d seemed happy about it, so he’d not prodded anymore.

Now, watching her touch the necklace, it became crystal clear to him. The fucker had sent her to them marked with his possession.

‘He is my lover. My… husband.’

Stunned silence, completely stunned, before gasps escaped some lips.

Tristan was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, striding toward her and almost at her before turning in the last minute, angrily pacing away, returning back to her. He leaned down, fucking furious with her for keeping this from him when they’d been opening up to each other every day, keeping the fact that she not only knew the fucker but she was fucking married to him. Married, when he’d not married for years because he’d wanted to find her? What the actual fuck?

His thoughts spiraled in a flurry of pure fury, but only one word came out.

‘Explain.’

The word grit out of him, harsh. He could feel the shock around him, but his body was buzzing with adrenaline, as though prepping to fight an enemy he couldn’t see.

‘Tristan,’ he heard Morana warn from somewhere near his back but ignored her tone, looking his sister straight into her beautiful eyes. Had she been lying to them the whole time? Had Dante’s suspicion been correct, she’d become a pawn for the Shadow Man? She’d been playing them with her innocence?

He knew he was showing her a side of himself that she hadn’t seen before, that maybe she’d not been exposed to before, but he couldn’t control it.

‘I said,’ he gnashed out again, staring her down. ‘Ex-fucking-plain.’

Her body flinched slightly before she straightened her spine, tilting her chin higher, staring him down even though she was a head shorter.

‘What do you want me to explain, brother?’ Luna didn’t flinch this time, even though her jaw trembled.

‘Ex-fucking-plain.’ The same word came out stunted through his grit teeth.

Her teeth gnashed too, her eyes sparking with fire he hadn’t seen in her before.

She tilted her head to the side, her spine rigid. ‘What do you want me to explain? How I was a slave for The Syndicate all my life? How I was used and abused? How I had no one and no memories and absolutely nothing? How I wanted to die rather than live in that hell every single day? Do you know what that does to you? You might have felt pain and anguish, but you had a light and you had something worth living for. Let me assure you, you don’t know what it feels like to be completely alone in the utter dark and feel your soul break, day after day, night after night, until it’s gone and you’re left an empty husk, just praying for it to just end.‘

There was complete silence, tense silence as she caught her breath, and everyone just processed her talking. She’d never said so much. His jaw went slack at her words, at the emotions and the pain in her voice, hitting their mark as pain shuddered through him.

She suddenly moved, her hands fisting at her sides. ‘You want me to explain how he found me, in that dark as an empty husk and breathed life back into me? You want me to explain how me protected me for years? How he saved me from others and from myself for years? How he searched for each shard of my shattered soul with patience, piece after piece, until I felt healed? How he led you to me?’

Her words fell on Tristan like bullets, knocking him back physically as he slumped on the couch; Morana’s hand came on his arm, and his eyes remained on his sister, standing in the center like a vengeful goddess owning her truth.

Luna looked around at all of them slowly, seeing all eyes on her, and turned to face him again. ‘Or do you want me to explain how I saw you all at a club one night? How I served you drinks and not one of you even saw me, except maybe Amara? Or why I remember that vividly because I was so envious of what you all had? It was right before I went to my room and tried to kill myself. I almost succeeded too.’

Amara gasped, her hands flying to her mouth as the memory apparently hit her. The only club he’d been to in years had been the one in Gladestone, and he hadn’t even looked around at anything. And she’d been there, right there, right before she wanted to kill herself.

His eyes began to burn as tears streaked freely down her face.

She lost some of her fire, her body deflating as she saw the emotions in his eyes.

‘I was broken, brother,’ she told him softly. ‘Too broken to even breathe. He resusciated me. He saved me that night, so many nights I’ve lost count at this point. He gave me a home, such a beautiful home I would love to see you all visit. He gave me his name and everything he had, and he gave me all of you. I’m not lying when I tell you the only reason you’re even looking at me breathing is because he made me, even forced me to keep breathing against my will when all I wanted was to die. He wouldn’t let me. You found me because he wanted you to.’

Morana inhaled sharply at his side, and Luna nodded. ‘Yes, Morana. He found you because he was looking for my past. He doesn’t give a shit about anything else, no offense. Everything he has done for years has been for me.’ She pointed at herself. ‘And if he’d wanted, you never would have found me. I would have lived without knowing my past, and so would you.’

There was silence for a long moment after her tirade, silence so heavy it felt suffocating to him. His lungs felt rigid, like they couldn’t draw oxygen, as his brain processed everything he had heard. He would have taken ten years of torture if it would’ve spared her. He still would.

