Page 89 of The Syndicater (Dark Verse 6)

"So it is a number for the victims." Morana broke the heavy silence, coming back on track. "Or something else?"

"Did you look into Xander's phone?"

Morana's face fell. "Yeah. He has some calls from an unknown number once a month. They don't last for more than a minute so it's difficult to get data, but from the scrambling pattern, it seems like the Shadow Man."

"He led us to him," Amara added, reminding them.

"He's involved in everything." Dante ran a hand through his hair. "I don't understand why everything leads to him and The Syndicate."

"You think he's involved in it?" Zephyr asked quietly.

Alpha didn't think so, his instinct telling him it was the opposite, given the way he was working and leaving a trail of bodies of people rumored to be in the organization.

"A few months ago," Alpha began, remembering what he'd heard on the ground. "One of my girls on the ground told me about a bunch of bodies suddenly dropping. High-profile peoplewere killed in their homes. The rumors said it was him, but it was more activity than there ever had been before."

"What happened a few months ago?" Morana mused out loud, looking up as if trying to recall information.

Dante sighed. Amara rubbed his arm. "We need to find him."

"Can we… maybe bait him?" Morana suggested, her eyes flickering for a split second to the only person in the room who had stayed silent throughout the discussion, not a sound from her.

Luna Caine.

Who was studiously staring at her hands, folded together in her lap, her knuckles white with how hard she was gripping herself.

Alpha felt his eye hone in on her keenly.

The Syndicate takingher, the Shadow Man showing up and sendingherfile, leading them toher, now breaking in here thatshewas there. She was the only commonality between them.

His focus on her made Zephyr look at her too, followed by Dante and Amara, who followed their gaze, Morana already looking at the girl. The last one to look up was Tristan, seeing everyone staring at his sister.

"What the fuck is going on?" he demanded, his voice dangerous, protective.

Alpha understood, but apparently, everyone else came to the same conclusion he had. The logic made sense to everyone else.

Morana took the brunt of it, the only person in the room immune from his wrath. "The Shadow Man knows your sister."

Tristan's gaze swerved to his sister, who sat with her jaw trembling. Alpha felt a sliver of sympathy for her. Sitting there like that under such scrutiny couldn't be easy.

"So?" Tristan persisted, refusing to accept what was right in front of his face. "He knows all of us."

Morana took a deep breath in. "I think she knows him too. None of us do."

At those words, Tristan's eyes sharpened on his sister. He joined the rest of them as they looked at her, waiting for her to speak. It would be ideal if she denied it, but it would be better if she admitted it, better because they would finally have some fucking answers.

Luna sat in the armchair, not fidgeting, not squirming, just utterly still and pale, keeping her eyes lowered and her hands together in that tight grip, breathing in and out and in and out again.

"Is this fucking true?" Tristan demanded, his voice hard, harsh for the first time with his sister.

None of them said a word, not as she flinched at the tone of his voice. Alpha bit his tongue to tell Tristan to mind his tone, that little flinch affecting him. But he stopped himself. This was too important, too big.

They all waited as she took her time, finally inhaling deeply. She finally looked up, her green eyes shimmering, and looked around at them.

Then, she opened her mouth.

"I do know him."

The words came out in a halting, shaky voice. Words that fell like bullets on their ears, causing all of them to tense and sit up automatically at her confession. The magnitude of it hit him in the chest. The Shadow Man, the most fearsome myth in the darkest part of the underworld, the one man even the biggest monsters feared meeting on a dark night, the one ghost who had confounded all of them, was known by this tiny petite woman with a sad soul.

And then, while they were processing the words, she dropped another bomb on them, this one even more lethal, even more impactful, with even more consequences.

Quietly, the previous tremor from her voice gone, replaced by the strength he hadn't known she had possessed, she looked up. Her eyes stared each and every one of them in the eye with defiance he hadn't thought her capable of, sitting up straighter than she had before, more powerful in her stance, and said three words that hit them all like a tsunami.

"I love him."

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