The Syndicater: A Dangerous Dark Romance (Dark Verse Book 6)
The Syndicater: Chapter 35

It was heartbreaking seeing her friend break down so much.

Amara kept her hand on her back as she sobbed in Alpha’s arms, both of them exchanging a look of helplessness, not understanding how to make this any better. How could anyone? Her father had betrayed her in the worst way possible; she and her mother and her dead sister, all women betrayed by a man they had loved and, from the account of things, had loved them back.

‘We need to head back,’ Alpha told them, picking up his wife in his arms. Zephyr curled into his chest, hiding from the world and into his warmth in a move that sent a pang through her heart.

‘I’ll have your jet waiting for you,’ Dante reassured them, giving a nod to Alpha. ‘We’re here if you need anything.’

Alpha tilted his head in a silent thanks and headed inside, getting ready to leave. Amara sat back on the stone seat in the gazebo, her body slumping, her heart hurting.

‘Are there no good fathers?’ she mused, her voice raspy and heavy. Tristan stayed silent as he did, and Dante came next to her, holding her close to his side. There were no good fathers, and it hurt her to think of all the pain in the world just caused by that one thing. She looked at Dante. ‘I swear I will kill you too, if you do anything to endanger our daughter.’

Dante pressed his forehead to hers. ‘I won’t stop you.’

‘As sad as this is,’ a voice said from the speaker phone, a voice she’d completely forgotten had been on the line for the entire thing, listening to everything. ‘It makes a lot of sense.’

‘What do you mean?’ Dante asked from her side. Amara watched Luna as she leaned against one of the pillars of the gazebo, the vines touching her as they went up.

‘Why The Syndicate wanted to keep an eye on Zenith,’ the Shadow Man explained. ‘She was one of their secret project assets that escaped and caused noise. Usually, the organization would have eliminated her but the threat of the secret project coming out, since it involved government organizations, must have forced them to keep her alive. But they couldn’t just let her be so they had one of their operatives adopt her to keep her right under his nose.’

It did make sense when he put it like that.

And since she had the Shadow Man on the line, which in itself was the wildest thing to wrap her head around, she asked him the one thing she’d been wanting to for a long time.

‘Do you have any news about Vin? He was my friend, and he’s not checked in with us for weeks.’

There was silence on the line for a long minute.

Amara’s heart began to beat too hard, her fingers clutching Dante’s thigh with a grip that was hurting her knuckles, wondering if he wasn’t saying something because he didn’t know and was looking up information or because he knew and didn’t know how to tell her.

‘I’m sorry.’

That’s all he said.

I’m sorry, what? I’m sorry, I don’t know? I’m sorry, I can’t tell you? Or I’m sorry he’s…

Amara looked at Luna, only to see the girl looking at her with a look that clarified it. She knew what his words meant, and she was looking at Amara with a heartbreaking look.

Amara’s lips trembled. Not her Vinnie. Not her friend who’d told her he’d never be too dark for her, who had stayed with her when she’d lost herself, who had just been her best friend since she was a baby. She needed him to come back so he could meet her daughter. He’d not even seen Tempest. Tempest didn’t know anything about her Uncle Vinnie.

No.

‘When?’ Dante asked from her side, his voice heavy. She looked at him and realized he was feeling the loss, possibly even guilty about letting Vin go.

‘It’s difficult to tell,’ the voice said, his tone plain. ‘The bodies were found in the river three days ago. Just got identified a while ago.’

Amara swallowed, her eyes welling up. And then the words sank in. ‘What bodies?’

There was another beat of silence. ‘Vin and a girl.’

What the hell? ‘What girl?’ Dante asked, as confused as she was.

‘Flamma,’ he said, and Luna looked at the phone. His voice turned much softer, with more inflection as he spoke, ‘it was Malini. Your friend.’

Luna’s eyelids fluttered shut as she took a deep breath in. She stood trembling for a long minute before letting out the breath she took. ‘How did he get to her?’ she asked.

‘I’d directed him to her,’ he admitted without any tone in his voice. ‘He was getting too close to you, and I had to redirect him, so I sent her to your friend so he would get her out for you.’

Amara was surprised at the fact that he was confessing everything to Luna without hesitation. She would’ve thought he would be a lot more secretive and closed about his plans and his work. The fact the he wasn’t was a mild shock to the system.

‘So, he found her,’ Luna continued. ‘And they did run away.’

‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘I killed her master, and soon after, they escaped. But The Syndicate found them.’

‘Did you know this?’ Luna asked him, and Tristan finally moved, going to her and holding her shoulder while glaring at the phone.

‘No.’

Luna nodded, and Amara didn’t know whether to believe him or not. She looked like she did but Amara was skeptical. She took a deep breath in. They didn’t have the time to break down, not with everything going to shit around them. ‘Where are the bodies?’

The voice told them an address in the city. Amara stood up and Dante followed. ‘We’ll need to arrange for the funeral.’ She looked at Luna, placing a hand on her shoulder. ‘We’ll have one for your friend too.’

‘Thank you,’ the girl’s voice shook. Tristan’s arm tightened around her and there was just breathing on the phone.

Amara looked down at the phone. She might not know him but he had given her an answer and closure she’d been looking for. ‘Thank you,’ she spoke into the phone. ‘I appreciate you answering my question.’

‘You once answered mine, Dr. Maroni,’ the voice said. ‘Many years ago. I’m just returning the favor.’

Amara tried to scrounge her brain, remembering the feeling of familiarity she’d felt when she’d met him at the party, and suddenly it came to her—intense man, dark voice, hypnotic eyes. The man who had come to her after one of her first conferences and talked to her methodically about helping his wife cope with child loss and about raising children.

His wife.

His wife.

Her eyes clashed with Luna’s green. It all fell together in her head. The pregnancy question, the way she looked at Tempest, the behavior. She’d been pregnant once and she’d lost the child. Her eyes flitted to Tristan, wondering if he knew. Looking at the man, she concluded he didn’t because he would have told her if he did. If there was one thing Tristan ever talked to her about, it was helping the people he loved cope and heal with shit that he didn’t know about.

Dante called her from the back and had her turn around, putting away her deductions for later. It brought the priorities out again. Her breakdown and epiphanies could wait. Everything else could wait.

Right now, she had to go to Vin and bring him back, even if it hadn’t been how she’d wanted him to return. With that thought, Amara left to bring her best friend back home.