I did as he asked, glaring at Aniyah’s smiling face as his hands carefully lifted my foot, sliding it into the shoe and buckling it. Once he was done, his hand ran up the back of my calf, making my fingers dig into his shoulder blades. His muscles tightened as he took the second foot and shoe and did the same slow, tantalizing thing. Once he was finished, he paused, staring up at me from below like I was his day and night, his sole reason for living. I could fall into a gaze like that.
“Now, I told you once, but I’ll tell you again…” Aniyah’s devilish voice came from beside us, bursting the bubble. “Make sure you get some dicks wet in that dress. If it doesn't have some kind ofcum stain on it when you take it to the cleaners, you didn't use my gift right.”
Zeth’s head dropped as the hand on the ground balled into a fist, shaking from how hard he was squeezing.Fucking Aniyah!
“Since my work is done, I’ll clean up here then take the jet home. Let you have your place to yourself for the marathon tonight.” I almost snapped at her to stop it, but her dark-haired demon suddenly appeared next to her, kissing her arm and shoulder, those red eyes looking at her like a puppy longing for his master.
She glanced down at her phone, moving her neck so he could kiss her there as she lamented. “Lucus is already asking when I’ll get back, and I can see Alic is checking my location every ten minutes. Those are the mate signals to get home before they come to drag my ass back.”
A car zipped around the corner and parked out front by my door. My sister's wolfy mate—and a somewhat reluctant friend of mine—came out and up the stairs.
“Nova.” He nodded at me, his eyes filled with nothing but irritation and respect. If he wasn't my sister's mate, I might say some shit right now, but as soon as his eyes connected with hers, they lit up, turning into these sky blue orbs of happiness.
“Maso.” I nodded as he passed me and went to my sister, who giggled at something Rasmus said in her ear.
Maso grabbed her chin, all intense and purposeful energy, and kissed her like it was the first time. Rasmus watched with those red eyes, the tips of his lips lifting as his hands trailed all over her. I knew what the three of them were going to do in my house before they left—I wasn't stupid—so I mumbled, “Clean up and don’t ruin the furniture,” and left it at that.
Motioning to Zeth that we had to go now, he took my elbow. His featherweight touch, so different from before, had me biting the inside of my lip. We only made it a few steps down before Aniyah called at my back, “Remember what I said, Nova! Stains! I want to see some stains! Send me pictures or else I’m going to send a glitter bomb to the gym and make all those boys shine bright like diamonds!”
Closing my eyes, I could picture all of the fighters throwing a fit as glitter stuck to them, making a damn mess of my gym. My hand shot up, waving at her like a white flag as I went down the stairs as fast as I could.
Looking out the side of my eye, Zeth's jaw had tightened. This car ride was going to beveryuncomfortable.
Fucking thanks, Aniyah.
19
NICK
Nova Rossey was the third child born to Rayla Desmond of the Syndicate. Her biological father is Ax Rossey, but she was raised by all of the Syndicate leaders—Lex Devil, Falcon Winstale, Avery Glovefox, and Cosmo Desmond. All five men were Rayla Desmond’s mates, and, through their union, they officially made the Syndicate one family.
One big happy, bloody family, huh?
I shut the file I was re-reading in hopes that I could find something that would help me tonight. I pored over every piece of data and documentation I had on Nova Rossey. When I started this job, I’d planned to lean on what I already knew about the Syndicate, hoping to get more firsthand info the deeper in I got, but now, I wanted to know everything.
For as long as anyone knew, the Syndicate had always been a crime family. Even in the earliest days, under Ternin Desmond, Syris Glovefox, Manic Rossey, Easton Winstale, and Rathe Devil—Nova’s grandfathers—they’d savagely killed people, earning their riches by being the baddest supes around. There were claims that they were all descendants of either royalty or thefirsts of their kind, which was why they were so strong, so unstoppable.
Then the Awakening happened.
In the years that followed, humans warred with supes until the American government brokered a simple treaty with those five men. They ruled their people, keeping them in line how they saw fit, while we ruled ours. We would live separate lives while sharing the same space.
As I scrolled through the redacted accounts of what they did to their own people, I grimaced at some of the photographic details. From what I could tell, any punishments in those first five years after the treaty were brutal, swift, and public. Their tactics were merciless and violent, but they produced results.
Supe blood had soaked the streets of most major cities; satellite pictures told a grisly story. By the end of the fifth year, human deaths at the hands of supes had dropped to almost nothing, which was proof of their grasp on their people.
The Syndicate was a band of thugs who had carved their empire out of death and destruction. The only difference between them and others was they were a solid, impenetrable unit, one that even other powerful supes couldn't break through... until the magical bombing that took out the bosses’ mates as well as Rathe Devil.
That attack had scattered them, forcing them to carve out territory and plant bases all over the United States. Hunkered down in their separate spaces, they reestablished their rule and maintained their iron fist as law.
Their nefarious activities included money laundering, corruption, assassination, prostitution, racketeering, armsdealing… the list went on. Since their crimes mostly involved other supes, the government and law enforcement agencies had chosen to look the other way, just glad they didn't have to deal with the supes themselves.
Then the next generation met up. Nova’s parents.
From the documents, it seemed they hadn’t gotten along at first, but they’d come together to take out Vincent Devil, Rathe’s brother. Again, most of the information was redacted, so the motive had been hard to figure out, and it didn’t say what happened to him after the fight.
Soon after that, Rayla had claimed her adopted brother and four other Syndicate heirs as her mates and promised the government she would bear five children, one for each faction of the Syndicate, to keep the treaty intact.
If you thought the next generation, raised in the post-Awakening era, would be calmer or more level-headed than their predecessors, you would’ve been wrong.
