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

She’d thought their home in Los Fortis had a view but damn.

Zephyr stood near the windows, having just entered the penthouse, being delivered by a very quiet man to the building. She had used the code Morana had given her and rode up the elevator. It was already morning, sunlight filling in the entire space from behind the clouds, leaving a clear view of the new city before her. Zephyr had never seen the sea like this, and imagining seeing the view every day was incredible. She took her phone out and opened the camera, holding it up to take a photo.

‘You should lower the exposure,’ the voice came from behind her, and she yelped, dropping her phone to the floor. It clattered, the screen cracking, and she groaned, bending to pick it up while looking up at the boy who had padded into the kitchen at the same time. The sudden movement sent a wave of dizziness crashing over her. She extended her arm to hold onto something but, with nothing but air, fell to her knees on the hard floor.

Ouch.

She sat her ass down, trying to let the wave pass, breathing in carefully with her eyes closed as the good doctor had told her.

‘Count to three,’ the voice came again, and she opened her eyes, seeing Xander watching her curiously from the kitchen. He had grown up since the last time she’d seen him. His hair was a little longer with boyish waves, his frame a little taller. The most notable physical difference were the frameless glasses perched on his nose that hadn’t been there before.

‘Three what?’ she panted, catching her breath and holding her heart.

‘Three. Like one, two, three. Breathe. One, two, three. Breathe,’ the boy instructed, going so far as to demonstrate.

Since she had nothing better to do, Zephyr followed his tutorial, breathed in, counted to three, exhaled, and repeated—once, twice, thrice. By the fifth set, her heart was beating normally again, and her dizziness was a distant memory.

She gave the boy a grin. ‘Thanks, Xander.’

‘You’re welcome,’ the boy said, opening the fridge. She watched as he took out a glass bottle of orange juice. ‘Have you had breakfast?’

Was this boy, who couldn’t be more than eight, offering to make her breakfast? What was Morana feeding him?

‘Not yet,’ she replied, getting back to her feet and heading into the kitchen. It was a dream kitchen with so much open space and top-of-the-line appliances that it made her want to cook. ‘What are we making?’

He paused, looking her up and down but never quite in the eyes. Zephyr knew he was high-functioning autistic, and she had done her research on how she could make sure he had a good time with her on the flight over. The two times she’d interacted with him, he’d always been such a cool kid. She liked his company.

‘Can you cook breakfast?’ he asked her, his tone slightly disbelieving.

Zephyr blinked with exaggerated drama. ‘Excuse me? Of course, I can.’

‘I had to ask. Morana burns water. Tristan and I have agreed to never let her in the kitchen. It’s a hazard.’

A laugh bubbled out of her. ‘That’s kind of cute.’

‘It’s a safety precaution,’ he said so seriously that it cracked her up even more.

‘If I promise not to burn your house, can I cook? I make killer pancakes!’ Zephyr offered, her own stomach grumbling in response to the thought of food.

He nodded, pointing to what she assumed was the pantry. ‘The Ingredients are there. Please make sure they are buttery.’

Zephyr saluted him. ‘Yes, sir.’ She opened the pantry and took out the ingredients. Xander poured her a glass of orange juice and then got her the mixing bowls and pans.

‘So, I’ll be here for a bit.’ She informed him while making the batter, hoping he didn’t have an issue with that. From the little she had seen of him, he seemed pretty chill.

He validated that judgment when he said, ‘I know. Morana texted me.’

Zephyr felt her eyebrows go up. It was definitely a little odd for a child his age to have a phone and be texting, but she didn’t judge. Everyone had a different dynamic, and both he and Morana were quite unique personalities.

‘What did she text you?’ Zephyr asked, more curious than anything.

The boy fumbled in his pajama pockets, bringing out a small device. It wasn’t as high-tech as most of the ones she saw; it was more basic than anything. He tapped on it several times and turned the screen so she could see.

Zephyr squinted at the tiny alphabets, wondering if they were the reason for his early eye prescription. The text read:

He was a smart cookie because he had found a way around saying it to her face but instead showing her. But his replies threw her off, making her chuckle again. The contrast of the messages on the screen, especially the little thumbs up, was hilarious. The fact that the boy would always call her the crying lady set her off even more. Zephyr laughed again; after so long, it felt good.

