The Syndicater (Dark Verse #6)

17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Dainn, Gladestone

Dainn watched the reunion from the shadows behind the beams. There was a secret cache of space up in the rafters, and he crouched down there, watching them.

If his flamma had thought he'd leave her alone, especially in this part of the city, she still didn't know him very well. There wouldn't be one moment that he wouldn't have his eyes on her, not after she'd given herself to him, and definitely not after the last time he'd left her unsupervised. His one mistake had cost him six months of scouring the filth of this city, killing more people in the span of weeks than he had in years, until the black on his body had absorbed all the blood he'd spilled. It had almost cost him her life, and that wasn't a mistake he was going to make again.

Head tilted to the side, he silently lingered and saw the raw emotion wash over Lyla's face as she looked at her brother, so much so that he knew he'd made the right decision. She needed to have this in her life, needed to see where she came from so she could understand where she was going. Lyla needed to find her roots to bloom. Her brother would root her. And he? He would be the thorns on the stem, leaving the soft petals to spread her fragrance while spilling the blood of anyone who tried to pluck it.

Her brother, Tristan Caine, the cold predator of the mob, weeping like a boy.

Dainn didn't know what he'd expected from the man, but this display of emotions hadn't been it. It seemed like the siblings were more similar than anyone had thought, both feeling too many things, only Tristan had learned to hide his better and Lyla still wore her on her sleeves for anyone to see.

His eyes moved to Dante Maroni standing at the door like a guard, protecting the pair inside. But it was the look on his face, almost contemplative, that gave Dainn pause. Dante was looking at Lyla like he couldn't decide if he was going to trust her yet. Had he felt normal things, he would have been offended by that on behalf of his flamma. He almost felt pride instead, proud because a powerful man wasn't underestimating his flamma . That pleased him because she wasn't to be underestimated. As innocent as she was, she had a fire within her that could raze the world down, so powerful it could be a force to behold, but so hidden she didn't see it herself.

"Hi," Lyla's little whisper had his eyes going back to the siblings.

"Hey," Tristan whispered back. From the angle, it was difficult to make out the other man's face, but Dainn was sure it was a reflection of what he was seeing in Lyla's. A reunion full of emotions. It was almost like watching a movie, trying to strategize and dissect everything, except the main protagonist was his woman.

Morana stood at the door with Dante, her face unguarded, posture slightly funny. Dainn narrowed his eyes, watching the way she leaned a bit more to her right. He knew she'd been shot, but from the medical reports he had accessed, she seemed to have made a good recovery. Maybe it was the exhaustion of the last forty-eight hours since he'd sent the text out. He doubted she would've had much rest in the ensuing chaos.

But he hoped she rested a bit, that they all did because there was more chaos yet to come.

He looked down at his watch, noting the time. This should be wrapping up soon, and then he would have somewhere else to be.

Just as he thought it, Tristan stood, still holding Lyla's hand, and brought her to her feet. They stared at each other, before Lyla launched herself at him, and he caught her, hugging her tightly for long minutes. As much as he disliked the man, mainly because of the power he was now going to hold in his flamma's life, he couldn't deny that Tristan Caine loved her. He didn't know her, but he loved her. His ceaseless search for her for decades was admirable, especially because of how rare it was in their world. People gave up hope more quickly than they gave up their life. For Tristan, it had been the opposite and a part of Dainn, the one that wanted Lyla to be happy, was glad. Because had Tristan Caine not been the brother he had been, Lyla would have never known. Had he just been an excuse of a man like most waste-of-space men he saw, Dainn would have happily kept that information to himself if he'd had a single shred of doubt that her relationship with her brother would do her any emotional or psychological damage.

"We should go," Alpha announced from the door, and Dainn took him in as well. The man was a giant but a gentle one. His wife, a sweet little thing, was gentle too. The whole group would be good for his flamma . It would be good for her soul, so when he came back for her, she would be more whole, more at peace. He hoped it would make her laugh more easily too, the memory of the sound and what it did to his brain enough to make him grip the beam at his side.

Listening to Alpha's words, the group wrapped up. Tristan led Lyla to the door after she took the bag Dainn had packed for her, pausing for what looked like introductions in a voice too low for him to hear. Morana hugged her, and both the men gave her nods since Tristan refused to let her out from under his arm. And then, they all exited.

Dainn waited a beat, making sure they were gone from the immediate area, before jumping down from the rafters, landing in a crouched position for the least impact. He straightened fluidly, moving next to the door and peering out.

A limo was parked in the front. Everyone got in, and the limo rolled out.

