Chapter 35 #2
The first face I recognized was Lachlan’s.
Lucian’s brother stood at the back of the sofa, shoulders rigid, eyes already on me. His resemblance to Lucian struck harder in this light.
Relief and tension collided in my chest.
A blonde woman rushed toward me before I could speak.
“You must be Scarlett,” she said warmly. “I’m Lacey.”
She wrapped her arms around me before I could react. It wasn’t suffocating. It was a sign that she was safe.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said quietly against my ear.
Behind her stood a tall woman with dark hair and eyes almost identical to Nik’s. Beside her was a broad-shouldered man with a soldier’s posture and lots of tattoos.
I followed Lacey further into the room.
“This is Nik’s sister, Ana, and her baby daddy, Conan,” she grinned, gesturing to them.
“Hi, nice to meet you,” I said weakly.
Nik didn’t waste time.
The television flickered with live footage and my breath caught in my throat.
The screen showed a security camera feed from the back of the terminal. Lucian hit the ground hard. Eight agents swarmed him. One drove a knee into his back. Another struck him across the face and pounded his face onto the concrete.
Lachlan’s hands curled into fists.
“They didn’t have to hit him like that,” Ana said coldly.
“They wanted to make a statement,” Conan added.
Something inside me snapped.
“Do something,” I demanded, turning on Nik. “Help him.”
I ripped the backpack from his hand and shoved it in his stomach.
“Here,” I said. “This is what they’re afraid of.”
Nik took it with a smirk and moved toward a separate room next to the space we were in. A frosted glass wall divided it from the living room. The others followed, so I trailed behind them.
When we entered, the frosted glass cleared, allowing us to see the television in the living room easily.
The designers had spared no expense in designing this home.
The room was enormous—rows of monitors, multiple keyboards, servers all humming in a chilly, climate-controlled room.
It was more than just a home office; it was an operations center, lined with screens and equipment, more like the brain of an intelligence agency.
Nik set the hard drive and documents on a steel desk and powered up a system that came alive.
“All right, let’s see what our holy leaders in Spain have on their minds,” he said.
He connected the drive to a workstation isolated from the rest of the network. Lines of data filled the screen.
“We need something undeniable,” he murmured. “Something that makes Hayes and Delgado rethink their next move. Something to box them in.”
The room held its breath.
On the television behind us, Lucian was hauled to his feet in restraints.
My nails dug into my palms.
“Hold on,” I whispered under my breath. “Just hold on.”
Nik’s fingers flew across the keyboard.
And the entire room waited.
I stood beside Lacey, arms crossed tight against my ribs, while Lach and Conan hovered behind Nik’s chair.
“Holy hell,” Nik muttered.
“What is it?” I demanded.
“It’s everything,” he replied without looking back. “Full backup. Every transaction. Every donor. Every internal payout.”
Lines of numbers filled the screen in organized columns.
“Go back,” Lach said. “Start at the beginning.”
Nik did.
“At first,” he said, scanning, “the donations are small. Regional. Church-affiliated foundations. Nothing remarkable.”
He tapped a key.
“Then eight years ago…” He zoomed in. “That’s when it spikes.”
“How much?” Ana asked.
“From hundreds of thousands annually to tens of millions.”
The room absorbed that in silence.
“That’s when the scheme had to have started,” Nik said.
I stepped closer.
“What kind of payouts?” I asked.
He kept tapping away.
“Most of the transactions are for money coming in,” he said. “But there are a few consistent payments going out.”
“To who?” Lach asked.
Nik highlighted a column.
“Nuns on payroll. Leadership at your boarding school,” he said, glancing at me. “Several other elite schools in Europe and South America.”
My stomach dropped.
“Schools?” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “Five years ago, payments began routing to private institutions in El Salvador. Then Colombia. Then Honduras.”
He typed rapidly, cross-referencing.
“Wait,” he said sharply.
“What?” Conan asked.
Nik opened another window, pulling enrollment records from one of the Salvadoran schools.
“You’re not going to like this.”
The room leaned in.
“One of the students at the Salvadoran academy receiving consistent monastery funding is the daughter of Ciro Delgado.”
There was silence.
“I didn’t think Delgado had children,” Lach said.
“Neither did I,” Nik replied. “But this girl is registered under his own surname.”
Lacey frowned. “You think he’d traffic his own daughter?”
Ana shook her head. “Not likely.”
“Or,” Lach said slowly, “maybe that’s how he got in.”
Nik nodded.
“Access to schools. To girls. To families with political and financial connections.”
The implications were thick.
“He wanted Lacey to bear him an heir as if he didn’t have any,” Lach added darkly. “Maybe that girl is a recruiter, a groomer.”
Nik leaned back, rubbing his jaw.
