The Syndicater (Dark Verse #6)

15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Morana, Gladestone

Tristan hadn't stopped looking at his sister.

Morana watched from the seat of the limo, which was taking them back to the private airstrip where they had landed not even an hour ago. She wondered what was going on in his mind and his sister's.

Morana looked at the girl, her emotions in turmoil inside her. A part of her was curious, and another was cautious. Curious because she wanted to know and understand who she was. Cautious because she wanted to know and understand who she was to the Shadow Man. Luna obviously knew who Tristan was and who all of them were.

After they had both finished crying holding each other, Luna had said a tremulous 'hi' to her brother, and Tristan had responded with his own soft 'hey', so much softer than she'd heard him be with any adult. She'd heard him speak that softly sometimes to Xander or Tempest, especially when he knew no one was around to see that side of him. Now, sitting in the back opposite her with Luna, his arm around her, holding her close like he was never letting her go, emotion choked Morana. There was something so deeply moving about seeing him like that. He looked lighter than she'd ever seen him, as if a dark cloud that had always lived within him had dissipated, leaving room for some light to peek through, as if the rock that he had been rolling up the hill over and over had finally been put to rest.

His eyes locked with Morana as he tucked his sister close. He said so much to her, conveying so much with one look that she didn't have enough words to express it even to herself.

"Are you okay coming back with us?" Dante's gentle voice came from the side, speaking to Luna.

The young girl close to Morana's age opened her eyes that she'd closed resting against her brother, almost like she'd been napping. The brilliant green in them shimmered as she looked around the back of the limo, where Dante and Morana sat on one side, she and Tristan on the other, Alpha sitting at the front with one of his contacts who was driving.

Luna's eyes darted for a second before she gave a nod. She'd barely said any words, but then neither had Tristan. They'd both just been taking in the moment, basking in their new bond, what had been lost in their childhood refound in adult life. Morana could understand the sentiment, but her brain was also firing up with questions she wanted to ask the other girl. Where had she been all these years? What had she been doing? Who had she been with? What was her connection to the Shadow Man, and more importantly, did she know who he was? What was her connection with The Syndicate, and did she know about their operations? Who were the key players? There was so much she could know, so much Morana wanted to ask, but she kept quiet out of respect for this moment. They had all waited for so long for all the answers; a few more days while she adapted wouldn't kill them. Or at least she hoped it didn't.

Her phone vibrated in her hand with a notification, and she opened the private encrypted thread.

Get your codes ready again.

Fuck.

She hadn't even thought of the codes in over a year with everything that had been going on. The codes, she assumed, were the same ones she'd written as a bet that her ex-boyfriend Jackson had stolen from her, all on the command of her real father, whom she didn't know as anything but The Reaper. He had not only blocked her attempts to create another set of codes that would undo her first, just in case, as a failsafe. He had framed Tristan for it so she could go after him.

Morana watched the man she loved, thankful for the fact that her father had seen something she hadn't been able to in the beginning, enough to drive her to the point where they clashed over and over again. If he hadn't, Tristan would probably just have killed her, and she never even would have known why, and they never would have found a love so fulfilling it made everything that came before it disappear.

But why did the Shadow Man want her to work on the codes again? The man really just needed to meet her once so she could ask him the ten million questions she had.

She quickly typed in the encrypted text.

Why would I do that?

For answers.

Can we meet?

Tristan would go apeshit. He'd never liked her meeting the Shadow Man, but it wasn't like Morana had much of an option, not when she had been the one he'd contacted multiple times. She had to make do with the little leverage she had.

She waited for a text, but it didn't come. She typed again.

Thanks for the file. Can I ask why?

No response.

Sighing, she put the phone down, looking at her side to Dante, who was typing a text to Amara.

We got her. All of us will be at the compound in a few hours.

Morana watched Amara's reply come immediately.

I'll get things ready. How is she?

Dante hesitated, and Morana frowned, side-eyeing his screen as discreetly as possible, curious to learn about his thoughts.