Once the coast was clear, Dainn exhaled, the sound louder than he'd wanted it to be. He looked at the exact spot he'd stood with her for the last time with her, tasting her lips and hearing her voice, knowing that even though he would keep visual on her, her sound and touch would still leave him empty. It hadn't been five minutes and he already felt hollow.

But he had things to do and a threat to annihilate. And then, they could be together again.

He walked out into the industrial block, pulling his hood over his head and hands in his pocket, adopting a hunched gait so anyone looking would think it was a random junkie. Daylight was trickier to navigate. In daylight, he had to adapt and adopt personas to give the illusion that he wanted to any onlookers. He could be a billionaire executive as easily as he could be a homeless junkie, both personas that had a slight grain of experience lending it more credibility. As he made his way to the next block, he thought about the time he'd been on the street as a teen, wondering how things would have been if he'd had a sister or a brother to look after. Dainn didn't know if he wouldn't have cared at all, or if him caring would have culminated into more chaos. Watching Tristan with Lyla, he wondered absent-mindedly how things would have been if he'd had her much before as kids. Would it have been the same? It wouldn't have surprised him if they'd crossed each other's paths sometime before since they'd both been in the same dark circles all their lives.

A factory came into view, and this one was not abandoned. It belonged to some manufacturing company, with tall gray chimneys emanating tall gray smoke into the sky. Even daytime in Gladestone was gray. The city was a shitshow.

Dainn walked into the factory with the same hunched demeanor, inconspicuous and hiding in plain sight. Workers were focused on doing their thing. Some homeless people took up space in the side, thanks to pimping to the manager of the place. Even without The Syndicate, the whole machinery was corrupt as fuck. Humanity was corrupt. That was the only truth of life. Except for rare occasional exceptions, morality and humanity were selective facades opted by those in power to hide they were powerful. The whole system was rigged, and Dainn had zero compunction making use of it for his own benefit. If power was to be had, better he have it than someone else.

He slipped to the back, knowing the entire floor plan having looked it up earlier. Had to thank public databases for making it so easy.

Walking down a corridor, much less crowded than the front, he headed to the office area, where his prey was hidden.

Sounds of grunting came from behind closed doors, and Dainn wondered how humans could find pleasure in something without any connection. He couldn't imagine being inside a woman who wasn't his flamma , couldn't imagine his skin touching any other, couldn't even tolerate the sound of anyone else's moans in his ears. Sex without connection had zero meaning and zero purpose. The world was idiotic to engage in something so stupidly unsatisfying, creating a hole bigger and bigger each time that needed more and more stimuli to fill it, like a toxic endless loop.

Lyla would have chided him and told him not to be so judgemental of people's decisions. His lips twitched, imagining it.

With that smile, he pushed the door open. Idiot hadn't even locked it.

The round, older man looked up with anger, panting as his tiny cock flapped to find a hole, the boy he had pressed over the table looking around in desperation to escape. The boy couldn't have been older than fourteen, maybe fifteen, and Dainn grit his teeth. The dicks who preyed on children were cowards. It wasn't his morality or his own experience speaking, it was just the fact that children were helpless. There was such a power vacuum in that dynamic that it was just wrong, like pitting a puppy and a snake together. Of course, the snake was going to bite and poison the trusting, innocent creature. They ate their own eggs if need be, and the older man was exactly such a snake.

Xavier, also known as Mr. X, also the man who had knowingly sicced his dirty dogs over his own flesh-and-blood daughter, had been hiding in plain sight for a week. Mr. X had sent his men to abduct, torture and rape Amara Maroni when she had been fifteen years old. Dainn had read the reports and heard the stories during his interrogations, and the reason he'd wanted to see Amara speak at the conference years ago had been to see how she'd grown up after that. It had been a surprise to see the beautiful woman with her head as high as her empathy. She was an interesting study of how some victims took their trauma and turned it into something better. Zenith had been similar in that sense. After escaping The Syndicate, she had dedicated her life to rehabilitating victims of violent crimes.

It made him wonder how Lyla was going to be once she fully healed, because heal she would. Would she be like her old friend, or would she be something that surprised him yet again?

"Out," Dainn told the young boy. "You didn't see me. If you say a word to anyone, I will come after you."

The boy nodded and ran off. He was terrified enough that Dainn knew he wouldn't say anything. Usually, he didn't leave loose ends but he didn't touch the kids. There were a lot more ways to silence them if need be. Even better to bring them over to his side.

Dainn closed the door and strolled into the office, a tiny congested room with a tiny window, and sank down on the chair. "Tsk tsk. You've been hiding, Xavier."

The man spluttered, his dick still hanging out. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Sit down," Dainn commanded. How this man had given Amara Maroni her genes would be one of life's greatest mysteries. Maybe she took more after her mother.

