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

The loud, happy baby giggle was the only light in their lives these days.

Dante blew a raspberry on the soft tummy of his little princess, and Tempest rewarded him with a giggle worthy enough to befall kingdoms. If happiness could be weaponized, this precious bundle of joy in their lives would have conquered everything and ruled with a toothless smile and a grubby fist.

‘There hasn’t been any news, boss.’

The words coming from the phone speaker pulled him back out of the happy space and into the fucked up reality they were living in, where countless babies like his own were shoved into a life of pain every single day, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it, not with limited capacity and limited information. And the main source of his information was nowhere to be found for the last five weeks. That was the longest Vin had ever gone without contact, and he had to believe that was because he was deep undercover and not deep under the ground.

‘That’ll be all,’ he dismissed his man, his mind spinning in circles. So far, they’d not been able to uncover anything substantial enough for them to do any damage to the organization.

The fucking Syndicate.

Hell, they didn’t even know enough about its operations to find a grip to uproot anything. Dante had been in this shady underbelly of the world long enough to contemplate that maybe, as much as he’d hate it, they might not be able to uproot a system like that. The more they discovered about The Syndicate, the more he realized that it was a lot more complex than they’d ever thought, like the underground root network of a giant tree, spread far and wide and deep under the surface, hidden from the world, mingled so tightly that uprooting the entire system seemed impossible, the roots strong enough and symbiotic enough that even if someone cut the tree down, a new one would grow in its place over time.

The others, in their optimism, somehow believed that they would be able to chop it off, even a logical bastard like Tristan. But he was more emotional than he let on, and when it came to the organization responsible for his sister’s disappearance, he operated on pure emotion. Dante had been with the man long enough to witness that. But Dante, as emotional as he was, operated on pure logic when it came to The Syndicate. He didn’t have the emotional baggage, even though the organization had been indirectly responsible for many things in his life. No, he thought as a businessman, as a mafia kingpin, and from his contemplation, it looked grim. It wasn’t a thought he necessarily shared with the others; there was no need at the moment. It was better to have optimism and hope. He knew the ways it could motivate a man to wait patiently for things to unfold. The living proof of that patience kicked her chubby feet in the air, grinning up at him.

Dante grinned back, wondering how she would grow up in this ugly, ugly world. Though he would protect her as much as he could, so would the others she would call family; it worried him. When the air itself became poisoned, no barrier could prevent it from seeping under the cracks, toxic fumes making their way into the very lungs that needed it to breathe. He could only keep her in a vacuum for so long before she rebelled, and knowing the kind of father he had had, he never, never wanted to be like that to her. He wanted to be a good father and a good friend to her, a guide she could turn to and the ground she could grow on. He didn’t know how she would do it, but as Amara liked to remind him, with all the love she got from everyone around her, she would figure it out.

The ringing of the phone broke through his worrisome thoughts of the future.

He pressed the speaker again as Tempest turned on her stomach and began to crawl away from him. Since she’d come into their lives, his office had started looking more like a daycare and less like a lion’s den.

‘Dante.’ He heard Morana’s voice over the speakers, and a genuine smile came over his face. He’d never thought Morana would ever integrate into his life and become such an intrinsic part of his family. Even knowing Tristan’s obsession with her through the years had never led him to imagine she’d fill up his heart like a sibling. Seeing Morana shot and heal from it had just made him realize even more how important she was to his family.

‘How’s my favorite hacker doing?’ Dante asked, watching as Tempest crawled over to where Lulu was peacefully napping. The fucking cat had a bed and still chose to sleep anywhere but on it. With Amara away to check on the kids at the rehabilitation center they’d been working on for over a year, both their daughter and their cat were left under his care. Not that he minded the company.

‘Such a charmer.’ He could hear Morana’s eyes rolling in her tone before she got quiet

It was the silence that made Dante focus. Morana talked, and she was comfortable enough in his company to talk quite a bit. So the silence was… unusual. Anything unusual had his attention these days.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked quietly, keeping his eyes on his crawling baby girl but his attention on the call.