‘Then why did he tell us? Tell you?’ Morana asked from his side as he sat there stumped, emotions mixing inside him so intensely he couldn’t tell which was which.

A soft, breathtaking smile came over her face. ‘Because he loves me.’

The Shadow Man loved his sister. His brain couldn’t compute.

‘Because I told him that love was selfless and giving me you is the most selfless thing he could have done to show me that.’

‘So, he’s a good guy?’ Dante voiced.

His sister chuckled, the sound dry. ‘Oh no. He couldn’t be who he is if he was. He’s the monster monsters fear, the devil of his own kingdom. But he’s my devil. And only good to me, now to you, because I asked him to be.’

His sister truly loved the guy. He could see it in the way she talked about him, in the way she became confident when he was mentioned. The idea of what her life had been and how he had saved her made gratitude fill his heart, but there was fury there too, fury that the fucker had known but never led them to her sooner. He could have found her sooner, saved her sooner, helped her sooner.

‘He was hunting Hector for you.’ Alpha’s quiet rumble from the side made Luna turn to him. Tristan suddenly remembered what Alpha had told them, that Hector had broken something of the Shadow Man’s.

His eyes flew to his sister. Had it been her? Had Hector broken her and driven her to the point she’d wanted to die?

His heart cracked open.

‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘And he served Hector to me on a platter. He hunted him and strung him up and gave me power for the first time in my life.’

She gave a look around, took a breath, and admitted. ‘I killed Hector. I burned him alive. And. It. Felt. Good.‘

The emphasis on each word was hard. This petite girl who was all things soft and gentle, his sister he had somehow idolized in his head? A killer? A vengeful murderer?

Zephyr gasped, her eyes red from crying throughout. ‘He murdered my sister.’

‘I know,’ Luna swallowed. ‘I’m the friend she left behind. I helped her escape and got punished for it.’ She turned to the others, who watched her in the same stunned silence. ‘Hector broke me, and… he, Shadow Man, broke Hector for me. When I got to him, he was hanging to his life. And it felt good to take that from him.’

His fists were shaking, Morana’s hands trying to keep them steady. Nothing could keep him steady now. His insides had been carved open, pulled out, and left scattered. He didn’t know how he was going to assimilate, to put it all back in and hold himself together again. It wasn’t just the pain and the fury for everything she had suffered and kept from them; it was also a sense of loss for the girl he had hoped she would be, the girl he had unknowingly made up in his mind for years.

‘So he knew who you were, who we were, and he never told you before?’ Dante questioned, his tone telling Tristan he was shaken to the core as well. ‘Why?’

Luna turned to Dante, speaking plainly. ‘Because I didn’t want to live. And he knew that. He could have told me, but looking back, I don’t think I would have survived, even with all of you. Even now, when I’m in a much better place, I feel isolated in the group, like I don’t belong, and it takes me time to tell myself it’s all in my head. I never knew love, never believed in it, never felt I was worthy of it. It took me so much time to understand that I do deserve it, and more time to accept it. If I’d come to you the way I’d been, I think I would have killed myself. And he knew that because he knows me better than anyone.’

His sister suddenly crouched down before him, her hands coming to his knees, her gaze liquid and turned up to him.

‘You are the best brother I could have dreamed of,’ she stated, breaking and fusing pieces of his heart together even more. ‘There were days I wished for nothing but an older brother somewhere, one who would love and protect me, even knowing I might never have it. That was the first thing I thought about when I found out about you. My silly little dreams as a child. It was like my wish had been granted.’

She took a hold of his hands, and it struck him how their position—her on her knees holding his hand and looking up at him— was the reverse of their position when he’d found her. They had been crying then too.

‘You are my wish granted, Tristan,’ she kept on. ‘Through you, I feel like I have a family now, friends, people who would care if I lived or died. I can accept your love now because I can accept my own.’

Tears fell down his face as did hers.

‘I love you, brother,’ her voice shook. ‘I love you for never giving up on me, for accepting me as I am and not who you wanted me to be, for healing a part of me that had been bleeding since my first memory, for giving me another piece of my soul back.’

His lips trembled at hearing the words, words he had lived his entire life to hear, words he had only heard once and never from his family, words that healed the part of him that had been bleeding for years too.

And, for the first time in his adult life, the words left his lips in a croaked, hoarse, broken whisper.

‘I love you too.’

His sister jumped up and crashed into his arms, crushing and holding onto him.

Morana began to sob by his side, and he turned to look at her, to see the most beautiful smile on her face, her eyes beaming with pride at him, her hand on his back, anchoring him in place.

And with one woman he loved beside him, having found the other who had been lost, Tristan finally felt whole.