His hand inched toward the phone on the cluttered table and Dainn shook his head. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Xavier's hand stopped. "What do you want?"

"To talk," Dainn lied. He was going to gut him like a fish. "Sit."

He sat. Good.

"Now, tell me about dear boy Vinnie. Where do you have him?"

Xavier's eyes shifted to the side. "If you work with Maroni, I already sent a message that he was fine."

Dainn just stared at him silently. He knew with the hood and his eyes the way they were— demon eyes as people had called as a child—were freaky when he stared like that. He knew the exact effect his eyes had on people given how he looked at them. A hard stare to make cowards piss, a soft stare to make people comply. The only time he didn't manipulate them was when he was with her . He let his raw, unfiltered intensity show, and she looked him straight in the eyes, absorbing it into her, taking his harsh into her soft.

After moments of uncomfortable silence and shifting, Xavier spoke again. "Last I heard, he was using a girl to go undercover with her master."

Lyla's only other friend, Malini. The girl who, Lyla had told him, helped her during her pregnancy and delivery. The girl who had helped her escape the night she had met him. For that alone, she warranted his consideration. Had it not been for her, he would have never met his flamma or her boy, the only two people he cared about living.

Though he'd taken Xander as a baby, he had grown up so smart it had impressed even him. Dainn had always given him honesty—although a child-friendly version—and he had always respected him for it in return. Surprisingly, Xander and that crazy boy, Lex, had convinced him to become an unlikely duo. And for Dainn, it had been convenient because Lex liked chaos, the little shit being the one going undercover for him at the orphanage he'd led Morana to.

"That's funny," he told Xavier, coming back to the conversation. "I don't remember seeing her or him while skinning the master." The master had been one of the Syndicaters that Dainn had tracked and killed during the time Lyla had been missing. Usually, skinning wasn't his style, but he'd been slightly… unhinged during the time, his need to send a message to all the Syndicaters loud and clear:

He was coming for each and every one of them unless they released her.

The only reason they had suddenly let her go after six months had been because he'd gone on a rampage and tracked and killed three of the leaders and dozens of their underlings. The Shadow Man had never been as terrorizing or as feared as he had been during and since then.

Lyla had no idea why she had been released suddenly, and he was probably never going to tell her, never remind her of the time she had been violated. He still remembered seeing it on his screen, them broadcasting it to him from the little room while he went ice cold trying to track her down. They had kept someone on their payroll dedicated to distracting him and diverting his leads, which was the only reason it had taken him so long to track her.

It had been the third leader, Malini's master coincidentally, who had squealed like a pig and told him of where they had kept her and how they'd let information about her leak out. The fact that he had squealed had gotten out and by the time Dainn had reached the warehouse, she had disappeared again, leaving behind the filthy sheets and bed they had violated her on. Dainn had taken it all in, breathed in the space, and vowed to bring the men back exactly to the same place and let her have her vengeance… after he had his fun. He'd deserved some vengeance too.

But first, he'd had to find her. From that, he had simply tapped into any leads Morana had found, finding a location Vin had texted her about, and he'd gotten there a few minutes after them.

A few minutes almost too late. He remembered. The way she'd been limp in the ugly, barren room, a bottle tipped to the floor, almost empty. Her eyes open but unseeing, the life almost out of them.

It had taken everything, everything inside him, to stay calm and get her out undetected. Because the way she had been, the way she had almost gone into the gorge over the brink, he knew no one could bring her back. No one except him.

He had walked the darkness she had been in, conquered it, and made it a part of himself. He was the only person she trusted, had trusted for years, even if she was wounded. And most importantly, he was the only one with the answer she had held on for, a leverage he was going to use ruthlessly if it meant bringing her back from the edge. Had her family found her then, the way she'd been, they wouldn't have been able to save her. They would have loved her but wouldn't have understood her, wouldn't have known every ugly thing that happened to her, and still looked at her the same. Even an inflection of sympathy, of pity, would have tipped her over the edge. She would have died from depression or tried to kill herself again.

And he couldn't let that happen.

The world would cease to exist if she did.

It was the way her mouth would open on a silent scream as he made her come again and again, after she had already screamed loudly for a while. It was the way he saw something vulnerable in her eyes so alive and vibrant it pulsed with life. It was the little laugh she had when he touched a ticklish spot by accident, sometimes on purpose, before a soft smile replaced it. It was how she never held back her responses from him, letting him know with everything she had how he pleased her, even as she chided him, even as she clawed him, even as she consumed him. She let him restrain her, let him keep her under him, let him do whatever the fuck he wanted to, and took everything from him in return. It was how all of those never ceased to thaw something in his chest that had been frozen for a long time.