Morana hesitated. ‘I… there’s something I wanted to talk to you about, something I don’t know how to say.’

His heart suddenly dropped. ‘Is it about Amara?’

‘No, no, no!’ Morana rushed to reassure him. ‘Nothing about her. She’s great, fantastic even. I spoke to her yesterday, and she’s excited about planning my goddaughter’s first birthday.’

He relaxed, his muscles easing. As long as his wife was good, he’d be good. His wife. It felt so good to him to call her that, even in his head, after waiting so long for it.

‘I can’t believe it’s already been a year.’ A year of the happiest he’d been, marred with scars of their world and their loss. Every time he remembered his precious angel, the one who didn’t make it, it made his heart ache. Amara had planted a magnolia tree in her name next to the gazebo out back, and though it was just a small plant at the moment, the idea of nurturing it did feel good to him. That tree was Serenity, his angel baby, and she would grow roots in their home, just in a different way.

He shook off the thoughts and focused on Morana. ‘So, what is this about?’ He watched as Tempest crawled over the sleeping feline. Lulu, used to the antics now, simply raised her head and went back to napping, unperturbed by the tiny human, the same size as she, grabbing her ears. It was amusing, to say the least.

He heard Morana take a deep breath, and his shoulders tensed as she inhaled. She uttered the one name that had been a mystery around them since they had learned of The Syndicate.

‘The Shadow Man.’

Of course, it was him. Mysterious fucker. They had discussed the enigma many times, so Dante didn’t understand why Morana was suddenly so anxious about him. ‘What about him?’

‘He sent me a message last night,’ she started. ‘A message with location details that I’m tracking as we speak. He’s never sent them so easily, and I’m convinced he wants me to trace it.’

That piqued his curiosity. What kind of game was the bastard playing? From the little they knew about the Shadow Man, his motives for doing anything were as mysterious as he was. Why he’d helped Morana, led them to the house where they found Xander, why he’d been there hunting the man who had kidnapped Zephyr and murdered his sister—only he knew his reasons. The closest anyone had come to finding anything had been his half-brother Alpha since he had met the infamous man, but only because the Shadow Man had wanted to talk. There was nothing substantial though they had an inkling it was something to do with The Syndicate, Dante hated not knowing more. It was like playing blind chess, unable to see all the pieces on the board except his own, with no idea of his opponent’s next moves. It was frustrating.

‘There were also some images attached to the message.’

Morana’s words made him blink, watching as his daughter’s eyelids began to droop. ‘Images? Of what?’

He heard her swallow. Whatever she was going to say had her bracing herself, which in turn had him bracing himself.

‘I think it’s her… Luna.’

His breath whooshed out of him. Dante stared at the screen of his phone, unable to believe what he was hearing, feeling the impact of the syllables in his chest.

Luna.

At this point, she almost seemed like a myth, an elusive legend they had been chasing for decades.

Luna.

They had never seen her, didn’t know what she looked like. Her images? The Shadow Man sent her images? Dante wouldn’t be surprised if the man knew they had been looking for her, but the fact that he’d just sent the images was odd. What the hell?

Even though she wasn’t his younger sister by blood, searching for her for so many years with Tristan, someone he thought of as a brother, she felt like his own. She felt like a little sister he never knew about until too late, a sister he had never seen or met but needed to.

The blood rushed through his body, his pulse getting warmer as the words seeped into his senses.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked, even knowing the answer. Morana would never say something of this severity unless she was certain of it. She knew the stakes, probably better than anyone else.

‘Pretty much,’ she answered. Dante let it sink in for a minute before something else caught his attention.

Morana had been the one to call him with this news, not Tristan. He could not imagine Tristan, the man who had relentlessly searched for his sister, sometimes chasing leads with Dante himself, not calling Dante with this update the moment he had it. For all his external disdain, he knew Tristan thought of him as family too.

That only meant one thing.

‘Tristan doesn’t know,’ Dante stated, the words leaving a sour taste in his mouth. It didn’t feel right that he didn’t. He should be the first to know. But knowing Morana, he knew there had to be a reason.