Fuck, she felt good. After so long, there was something to feel good about.

And the fact that Morana had referred to her as ‘Aunt Zephyr’ made her soften inside. Whatever their hangups, she was relieved and glad to have a friend like Morana in her life now.

She looked back at Xander, realizing he was almost as tall as she was short, wanting to ruffle his bedhead hair but not wanting to make him uncomfortable.

‘Awww you like me,’ she teased him.

He just pocketed his phone and drank his orange juice. Zephyr noticed he took three quick sips before pausing for a second and doing it again, his eyes on the mindless way she was mixing the batter. The sips, combined with him telling her to breathe in threes, made her take note of it. To match, she rotated the wooden spatula in her hand through the batter three times clockwise, paused, and did it again. ‘That better?’

He nodded. ‘It tastes better when you do it in threes.’

‘Really?’ She was fascinated. ‘How?’

‘Three is the dimension of the space we occupy physically,’ he told her, looking at her mixing the batter in the pattern now. ‘Anything physical we do, if we do it in threes, our systems align with the space we are in. Our eyes are trichromatic and can perceive only three primary colors… the rest are all added to them. Three is also the triad number and is important in geometries, which makes architecture we see all around the world. There is a progression in three and probability. The probability for any event can be concise in the rule of three. There is a primary triad in music, too, though I’m still reading about that. In mathematics, any equation will come down to three numbers, two on one side and one on the result. And the most interesting thing is computers for me. We can use three binary numbers to code anything, 01, 10, and 11. Morana told me she’ll teach me when I’m older. There’s rules of three in psychology too, Dr. Kol told me about that.’

Zephyr was frozen, the mixing bowl forgotten. She watched in stunned shock as the boy spoke stuff most adults didn’t know about, launching into more words than she’d ever heard him speak. He was not just special; he had to be gifted. This kind of intelligence and articulation was by no means normal in a child his age.

‘Wow. Who’s Dr. Kol?’ she asked, genuinely not knowing but also fucking fascinated by the passion with which he was talking, his cadence quicker than usual.

Xander took some butter out of a fancy ceramic thing she needed to get. The butter was perfectly soft inside.

‘He’s my psychologist,’ Xander shared. ‘He talks to me and helps me.’ His tone let her know he didn’t want to talk about that.

Breaking from her slight daze, Zephyr put on the pan, waiting for it to heat, and added the batter in. ‘Do you want three?’

He bit his lip, in a way that finally was like kids his age. ‘Can you make big ones so I’ll be full?’

She grinned. ‘Of course.’ Adding more batter, she asked him. ‘So, have you made any friends at school?’

He shook his head. ‘No. I think some kids are mean. Most of what they say goes over my head. Morana gets mad though.’

Shitheads. She hated how cruel kids could be, having been bullied herself, but she was glad he didn’t get most of it. She pointed the spatula at him. ‘If anyone bothers you too much, tell someone about it. Tristan or Morana or a teacher. Anyone. Don’t take shit from people, especially ones who don’t know you.’

‘The pancake is burning,’ he pointed out and Zephyr immediately flipped it over, exhaling in relief when she saw it was fine.

‘Are you sick?’ the boy asked her out of nowhere.

Zephyr blinked at him. ‘What?’

He pointed to the living room. ‘You fell down dizzy. Are you sick?’

Zephyr stared at him for a long second, biting her lip. She hadn’t had a chance to tell anyone. Dr. Nei had tested her and she’d come back positive. To say she’d been stunned would have been an understatement. Though the doctor had reassured her that it could have been missed due to her recent stress, and maybe the hospital hadn’t tested her for it at all, it was completely normal and she just had to schedule an appointment with a gynac in the next week to make sure everything was as it should be.

She’d thought she would break the news to Alpha when he got back home. But before she could have, he’d been onto her, kissing the daylights out of her, just kissing because he’d been waiting patiently for her to give him a signal that she was ready in the headspace to have sex again. And then, in the middle of their makeout, Morana had called and the entire mood had shifted.

