Synarchy Book 1: The Awakening

Morbid Romantic said, "In a world where every idea has been done and redone, it's refreshing to read something that hasn't been done quite like this before."
http://www.morbid-romantic.net/2009/06/25/blog-tour-synarchy-book-1-the-awakening-by-dcs/

BCF Book Reviews called it, "Fast paced, never a page without some action - twists and drama galore carry the reader though this book like reading a hint of what is to come. This book requires your close attention, but it will grab it and keep it from the very first pages. It is absolutely impossible to put down!"
http://bcfreviews.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/synarchy-book-one-the-awakening-by-dcs/

A Journey of Books described Synarchy as "%u2026a wild tale with tons of plot twists and delicious complexity. I like to think of it as a cross between The Godfather and Stargate. Oh yes. It is that good."
http://ajourneyofbooks.blogspot.com/2009/06/synarchy-review-dcs.html

June 12th, 2012
Alcyone Island
St. Judas Memorial Gardens 12:12 AM

A warm rain had started. It came down in thick sheets, thunder lazily grumbling in the distance. The shadowed figure didn't carry an umbrella, she didn't mind the rain. Kayla preferred thunderstorms.

For fifty-five years she had lived a lie. Perfectly. She had situated herself into the family better than They had expected of her. As Marcello Terenzio's youngest daughter she was a board member. She ran the subsidiary, Empire Cruise Lines. Alcyone was an island after all, uniquely positioned between two major countries. They didn't always smuggle things by air. That meant she was privy to a great deal. Since she was thirteen years old, Kayla had been feeding the Brotherhood everything she knew about the Terenzio's.

Sixteen hours ago she learned that step-father played the game better than she had. Sixteen hours ago she learned that from the first day she'd appeared on his doorstep - he had known the truth.

The rain washed away the line of tears that fell in silence as she stared down at freshly dug earth next to where her mother was buried.

Marilyn Terenzio had been the first person Kayla had learned to love. It had happened unintentionally. They had tried to train her against it but things endured by a five-year-old were not always completely washed away with mind altering drugs. She remembered the videos. The man with the funny smell that taught her to hide how much she disliked it when people touched her. She frequently suffered from nightmares. It was not until she'd come to this island that she'd understood what it was really like to be embraced by the unconditionally loving, reassuring warmth of a mother. It made the nightmares stop after a while.

Kayla knew that's why her mother had been killed; so she didn't forget the plan and whom she belonged to. Who would take care of her after all the Terenzio's were dead. Caesar had appeared shortly thereafter. She had thought he was as good as the rest of the Brotherhood when she brought him home one weekend from college and Marcello accepted him with open arms. Now she knew that her step-father had been a lot smarter than she had given him credit for.

Maybe she should have realized that years ago. She had been sent here to kill him, taught that from day one. Initially she hadn't formed a connec-tion to him, not like she had with her mother. It wasn't hard to keep the distance, he wasn't around much. She was seventeen when her mother died, and the nightmares came back. She fully expected to wake from the next to nothing but darkness and the cruel lingering visions of the past. Instead, he had been there. Her screams were soothed by his strong quiet voice, and she was amazed at how easy it was to burrow into his chest, hiding from the truth. She let herself believe the lie in those moments, because his arms were warm and strong and she'd never felt protected before. He was around more after that. When she'd finished college he began inviting her more frequently to his office on the infamous 52nd floor. The Brotherhood had loved it. Secretly, so had she. To this day, Marcello had been the only man who could touch her without making her skin crawl. Even her gentle half brother Demetrius had made her inwardly flinch when he put a hand on her.

Kayla didn't understand Marcello Terenzio. He had known she was not his, that she was an enemy, the bastard child of his raped wife. But he looked at her like he loved her anyway, she knew this for certain. He had looked at Demetrius and pictures of Amanda the same way.

"Why? Why would you ask me?" Kayla whispered the unanswered question into the rain that crashed down around her. The letter Marcello had written her was crumpled up in her closed fist. A father's last request of his daughter.

Except she was not his daughter. Never mind that she loved him like the father he wasn't. She'd never admitted that to him, she didn't know if she ever would have.
She had never been given the order to kill him and hadn't questioned why. But yesterday, Caesar had called to tell her that he would be coming back to the Island soon. She knew why. Orders were coming. They were worried about the success of the Ascension. Frankly she was surprised they hadn't killed the Terenzio's sooner if they were that concerned. Regardless, someone was going to die and she would be the one pulling the trigger. The cruel beauty of it was that even if she didn't want to, they could make her. It only took a single phrase. Caesar was usually the one to 'activate' her.

Kayla bent down to set the single red rose on top of the freshly dug wet dirt. Her head bowed, her dark blonde hair soaked and coming loose from the pins that held it back in place. She closed her eyes, fighting a losing battle against emotions she didn't want to feel. She would disappoint her step-father. Choices weren't given to things that were owned.

"I'm sorry, Dad," Kayla whispered. Her cell phone rang. She knew it was Caesar. She flipped it open. "Yes?"

"Get ready to rid the world of your family baby. I'm on my way home."

Kayla was not a Terenzio. She was a child of the Project, loyal only to the Brotherhood. "I understand." Her face hardened and her fingers opened, Marcello's crumpled letter fluttering into the mud as she walked away.