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

Dainn walked into the hospital waiting room, still in the suit he’d been wearing when his flamma had called him.

She was resting, her body exhausted, and her mind even more drained in the last twenty-four hours. He had been sitting in his hotel room, listening to her stand up to her brother and everyone else for him. Dainn didn’t feel emotions as normal people did but there had been something happening when he’d listened to her—his soft, scared flamma—take a stand for him. It was a novel experience, one he’d never experienced before. No one had defended him or stood up for him in his life and the fact that this girl who’d been too broken to even live a few months ago had come to this point just made something happen in his chest. He didn’t know what it was and he didn’t care. All he knew was that if she’d had his unending loyalty before, now there was no force in this entire universe that could keep him from her. He was now a devotee and she his religion.

The waiting room was cozy, the more expensive area of the private hospital the girls had been brought into. He crossed the room and went to a door that was closed.

Quietly, he opened it and looked inside.

Morana was sleeping in her bed. A sliver of pity went through him seeing her like that, again, just in the span of a few weeks. But the girl was strong and she would be alright.

He’d read her reports and saw what the doctors said. And while he respected their professional expertise, he also knew he could bring the best scientists and specialists in the world and have them heal her nerve damage, at least enough that she would be able to work with limited mobility if not full.

‘You still here?’ the small voice asked from a darkened corner of the room. Dainn turned his neck to see Xander looking at a tablet, the lights dim, keeping watch over Morana.

He shut the door behind him and went to the couch, taking a seat next to the boy. ‘Yeah. Your mother is healing. I’ll be here till she’s alright.’

The boy kept staring into the tablet, a screen with some kind of word game on it. ‘You think she really wants to know me?’

Dainn put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘I know. She gave up everything to keep you safe. That kind of love is rare. She already loves you.’

Xander’s cheeks flushed a little. ‘I liked her too. She’s very pretty.’

A little twitch pulled up his mouth. Calling his flamma pretty was like saying the night was dark. There were depths to the darkness, layers and layers of beauty, nuances to know. But since the boy was so young, Dainn just hummed in agreement.

‘What about Morana?’ Xander asked after a while. ‘You think she’ll be okay?’

Dainn looked at the ring on her finger, a beautiful sapphire and diamond piece that glimmered like the depths of the ocean. If he could get the specialists he had in mind to see her, she would hopefully make a recovery. ‘She’ll be okay.’

The boy nodded, taking him for his word. He’d always done that. Dainn had initially planned to leave the boy with a private nanny to be raised until he could locate his family, his interest solely on the mother. But he had known that if he took care of the child under his supervision, it might endear his emotional flamma to him even more. And he’d been right. Though she had been the motivation in the beginning, Dainn had to admit the boy had grown on him. He was smart and non-judgemental and surprisingly observant. All things that he’d enjoyed watching grow in him.

‘You doing good?’ he asked as he always did in their monthly calls.

‘Mmhmm,’ the boy mumbled, his fingers flying over some crossword type of game. ‘Just thinking about her. Do I call her mother or Luna?’

‘You’ll have to ask her that.’ If he knew Lyla, she wouldn’t be comfortable being called mother because she didn’t feel like one, at least not yet. He hoped their relationship got to a space where he’d call her something that would make her eyes shine and lips smile.

‘Are you going to have a baby with her?’ Xander asked and Dainn felt a little laugh huff inside him. He wasn’t built to be a father and he didn’t want to pass down his genes to any poor child, because if they were born normal and not like him, they would be tormented throughout their life. More importantly, if he ever even wanted to, there was only one woman he would have procreated with and she couldn’t have more children. And he was completely okay with that as long as she was. If she ever felt the need to have more, they would just adopt. But it all up to her and her decision. He just knew she wasn’t ready and wouldn’t be for a while as she healed.

Dainn just shrugged, not knowing how to explain all this to a young boy. He had always been honest with the kid most of the time.

Xander yawned loudly and Dainn took that as his cue to leave. ‘Good night, X.’

‘Good night, D.’ This had been a routine once. Ever since he’d let Xander and Lex go to the orphanage for discovery, where Lex had helped him with the timing, this was something he admitted to have missed slightly.

He ruffled the boy’s hair that he was growing out and walked to Morana, looking at her sleeping for a second, silently acknowledging that she was pivotal to his plans and wanting her to get better. The major reason for him feeling that way was the way she’d stood up for his flamma while still in chains, how she had tried to protect her, and for that alone, she had his resources.

He walked out into the waiting room, only to find it not empty anymore.

Tristan Caine sat on a chair, elbows on his knees, hands on his face, head bent like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

Dainn tilted his head and leaned back against the wall, pushing his hand into his pockets and waiting. It was better to have this confrontation out in the open now than later, so they could get it out of the way and Lyla could focus on healing and not trying to break them apart like she had in that basement.

