Chapter 4 Shadows of the Syndicate
Aria POV
The silence Dante left behind felt heavier than his presence.
Out in the yard, the low rumble of motorcycle engines ignited, vibrating through the concrete floor beneath my boots until the noise bled into the distance. He was gone.
I looked down at my hand. My wrist was still flushed red where his fingers had rested—the skin warm against the chill of the stainless steel counter. I picked up the paring knife, staring at its dull edge, before dropping it back onto the cutting board with a sharp metallic clatter.
I wasn’t going to spend the night peeling potatoes for a biker gang, waiting around to see if my brother turned up dead in a ditch.
Slipping out of the kitchen, I moved into the back hallway. The clubhouse felt eerie when empty; the usual clink of beer bottles and heavy laughter had been replaced by the hum of an old refrigerator and the faint, rhythmic ticking of a clock near the bar.
I crept toward the heavy oak door at the end of the corridor. Dante’s office.
Carlos was supposed to be guarding my room upstairs, which meant the main floor was clear. I reached for the brass handle and turned it slowly. It didn't budge. Locked.
I pulled a hairpin from my scalp, bending the thin metal with my teeth until it formed a rough pick. It was a stupid, desperate trick—something Ethan had shown me years ago when we were locked out of our apartment—but as I jammed it into the keyhole and applied pressure, the mechanism yielded with a soft click.
I slipped inside and shut the door behind me, holding my breath until I was sure no one had heard.
The office smelled of worn leather, tobacco, and stale black coffee. Sunlight filtered through high, narrow windows, cutting diagonal lines of dust across the massive desk.
I went straight for it, pulling open the bottom drawers.
Ledgers, bank statements, titles for custom motorcycles—everything was organized with a cold, terrifying precision that defied the chaotic reputation of a motorcycle syndicate. Dante didn't just run a gang; he ran a corporate shadow network.
I moved to the back wall where the filing cabinets stood, fingers scrambling through folders labeled by city, route, and code name. I was looking for anything related to Ethan: a photo, a phone log, a last known location.
Then I saw it. Tucked behind a heavy binder of shipping manifests was a dark blue leather notebook, its edges worn smooth.
I opened it. The handwriting inside was jagged, precise, and instantly recognizable.
Ethan's.
Property of E. Vance, the front page read.
My heart did a violent flip. Ethan hadn't just stolen files from Dante; he had been working inside this room, planning this for months. I flipped through the pages, my eyes scanning past dates, coordinates, and lists of numbers, until I hit an entry dated three days ago:
Dante suspects the leak. The drives are secured at the Old Mill on Route 9. If anything happens to me, Aria needs to take the blue key from the apartment wall clock. Don't let the Syndicate find her first.
A cold wave of dread washed over me. Ethan hadn't left me behind out of carelessness—he was trying to keep me away from the drop point. He knew that if Dante found those drives first, Ethan's only leverage would vanish. And if Dante found me first, I would become the bait.
Dante needed me alive. I was Ethan's sister, and until he found my brother, I was useful to him. That explained the guards, the locked doors, and every order keeping me inside this building.
The heavy brass doorknob rattled.
I froze, clutching the notebook to my chest.
"Dante?" Carlos's thick voice echoed through the wood, followed by a heavy knock. "Maya said you left, but I saw the office door open and came to check."
I shoved the notebook into the waistband of my jeans, pulling my heavy cotton sweater down to cover it. I backed away from the desk, looking frantically around the open room for anywhere to hide. There was nowhere.
The door handle turned, the latch giving way. "What are you doing in here?"
Carlos stood in the doorway, his broad frame blocking the hall light. His hand rested heavy on his belt, his brow furrowed in immediate suspicion.
I stood my ground, squaring my shoulders even as my hands shook behind my back. "Looking for a way out."
Carlos let out a harsh, disbelieving laugh, stepping inside and letting the heavy door swing shut. "You really have a death wish, don't you, girl? The boss explicitly said you don't leave your room without an escort. If he finds out you were snooping through his private files—"
"He's not here, Carlos," I interrupted, keeping my voice low and steady as I stepped into his personal space. "And you're not going to tell him."
Carlos squinted at me, his eyes narrowing. "Is that right? And why wouldn't I?"
"Because you were supposed to be guarding my room," I said, leveraging every ounce of confidence I didn't feel. "If Dante comes back and finds out I wandered straight into his office while you were slacking off, who do you think he's going to be angrier at? The prisoner... or the guard who let her walk?"
Carlos went silent. The muscle in his jaw twitched as his gaze dropped to the floor, calculating the odds. He knew Dante better than I did. He knew what happened to men who failed their assignments.
"Get back upstairs," Carlos muttered, his tone shifting from aggressive to bitterly resentful. He jerked his thumb toward the open door. "Now. Before I decide it's worth the beating to throw you back in that cell myself."
I didn't argue. I brushed past him into the quiet hallway, my heart hammering a chaotic rhythm against my ribs.
I walked upstairs, waited for Carlos to slam and lock the heavy metal door behind me, and sat down on the narrow bed. Outside, the iron window bars framed the orange glow of the setting sun.
I pulled Ethan's blue notebook from my waistband and stared at the handwritten coordinates.
The Old Mill on Route 9.
Dante was out there right now, hunting down my brother. But he was looking in the wrong places. I had the location, I had the plan, and now I had a choice: sit here and wait to see who survived the night, or figure out how to get to Route 9 before Dante Blackwood burned everything to the ground.