Will talk later.

Ok. Love you ??

Love you, my queen ??

Cute. But also interesting.

Dante clearly had some thoughts he wasn't comfortable sharing over text. Was it because of the suspicion she'd shared with him about Luna's possible, rather probable, connection to the Shadow Man?

She texted Dante, not wanting to break the silence and disturb the siblings, even though they weren't saying a word, just sitting together, occasionally looking at each other and holding each other. It was a sight that filled Morana's heart.

Any update on Vin?

Dante read her text and slid her a glance. He just shook his head once.

That was very off. Unless the man was genuinely doing some solid work undercover, in which case she would have heard something, he was either dead or he had never been who they'd thought. With the way betrayals were playing musical chairs, she wouldn't be surprised if someone unexpectedly took a seat next.

Since they had a few minutes before they got to the plane, and there wasn't anything else for her to do, Morana opened her encrypted texts with the Shadow Man again, ready to weasel out whatever she could unless he blocked the thread like he had many times before.

Do you know anything about Vin?

A few minutes went by, and nothing came.

Ugh.

The frustration mounted in her, and she put her phone down and got her tablet out from her tote bag, a tablet she used solely for her programs and nothing else. She logged into the special browser she had customized for herself, scrolling through any public and private databases. She added a filter of the age and set the program running to grab her a list. Parallelly, she pulled up one of Vin's photos she'd taken from Amara and ran the program to run facial recognition in the background, cross-referencing with the age-filtered database. If Vin had appeared in any camera in any part of the world, her programs would find him. She just hoped it was sooner rather than later.

That done, she went into the dark web. Rotating the cuff of her shoulders, she pulled out the data she had found for one of the many questions they'd had—how had Alpha's real name been on the lease of the property near Tenebrae that Tristan and Dante had found an initiation for The Syndicate in? Alpha had told them that his real name was known to his closest circle, but with the new knowledge that one of his closest people had been a henchman for the organization, sure enough, Hector had been the one to lease the property under Alessandro Villanova. Idiot had written it in his handwriting, that Morana had matched to his other work.

She checked everything to make sure she didn't miss anything. Morana had started trying to find tracks of his activity, retracing Hector's steps. Hector, who, as Alpha had told them, died brutally right here in Gladestone.

Morana pulled the coroner's report his brother, Victor, had shared with her—long-term torture and burned alive. It had either been an interrogation or been personal. And the thought of the burning, she looked up fire reports in orphanages. Even though she was certain there would be many, she added a filter for '20-30' years and hit search. A few results came up, and she began to scroll through them.

Wiring malfunction.

Next.

Gas tank explosion.

Next.

Forest fire.

Next.

Suspected arson.

She paused and clicked on the link. An old, black-and-white photo of a dilapidated, blackened building loaded with a headline under it.

Suspected arson at the Morning Star Home for Lost Boys

She looked under the headline, but the page didn't load, nothing but whiteness under the main text. She frowned, refreshing the page a few times and getting the same result over and over. Leaving the page, she typed the keywords 'arson' + 'morning star home for lost boys' and hit search.

Only three results popped up. One the page that was broken. One a small fire fifteen years ago at a completely different location—it seemed the orphanage had multiple homes. And a last one, again a broken link.

And it only gave her a hunch—it had been deliberately wiped clean. Someone hadn't wanted anyone to find anything about that fire, and the lack of information with the broken links only convinced her that it was about the Shadow Man.

Demon eyes.

She shuddered again.

"You okay?" Dante whispered from her side, looking at her with mild concern. She nodded.

There were still so many questions she had, and the deeper she dug, the more intense they became. And the one man she knew in her gut could answer all of them had refused to give them anything straight until two days ago. She glanced up, looking at the girl with such a pretty face and soft countenance, who was leaning on Tristan with her eyes closed.

Morana had a feeling they had opened a pandora's box, something that was old and powerful, and the demons were now out, hunting to get them all.

She just hoped they all made it out to the other side unscathed.