Page 60 of Sypher

“Dante, this is Mia Doherty or Tyrant as the club calls her. She was just leaving. Weren’t you, Mia?”

Mia shrugged, walking toward the door, only to stop next to Dante.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Dante.”

He gulped when she leaned closer and grinned.

“Be a sweetheart and pass along a message for me, will you? Tell him his little nightmare is ready to play.”

With that, Mia kissed Dante’s cheek, laughing happily as she left me alone with my scared and unmoving lover.

Getting to my feet, I stared at Dante, who hadn’t moved from his spot. “How do you know Mia?”

“I don’t. We haven’t met formally.”

“She seems to know you.”

He nodded almost imperceivably. “Why was she here?”

Cocking my head to the side, I deflected and asked my own question, “What are you hiding, Dante?”

Snapping out of whatever daze he was in, Dante spun around and headed for the door.

“Where the hell are you going?”

“Clubhouse. Mercy called me.”

Before I could call him out on his lie, he bolted, slamming the front door as he rushed from the apartment.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Pippen

July 22, 2024, Soulless Sinners’ clubhouse, a short time later,

Mumbling to myself, I hurried into the clubhouse, the smell of stale coffee and old wood filling my nostrils as I headed straight for my office. My God, my life was already a chaotic mess and now I had to deal with her. The tension in the clubhouse reached its peak when Malice laid claim to Silver, sparking chaos and turmoil among the members. Montana’s behavior had become completely unhinged, his actions erratic and unpredictable. Malice was in the fucking wind. No one had seen him since he violently claimed the bartender. Safely tucked away inside the clubhouse, under the ever-vigilant gaze of Montana, Silver remained hidden. With my brothers stumped and unable to locate the club’s most dangerous member, the added stress of Danny’s situation, the search for my daughter, and the shocking reappearance of Mia Doherty, I felt completely overwhelmed and at my breaking point.

I was surrounded by chaos and impending disaster. Unless a significant change occurred very soon, I knew I was about to lose control and completely unravel. God, when Silas learned she resurfaced, he was going to murder the messenger.

Fuck. Why couldn’t the dead just stay dead?

During my junior year as an undergraduate student at Texas A&M University, unexpectedly and rather dramatically, Silas appeared in the dead of night, issuing a peremptorycommand that I immediately find and locate one Mia Doherty. Unfortunately, she had been pronounced dead, and despite my attempts to convince him otherwise, he remained unconvinced and refused to believe my report.

He wanted definitive fucking proof. The difficulty in obtaining that proof stemmed from the fact that she had technically been buried on property owned by the Golden Skulls in the town of Purgatory, located in the state of California. I was all for a little grave digging, but the idea of my head being separated from my body was a step too far. The very thought sent shivers down my spine. I had already heard the chilling tales of Reaper’s volatile temper, each story a testament to the fear he inspired and his terrifying skill with his blades. A skill that carved a path of destruction wherever he went. Hell, I knew what that son of a bitch did to his own damn club in Louisiana—I’d seen the pictures—so I could only imagine the gruesome things he would do to me if I desecrated his sister’s grave. The thought sent chills down my spine.

Nope. I liked my head right where it was.

Unable to verify Mia Doherty’s death, Silas was forced to abandon the investigation, a decision that left him seething with impotent rage. Silas was nothing but efficient. The thought of her reappearance reigniting Silas’ obsessive game of hide-and-seek, a game he played with chilling intensity and terrifying consequences, made me hesitate.

The entire chain of events began when the Golden Skulls made the decision to send Mia overseas to an extremely expensive and prestigious private school. She was supposed to receive a superior education, not pursue the entirely antithetical, risky and clandestine activities associated with the infamous and so-called “Devil’s Playground.” The mystery of how she bypassed Silas’ sophisticated security system, encompassing numerous cameras and motion detectors, remained unsolved among thoseinvolved. However, the events that transpired during her five-hour encounter with Silas constituted an even more significant enigma. Silas flatly refused to utter a single word, and considering Mia’s swift departure and suspected death, it was clear to me that he believed the matter was closed.

Too bad for him, his little nightmare rose from the dead.

With Silas and Mia momentarily forgotten, I grabbed my trusty headphones—the worn leather still soft beneath my fingers—and slipped them on, blocking out the world. My club responsibilities felt like a runaway train. If I didn’t rein them in quickly, everything would fall apart.

To center my attention, I searched for an insignificant, commonplace task, something so trivial that it would serve as a point of concentration. I had to clear my head to think clearly and that was the only way I could manage to do it. As I performed my standard diagnostic tests on the club’s database and security systems that morning, the usual rhythmic clicking of the keyboards surrounded me. Unexpectedly, I discovered a file I didn’t recognize within the club’s central data file, a repository of all member details. As the vice president, it was Mercy’s duty to maintain comprehensive and detailed records for each and every one of the brothers in the clubhouse. Everything from family, to who they did business with, to who they fucked. I only found the file because I was bored one day and had nothing better to do. Of course, I was really intrigued when I saw the file was password protected. I was disappointed when it only took me seconds to break in, but what I found was interesting.

The Soulless Sinners had a colorful past, to say the least.

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