‘Not yet,’ Morana sighed. ‘A, I want to be one hundred percent sure before I get his hopes up, which I will be in a few hours. Tonight at the latest, hopefully.’

That made sense.

‘And B, and this is what I wanted to talk to you about…’ she trailed off.

Danted waited, letting her assemble her thoughts while his mind wrapped around the idea that they might actually find Luna, the reality of it hitting him right in the solar plexus.

Morana inhaled deeply. ‘One of the photos is… intimate.’

Dante felt himself frown. ‘Intimate, how?’

‘Like… like a photo you would take of Amara if she was wearing your shirt the morning after being with her, satisfied, disheveled but glowing.’

‘Okay.’ He watched Tempest distractedly as she fell asleep on Lulu, contemplating what Morana meant.

‘It’s a lover’s gaze, Dante,’ Morana clarified for him. ‘And I think the Shadow Man took that photo. There is a reason that he attached that photo with the others, why his text to me was more personal than direct. If my hunch is right, which I have to admit is more often than not, he is her lover, and he wants us to know that.’

This was the second time in as many minutes that words sunk into him with impact. He picked the phone up from the rug where he sat, turned it off the speaker, and pressed it to his ear as if the action could somehow send the words deeper inside his brain.

‘You’re saying the Shadow Man,‘ he started, his tone disbelieving, ‘the fucking myth in the underworld we didn’t even know about until a while ago, that man… is with Luna? Isn’t it possible that he simply got the photo from somewhere else like he did the rest?’

It sounded wild, even as he voiced it out. The Shadow Man was a faceless, nameless rogue with some mysterious reason for popping in and out of their lives.

‘He could have acquired it from elsewhere,’ Morana admitted. ‘But he wanted us to see that image. It kind of makes sense the more I think about it. That’s the only thing that can explain why he’s been involved in our lives or why he contacted me. He wanted information about a particular shipment, and he was looking into the time we were all taken. She is the only link to all of it.’

The more Morana spoke, the more the puzzle pieces fit. Not all of them, but some of them. He had to admit she could be right about this.

‘So you think he was searching for her too?’ Dante asked.

‘Or for her past,’ Morana put in. ‘It’s possible that looking for her origin is what led him to us.’

Fuck.

It did sound plausible.

‘I don’t know how to tell any of this to Tristan.’ Dante heard the clacking of a keyboard in the background as she spoke. ‘The last time the Shadow Man sent us a location, I told Tristan immediately, and it ended up being a wild goose chase. We found Xander, and I’m so grateful for that, don’t get me wrong. But I know how much it deflated Tristan that it wasn’t his sister. I saw how his hope got crushed.’ Morana’s voice cracked. ‘I don’t want to do that to him again. You know he’s not good at processing emotions, and he’s already been more intense since the shooting, and I just…’

Dante sighed. He could understand where she was coming from. The need to emotionally protect the ones they loved was strong in all of them. But Dante also knew what keeping things from a partner could do to a relationship, no matter how strong. He still remembered how he had almost broken a decade-long relationship by keeping something from Amara, how he had lost her while she’d been pregnant. He remembered because they had both paid a price for it, and he felt it every day that his little princess breathed, and his little angel who never made it watched over her sister. It was a wound that would probably never heal fully, and a wound they could have maybe avoided if his decision to keep something from Amara hadn’t led her to run away from him, making them both more vulnerable.

And even though he never meddled into Tristan and Morana’s relationship, he needed to now. So, with the experience of his past mistake, watching his baby girl sleep peacefully, Dante gave Morana the most sincere advice he could give someone. ‘Take it from someone who has fucked up before, don’t ever keep something from your partner. It doesn’t matter how good your intentions are or that they come from a protective place; it will hurt them regardless when they find out. In fact, it hurts them more. Amara is forgiving by nature, and I’m a lucky bastard because of it. But Tristan…’

He let it trail off, hearing Morana’s quick intake of breath. She knew the man better than anyone in the world, she knew his hatred and she knew his love, and she was smart enough to figure out what Dante meant. Tristan might love her enough to forgive her, but there would be a dent in his trust that might take a long time to repair.