The man’s head came up, years of instincts honed and telling him about someone in the vicinity. And his eyes hardened.

‘Blackthorne,’ he gnashed out.

‘Caine,’ Dainn acknowledged.

‘Get the fuck out.’

Dainn waited a beat, keeping his posture the same relaxed way it was. ‘Why? I have as much right, if not more, to be here that you do.’

Tristan was up from his seat and heading toward him, his hands fisted by his sides. ‘Because you’re a motherfucking bottomfeeder who’s not good enough for my sister.’

Dainn mulled the words over, his lack of reaction riling the other man up slightly. It wasn’t something that would be visible to anyone not used to watching for the spectrum of human emotions.

‘I’m the only one for your sister,’ Dainn stated. ‘Good or bad, doesn’t matter.’

That irked the man. Dainn got curious.

‘You don’t like me because I kept her from you?’ he asked Tristan. ‘Or is it because she took a stand for me?’

Tristan stayed still, and Dainn was impressed by his ability to quickly control his emotions. ‘It’s because she deserves someone who feels for her, not a psychotic serial killer like you.’

A sliver of amusement went through him. ‘I could say Morana deserves someone who didn’t spend the majority of his life wanting to kill her,’ he pointed out.

There was silence as Tristan processed his words, his jaw clenched, his eyes furious. ‘Maybe. But I am different from you.’

Dainn nodded. ‘Yes, you wanted to kill your lover while I wanted to save mine. We are very different.’

His words seemed to hit Tristan, a reminder of what his sister had told him the previous night, about the things he had done to protect her. She was generous, his flamma, because she never mentioned the time he hadn’t. She could have but she kept that between the two of them.

Tristan suddenly looked weary. He rubbed a hand over his face and looked at him, still hostile but less angry. ‘Thank you for that.’

The words were a surprise but seemed to be dragged out of him. Dainn didn’t gloat. He took the words and discarded them in his head because his thanks meant nothing. Him liking Dainn meant nothing. As long as it didn’t hurt Lyla, Tristan could try to kill him for all he cared.

‘I have some specialists,’ he began, changing the topic. ‘Nerve specialists. If you wish, I can send them Morana’s report.’

Tristan walked back to the chair and slumped down. Dainn moved to a chair adjacent and sat. He waited patiently while Tristan thought the words through. After a long time, he finally spoke again.

‘You think the damage can be undone?’

Dainn tilted his head to the side. ‘Maybe not entirely, but I’m certain it can be lessened and give her more mobility, even if for a bit.’

Tristan heaved a breath in, as if the words were giving him a second life. He could understand. Morana’s hands were her best tools after her brain.

‘Alright,’ the man agreed reluctantly, as though taking a favor from him was a weight. ‘But keep it to yourself. Unless we know for sure, I don’t want to get her hopes up.’

Dainn nodded. ‘Understood.’

They sat in silence after that. Maybe awkward, maybe not. He knew as much as Tristan didn’t like him and probably never would, he could not deny his connection to his sister. Doing that would hurt her and that was possibly the only point of commonality between them, because that was the only reason he was tolerating Tristan his their lives too, why he was tolerating a sudden influx of people that had once just been a bubble of them both.

Without a word, Tristan left the room, heading to Morana’s.

Dainn sat for a few more minutes, making some calls to the relevant specialists and forwarding emails. Then, he stood up and headed to the room Lyla was in.

He opened the door and slipped inside, closing it behind him, and walked to the comfortable hospital bed she was softly snoring in. There were some shoulder injuries and some shallow cuts on her beautiful face that Chiara had put there with her nails. Dainn had enjoyed breaking them and cutting her arm off before snapping her neck. He had zero compunction about killing a woman. Women could be just as, if not more, monstrous than men and he knew that from experience.

He pushed his suit jacket off just as she turned in her sleep and blinked her eyes open lazily.

A smile came over her face, like a ray of light coming through the clouds, and Dainn watched it, almost in a trance.

‘Come to bed,’ she mumbled out, probably forgetting that she was in a hospital or anything that had happened. Dainn wasn’t going to remind her.

He pushed off his shoes and slipped into bed next to her, the space tight with his size and the bed too small for both of them. She didn’t care, turning into his chest and snuggling into him like a cold creature seeking warm comfort, and Dainn felt like he was taking his first full breath in days. He wrapped his arms around her, listening to her starting that soft snore again, her lips parted and breaths falling on his chest, warming the one place that had always been glacial.

He pressed a soft kiss to her head, closing his eyes and embracing the darkness that enveloped him.

Darkness was a house he lived in, but she was home. He was home.