The Syndicater (Dark Verse #6)

21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Unknown

He was being hunted.

There was no other word for what was happening. Like the other leaders before him, all slain one by one, a genuine threat of death loomed for him next.

It was thrilling.

"Backup anything you haven't." He called one of the only loyalists he had left, one that none of the other leaders had known about. "Delete everything else."

"Is everything okay?" she asked over the secure line. He would have to give her a gift to keep her loyal until his task was finished. They had been laying low for a while, restrategizing their next move. There was no dearth of patience for him where operations were concerned. The Syndicate was such a well-oiled machine that even without any evident leadership at the top, nothing would be affected at the bottom levels. For all intents and purposes, everything was as it should have been. Only the ones in the top tiers of the organizational pyramid knew about the gaping vacancies.

He was the one at the top, always had been. The few who knew how The Syndicate was structured thought there were four main leaders at the top, a council managing and running everything. There had been, except that the council had had a leader, too.

Him. The one at the tip of the pyramid. The one making sure everything worked the way he'd wanted to.

It hadn't always been that way, especially not when he'd been rising in the ranks. But over the years, he had done more for The Syndicate than any other member, negotiating deals with legal and illegal orgazinations, bringing in unprecedented power and making it the secretive, notorious, omnipresent snake in the grass it was.

And it was the first time in decades he actually felt threatened, like he finally had an adversary worth playing the game with.

The Shadow Man.

He was perfect in every way, except for one little thing. A weakness, a leverage so obvious that it could be used to defeat him, an Achilles heel he had exposed to all of them.

The girl.

Dangerous men with singular weaknesses only came into their full glory once that weakness was removed. The girl had to go for the Shadow Man to become a force unlike any the world had seen, a pride jewel on the bloody crown of The Syndicate, the perfect example of the level of power the organization could breed into a being—born of its womb, raised by its hands, shaped by its mind.

"Yes," he told his loyalist, a small smile on his face as he watched the mutilated body of Mr. X be carried out of the factory. "Everything is falling into place."

Everything was going to be perfect.