And now, standing in a strange apartment in a strange city looking at a boy who wasn’t that strange to her, she realized he was about to be the first one to hear the news.

‘Well,’ she began. ‘I’m pregnant.’

Xander stilled, his eyes slightly widening, moving to her stomach. ‘There’s a baby in your belly?’

Zephyr looked down at it, the curves hinted at in her loose top and smiled. ‘Yeah.’

‘How did it get there?’

Blood rushed to her cheeks at the innocent question, her gaze darting everywhere, mildly panicking because what the hell would she tell a child about how babies were made? She didn’t want to be his first conversation about it, didn’t want to say something that would traumatize him. She looked around the room for inspiration, before taking a deep breath in, realizing he was waiting for an answer.

‘Well,’ she swallowed, taking one pancake off and putting it on the plate, then adding the batter for the second one. ‘When a man loves a woman, he gives her a special… gift that only he can. And when the woman loves him back, she accepts it. That gift becomes a baby.’

There. That was very child-friendly and very simplistic.

Xander kept looking at her stomach. ‘That’s not true. I was a baby but I don’t think I came from a gift of love.’

The heavy words, said with that simple, direct tone, shot through her heart. Zephyr looked at the little boy, wondering what his life had been like before, who he was born to, and knew she couldn’t say anything to counter his statement because she didn’t know anything.

‘What do you think you came from?’ she asked him casually instead, making another pancake, busying herself so it didn’t seem she was too curious about his answer.

‘I don’t know,’ he simply stated. ‘I saw love after I was born, not before.’

Zephyr bit her tongue to keep from prying. She didn’t know anything about his past experiences and didn’t want to tread over any trauma he may or may not have. ‘You’re very loved now, even if people don’t tell you.’

He nodded. ‘I know. People express love differently. Some tell me, some show me, some do both.’

‘Good. You deserve all the love.’ Zephyr finally finished cooking—three with extra butter for him and one for herself—and plated up their food, placing them on the table. Xander, as well-mannered as he was, added glasses of water and more orange juice next to her plate first and then to his, and Zephyr wondered if that was something he’d learned before or after he’d come to live there.

They both hopped up on the stools, both their feet dangling in the air which made her chuckle, and dug in.

‘Has Tristan given Morana his gift?’ Xander asked just as Zephyr took her first bite. Her eyes widened, food going down the wrong pipe as she choked. She coughed, taking sips of water to clear her airway, her eyes tearing up both in shock and laughter. Oh, she was pretty sure Tristan had given Morana his gift many times. Just the way the man stared at her was enough to overheat libidos all around, but aside from that, there had been too many occasions on their video calls where Morana had had a look on her face Zephyr recognized very well—a woman well-satisfied and well-pleasured by her partner. She knew the look because she had seen it on her own face many times, though not recently. Fuck. She needed to get laid and needed her husband to lay her.

‘You’ll have to ask them that yourself,’ Zephyr told Xander, giggling at the thought of the boy asking Morana this and her reaction. Tristan probably wouldn’t react. She’d never really seen much of any expression on his face. ‘It’s a private thing.’

Xander chewed his bite of food thoughtfully. ‘Tristan loves Morana, but she doesn’t have a baby in her belly, but she loves him too, so he must not have given her the gift, or she would have accepted.’

Oh, sweet summer child full of logic. Zephyr was absolutely not going to get into the discussion of protection against the gift with him. With his brain, he would have her talking about things a child should not be learning this early.

‘How are the pancakes?’ she asked, changing the topic instead.

‘Good.’ He chewed some more. ‘Tristan makes better.’

She’d heard he was a good cook but damn. Morana often talked about Tristan and Xander bonding over food, how it was somehow both of their love languages and how they plotted ways to keep her out of the space. She hoped someday she could taste something he made and see for herself what the reputation was about.

‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ Xander asked after a few minutes of companionable silence.

Zephyr shrugged. ‘I don’t know yet. It’s too early to tell.’

‘When will you know?’