“We can’t tell, so we don’t jump to conclusions,” he said. “But still, this is a direct financial link from the monastery to Delgado’s orbit.”
“And we already know Andrew Hayes is tied to the monastery,” Conan said.
My pulse quickened.
“So Hayes and Delgado are connected through this,” I said. “But what ties all these wealthy donors together?”
Nik studied the monitors.
“That’s what I’m looking for.”
He began sorting and classifying data by type and source.
“Heads of state, royal families, tech magnates, media barons, luxury conglomerate CEOs, the list goes on and on,” he muttered.
“The same names appear across multiple foundations,” Nik murmured. “Same wealth managers. Same advisors.”
“Follow the money managers,” Lach said.
Nik’s fingers flew across the keyboard.
After what felt like forever, the trembling of my limbs subsided. At this point, if anyone was going to throw me out of a window or turn me over to my father, they would have.
Nik had cross-referenced corporate filings, tax records, and offshore shell companies.
Then, suddenly, he froze.
“Now this is something.”
“What?” I asked.
“One man appears on nearly every donor’s financial paperwork,” Nik said. “As an advisor. Trustee. Power of attorney. Wealth strategist.”
A name filled the center screen.
Franklin Whitaker.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“He’s the CEO of Leon Brands,” Nik explained.
Lacey frowned. “I’ve never heard of Leon Brands.”
Nik glanced at her.
“You have,” he said. “You just don’t realize it.”
“Leon Brands is the parent company for Eveline I was born into this chaos.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this,” I admitted. “The wealth. The power. The fact that you all operate in the gray.”
Lacey handed me a mug of steaming tea and gestured to a selection of sweeteners. “You’d be surprised, most of the world runs on gray.”
We settled at the kitchen island.
“So,” I said, glancing between them. “Who’s who in this…family?”
Lacey laughed softly. “That depends on how deep you want to go.”
“Start with the basics,” I said, laughing softly.
“Okay,” Anastasia began. “Nik runs the digital side of things. The dark side of the underworld, you could say. Intelligence. Infrastructure. He usually sees the moves before anyone else does.”
“Lach,” Lacey added, “handles logistics and enforcement mostly for Xyst, although now that he’s a member of The Syndicate, he’s working on other projects. He’s quieter than Lucian, has a wicked sense of dry humor, but don’t mistake that for softness.”
“Oh, I didn’t,” I said.
“And Conan,” Ana smiled broadly, “is an ED nurse back in Tacoma.”
“ED nurse!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
“Ana met Conan the hard way, but that’s a story for another day,” Lacey laughed. “I’m still trying to figure out the whole West Coast clan.”
“And you?” I asked Lacey.
She smiled. “I just try to keep Nik from burning the world down.”
“That’s not true,” Ana cut in. “You’ve started managing the legitimate side. Charities. Public perception.”
Lacey rolled her eyes. “It’s less glamorous than it sounds.”
“And Lucian?” I asked sheepishly.
Ana’s expression shifted.
“He’s the one who really made Xyst happen,” she said.
“If it weren’t for him and his sheer will, none of us would be here talking to you.
I would have been married off to the worst toad imaginable, Lacey most likely would be a broodmare in El Salvador, and the guys would have never banded together… never become a part of The Syndicate.”
“Enough of this serious talk,” Lacey said.
I wrapped my hands around the warm mug and stared down into the steam.
“And you,” Ana said gently, “are stronger than you think.”
I held her gaze.
“I’m not fragile,” I said.
“We know,” Lacey replied. “But we understand what you’re feeling right now.
We sat there a while longer, chatting about simpler things—about New York, about Central Park in winter, about how Ana had met Conan. It was a normal conversation layered over a day that had been anything but.
Eventually, Lacey stood. “It’s getting late. Let me show you your room.”
The guest suite overlooked the park, the city lights shimmering beyond the glass.
The room itself was larger than any apartment I’d ever lived in.
“This is yours as long as you need it,” Lacey said.
“Thank you,” I replied.
She lingered a moment, showing me the things I would need and then stepped forward and hugged me.
“He’ll be back,” she whispered.
“I hope so,” I said.
After she left, I changed into a pair of soft sweatpants and a T-shirt she had laid out on the bed earlier.
After brushing my teeth, I crawled into bed.
The silence pressed in around me.
I closed my eyes, but the image of Lucian hitting the pavement replayed again and again. The way they had punched and kicked him.
My chest tightened.
He would come back.
He had to.
The world had shifted too much already.
Exhaustion crept in slowly, pulling me under despite the tension coiled in my body.
The last thought that lingered before sleep claimed me was his face when I’d kneeled between his knees on the plane. Surely, I’d have a chance to please him like that again.