‘Love sometimes blinds us, Morana,’ Dante said, almost soothing her because she needed the balm occasionally when dealing with a man like Tristan. ‘Don’t let it blind you to the fact that he’s an adult. I don’t see him struggling after the last wild goose chase, as you say. He might have been disappointed, but he’s not broken, and that’s because he has you by his side as he processes and deals with things. He trusts you, so don’t break that.’

He knew his words had hit the mark when the line stayed silent for a while. Morana was probably calculating all the pros and cons, weighing the different ways it could go wrong, strategizing how to break the news with the least damage.

A deep sigh echoed in his ear. ‘You’re right. I need to tell him. I will tell him tonight when he gets back.’

Dante nodded, relief flooding his chest. He was glad not to be put in the position of knowing something but keeping it from his brother, one of his heart rather than blood. He was also glad not to witness their relationship in turmoil due to lack of communication. He was extra glad because he wanted them to be godparents in his baby’s life for a long time. As long as they were all on the same page, they could figure stuff out.

‘Where has he gone?’ he asked, getting up to scoop his little princess so she would stop suffocating the poor cat. She was so tiny half her body fit into the palm of his hand, the weight a reminder of the miracle Dante and Amara had experienced. She was small, but she possessed the soul of a warrior like her mama. When thoughts about how she would grow up in this cruel world worried him, he reminded himself of that, of the fact that she had fought her way into this world through the worst of times and shined like gold. Not the liquid gold that filled up their cracks and solidified, but the solid gold that could not be broken without immense heat. And it was his job to ensure she never felt that heat.

‘He has a meeting with one of the Duncet family insiders after he drops Xander off for his session.’

Dante’s thoughts shifted from Tempest to the young boy who had somehow integrated into their odd family. A boy, Tristan had confided in him, was like Damian, his actual brother he protected by keeping him away from this world. Dante was glad Tristan and Morana were accepting and loving, unlike his father, who had only alienated Damian by making him feel like a burden. As a high-functioning autistic boy, it hadn’t been easy for his brother within the compound. He was thriving in the outside world, and Dante would make sure he always did. Xander, as they’d recently found out, was high-functioning autistic as well. Tristan and Morana, being the incredible guardians they already were, were doing everything they possibly could to give the boy all the tools he needed to grow up into a good adult.

It was his past that made Dante a little apprehensive. The fact that they couldn’t find anything on him, the fact that the Shadow Man had led them to him, the fact that he didn’t trust the Shadow Man an iota—it was all too weird. They didn’t know his history, and without knowing what the boy had endured, they couldn’t help his future. They could just wait and watch, he supposed.

‘How are they both doing?’

Morana snorted. ‘They have both bonded more over the fact that they don’t like me getting shot.’

Dante felt his lips curl in a smile even though his thoughts were going a hundred miles a minute. He placed his little princess in the little crib she had in his office, tucking the soft blanket around her as her lips settled in a cute pout. Settling her, he walked to the window, watching the hills he called home, the clouds rolling along the horizon, his mind somber.

‘If you are right and the Shadow Man is her lover,’ he mused out loud, ‘Tristan won’t be happy. I’d suggest keeping that little theory to us until we have confirmation. He’s waited a long time for this. No point ruining that with speculation at this point. Let’s just focus on her.’

‘You’re right.’ Morana sighed. ‘I know. I don’t understand any of it or what to make of it. Maybe I am wrong, and he’s not involved with her. Or if yes, maybe he was and isn’t anymore. Or maybe if he still is, he won’t care since he’s inviting us to find her. But if he is involved with her and he cares, we don’t know anything about him to predict how any of it will go. The only thing I can find about him is what he wants found. We need information we don’t have.’

That was the issue. They were all playing chess in the dark, with a myth who was synonymous with it.

He would tell Amara tonight, and Morana would tell Tristan tonight. If she decoded the lead over the night, the game would change when the sun came up.

The clouds rumbled.

A storm was coming.