‘Maybe in a few weeks. I have a doctor’s appointment soon, so they’ll give me an exact time.’

He cleaned off his plate, inhaling three pancakes faster than she ate her one. Damn, the boy could eat.

‘Will you text me when you know?’

His question surprised Zephyr. ‘Sure.’ She’d take his number later. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘It’s interesting,’ he told her. ‘Your body is like the oven. It cooks the baby, and it comes out when it’s ready.’

Wow. He was such an astute young man. Zephyr had zero doubts he was going to grow up into a force to be recknoned with. Good thing he was her friend now.

‘I hope it’s a girl.’

Zephyr tilted her head at his words, her brows furrowing. ‘Why?’

Xander finished his juice and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand in a move that belied his age. ‘Aunt Amara has a tree for one of her babies that died,’ he told her, tapping his finger on the counter. Zephyr already knew about the tree. In fact, she’d been the one to send Amara a list of ideas when she’d talked about it.

‘I know,’ Zephyr told him. ‘Why does that make you wish it’s a girl?’

‘So Tempest can have her sister, even if it’s a cousin.’

The words landed like a blow to her chest. Zephyr felt the tears fill her eyes as the thoughtfulness this child possessed, even in his logic, filled her heart. She knew he was protective of Tempest, but the fact that he wanted her to have a sister she’d lost. Damn.

‘Are you crying again?’ he asked, and Zephyr didn’t know if she was projecting it but he sounded amused.

‘No,’ she sniffled.

A noise left his mouth, and she realized he was chuckling next to her.

They wrapped up the breakfast in the next few minutes, and she took her phone out to feed his number, forgetting that it was dead. Groaning, she let it down on the counter. Xander picked it up, turning it around and examining it with intent. She left him to it and cleared up the plates, rinsing and washing and stacking them on the side of the sink to drain. She cleaned up the cooking area and washed the bowls and pans, all the while aware of the young boy opening the back of her phone and tinkering around with something. It took her about half an hour to restore the entire space to its former glory. She returned to the counter, where Xander now sat with her phone lit up through the cracked screen.

She picked it up in amazement. ‘How did you fix that?’

He shrugged, like it was no big deal. ‘I just checked if something had come loose in the back when it fell. I’ve added my number to your list. You should really add a better password than 1234.’

Zephyr began to laugh, a deep belly laugh, at being chided about it. Zen had told her countless times to do that, too, and she’d never done it. Shaking her head, not brought down by her sister’s memory for the first time in months, Zephyr opened her texts and sent him one.

She liked this game. Chuckling, she typed again, leaning on the counter opposite the boy.

‘What do you say about a haircut?’ she asked, brushing her fingers over the hair that had fallen on his forehead.

He pulled away. ‘No. I want it to grow more.’

‘Okay, okay. What about assisting with a makeover?’ she suggested; her heart felt light, lighter than it had in weeks. ‘Should we do it?’

Xander looked at her stomach again. ‘What’s a makeover?’

‘It’s when you change something about your appearance to feel good,’ she explained to him.

He gave her a once-over. ‘Why would you change anything?’ The words seemed absurd as if she were absolutely perfect as she was.

Xander had no filter, and that just made what he said even more precious to her. ‘Can I hug you?’ she blubbered, wondering if he knew how good he was for her soul.

He nodded, and she walked around the counter, wrapping her arms tightly around him and pressing a kiss on his head. He sat still, not moving but not resisting.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered into his hair.

‘For?’

‘For being you.’ She stepped back, blinking at him with wet lashes. ‘Never change, Xander. You’re perfect as you are.’

A slight flush filled his cheeks at her words. ‘What are we doing for the overmake?’

‘Makeover,’ she corrected and walked to the living area where her overnight bag and a kit she always had on her were. She opened the bag and took the large kit out, unzipping it and searching for the items she was looking for. Once she had them all, she turned to find him watching her hands curiously.

‘Now, show me to a guest bathroom.’

‘Why?’ he asked, looking at the items in her hand.

‘Because we, my young grasshopper—’ she grinned at him ‘—are going to color my hair.’

It was time for a change.