Page 51 of The Syndicater (Dark Verse 6)

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 eyesas 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 hewas withher. 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 hisflammaor 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…unhingedduring 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 ShadowMan 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,everythinginside 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 shetrusted, 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 shelived.

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 immerseherself 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.

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