She could never lose the life in her. He would deaden the entire world without remorse if that meant she lived.

But thankfully, that didn't seem necessary for now. The Syndicate had no idea their existence had been hanging by a thin thread of sanity built by the breaths of a broken girl. She was in a much better place, good enough that he didn't worry about her harming herself on her own without his supervision. Though he would keep an eye on her, he knew she was going to immerse herself in the experience in a way that was healthier for her compared to what it would have been before, something he had discussed extensively with Dr. Manson. Before, she had never seen the sky. It had taken her months of seeing it to get to a place where she now realized she had wings. Now, she was learning how to fly.

"S…shadow man?"

The stuttering words broke through his musing.

Ah, fear. Good old fear. Fuck, he reveled in seeing it in the eyes of his victims.

And Xavier's eyes were telling him he knew his time was up, that he knew from the rumors that you didn't see the Shadow Man unless you were going to die.

And Dainn was sitting there in front of him, completely casual. Xavier knew. And Dainn enjoyed seeing that look on his face.

"Please," he begged like they always did. "I'll tell you anything. I'll join forces with you. Don't kill me, please."

It was pathetic, the snot and tears as he blubbered like a baby. Babies had more dignity than this piece of shit. He knew because he'd handled one.

"Then tell me what I want to know," Dainn stated, letting him think he had a chance to be the exception and make it out alive. He should know better. There were no exceptions for the Shadow Man but one, the only one they had all messed with and were going to pay the price for.

"I'm telling the truth," the older man beseeched. "That was the last I heard from him. After you killed the master, everyone went underground. I've been hiding here since then."

That tracked with what he knew. "Tell me about the Syndicater."

Xavier swallowed noisily. "Which one?"

Dainn just leveled him with a look, one he knew was scary.

"There were four, I think."

"Wrong answer."

"I swear," Xavier rushed out. "My handler is dead, and all he talked about were the four snakeheads. You know, like the snakes they have everyone wear in some way or the other?"

Which was genuinely stupid for a top-secret organization. Why the fuck would they want to have such a recognized mark on their members? Unless it was narcissistic and fed into their illusion of power.

"Four snakeheads," Dainn mused. Hector had told him there were five, that of the last two remaining, one had killed the other and taken control. Was there actually a fifth one, or was there more misinformation spread down the line? Had there always just been four? It was important to know because he needed to weed out and eliminate possible suspects, his own sperm donor being one. While he had been a leader back in the day when Dainn had been conceived, it was entirely possible that he was already dead and gone, power being seceded to others. Dainn hadn't been able to track some information down, since it was buried deep under the rubble of dirt and darkness, but he could feel himself getting closer to it.

"This is all I know. Please let me go. I can tell you something else," Xavier started, then hesitated. "I don't know if this will be helpful at all, but there was a rumor once."

Dainn waited him out. Patience was one of the most powerful tools and one not enough people possessed.

"A few years ago," Xavier started. "I heard rumors of some kind of experiment."

Dainn waited more, wondering where this was going.

Xavier leaned forward, his voice getting lower. "It wasn't a big rumor. I only heard it in passing at one of the parties, but there's never been any evidence of this. I never found it."

After the rambling, the older man took a shaky breath. "If I tell you, will you let me live?"

Dainn chuckled at his attempt at bargaining. He could just find out another way. "Depends on how good your information is. So far, it's looking bleak for you, Xavier."

"Okay, okay," the man hurriedly let out. "The rumor was that the Syndicate was supplying flesh to some government organization for experiments. Human experiments."

Dainn raised an eyebrow. This was the first he had heard of this. While there had always been conspiracy theories about the dealings and activities of The Syndicate, this was something he'd never even heard whispers of before.

"Alright," he conceded to the man. "I'm intrigued."

Xavier beamed as if he had granted him life and not a concession to continue. "I don't know what kind of experiment." His voice got more hushed. "I don't know when or if it happened, or what was involved."

"So, you know nothing but a vague rumor?" Dainn asked, his tone even.

Xavier pursed his mouth.

Well then. Dainn straightened, getting to his feet and coming around the table.

"Please," the other man began to beg with desperation. "I can find out if you want. Give me a chance. I have sources and ears on the ground. I'll get you every information you want."

Dainn leaned his hip against the table, taking out a metal wire from the inside of his hoodie pocket.

"If information about it exists," he told Xavier, uncoiling it, seeing the other man shaking so much he began to piss. Dainn walked around behind him, wrapping the wire around his fat neck and pulling, leaning down to say. "I will find it. But thanks for the tip-off."

And with that, he snapped his wrists apart, a spray of blood jetting out from his severed neck as Xavier Rossi died a brutal death.