Threads That Bind Us (Syndicate of Fate Book 1)

2. Gwen

”And you”re the legal guardian of your sister?” the guy from Children’s National’s billing office asks for the third or eleventh time. I take a deep breath.

”No, technically, my mother still maintains parental rights. But Ana is my dependent. She”s covered by my insurance policy.” It had taken quite a bit of assistance from a pro-bono family attorney to figure out how all of this worked nearly nine years ago.

”Unfortunately, it seems your policy didn’t cover a significant portion of the lumpectomy, and it doesn’t look like it will cover much more of Ana’s radiation therapy.” He clicks his tongue twice. “And to apply for financial assistance, you must be her legal guardian, regardless of the insurance policyholder information. Could your mother possibly join this call?”

I nearly laugh out loud. Sure, once I figure out what continent she”s on.

I’m fucking exhausted. Ana’s surgery—the lumpectomy to remove the little clump of pre-cancerous cells in her chest—was almost a week ago, and she was a fucking champ. But when the bill hit my inbox yesterday, I nearly went into shock. Hence, this phone call.

”She hasn’t seen Morgana in over four years. I wouldn’t know how to get her involved in this process,” I say, slipping farther down the wall outside the club employee break room.

I shift my feet to get blood flow to my legs and crack my neck. The guy—David or John or something biblical like that—sighs into the receiver. ”Look, I understand you”re in a unique situation. I would encourage you to file for termination of parental rights based on abandonment and adopt your sister legally. Until that happens, I don”t see how an application can be submitted.”

I know I”ll regret my next question, but I can”t help it. I”m a glutton for situational awareness and punishment.

”Be honest with me here. What am I looking at?”

The line is silent for a moment.

”Costs vary widely, but based on what I’m seeing in her treatment plan and your coverage, you’re looking at between sixty and eighty thousand dollars.”

He keeps talking, but I can’t hear anything through the whooshing sound in my ears. Jesus Christ, those are some very large numbers. We have broke your arm at practice emergency money, but nothing that could cover what this is likely to cost.

I interrupt Judas and ask if he can email me the information I’m not paying attention to, and he agrees. But I already know I need another plan.

Kenzie, my best friend and fellow overworked waitress, peeks her head out of the breakroom door to check on me, her long dark hair whipping around her face.

“Hey, what’s going on? You look sick.” She slides against the wall and sits on the floor next to me, resting her head on my arm.

My natural inclination is to shrug it off, pretend it’s nothing. Kenzie’s been through too much, and I never want to add to her stress. But the stress is starting to eat me alive.

“Apparently, our health insurance is even shittier than I thought,” I sigh, resting my cheek on top of her head. She groans beneath me.

“Preaching to the choir on that one. I swear last summer would have cost me less if I had no insurance at all,” she says, and my chest squeezes.

“Man, this fucking sucks,” I admit, and she hums in agreement. “They won’t let me apply for financial aid without Isabelle, and honestly Kenz, who the fuck knows where she is now?” We sit in silence for a few moments, Kenzie snuggling closer to my side. “If the financial aid was guaranteed, maybe I”d put some effort into finding her. But for all I know, she”s married into oil money again, and then what happens?”

“I wish we could help more,” Kenzie whispers, and I’m already shaking my head.

“You guys do enough, hanging with Ana when I have to be here,” I say, waving over my shoulder toward the kitchen.

Kenzie may be my only true friend of the group, someone I’d trust with my secrets, but everyone here has been more than decent to Ana. Thanks to them, she knows how to say go fuck yourself in four languages.

“Wish we had half the fucking money people drop on these dinners,” Kenzie mutters, and I can’t help but agree.

“A tenth,” I joke, nudging her with my elbow.

“You kind of get why your mom husband-hopped at places like this, you know?” she laughs humorlessly, shrugging me off and pushing to her feet. She reaches for her side instinctively, flinching as she stretches. Even half a year later, her body’s still recovering. And as much as I hate seeing her in pain, the knowledge that she’s safe soothes the feeling. That I made sure she is.

That thought should comfort me, but my brain finally catches up to her words, piecing them together until they hit me in the chest like a brick. A sickening feeling settles in my stomach as I realize I might, in fact, have another option. Suddenly, I need to drop my elbows onto my knees and breathe deeply. I’m pretty certain this is a terrible idea. But I can’t leave any option unexplored when it comes to Ana. I can try for her. I can do this for her.

Three days later,I’m standing on the MARC platform half a block from a mid-tier restaurant that I have a six-thirty dinner reservation for. I left Ana at a weekend sleepover with her best friend Gray, and I absolutely did not tell her where I was going. I don’t expect Ben to have any desire to spend more time with Ana, but I’ll cross the tell your baby sister you asked her absent father for her cancer treatment money bridge when I come to it. My nose stings from the cold as I hustle down the street, hoping to get this painful situation over with as quickly as possible.

Ben is wealthy, but easily bored and incredibly manipulative. For all my mother’s flaws, she was very careful not to get pregnant with her soup du jour’s offspring after she had me, but Ben wanted control. My theory is that he liked to prove he could manipulate every boundary a woman had before he would let her go. Tell her to dye her hair, leave her husband, lose weight, get a boob job, quit her career, stop using birth control.

He left the day he found out my mother was pregnant with Ana, and I haven’t seen him since.

I don’t expect that he’s turned over a new leaf regarding his daughter, but maybe he’s decent or self-centered enough to care if his genetic offspring makes it into her twenties.

I force myself not to vomit at the prospect of Ana not having a twenty-first birthday and smile at the hostess I’ve landed in front of. It’s mechanical and fake because, not for the first time, I’m paralyzed by the spiraling fear that keeps me up at night. Of Ana being one of the few who doesn’t survive this. Of too-small coffins and memorials at softball games.

The hostess leads me to a tiny two-top in a secluded corner, and I’m surprised to see Ben already there. He’s handsome in the way men who model for stock images are handsome, in a blank, vacant, and mildly unnerving way.

When the hostess pulls my chair out for me—a bit of a show for a place where nothing on the menu costs over forty dollars—Ben glances up from his phone and does a double take. For a second, it’s like he’s seen a ghost, and then his expression morphs into something between amusement and a challenge.

It’s quite the curse, looking so much like my mother. Most people would assume it’s the dark copper hair that’s our most obvious shared trait, but we look cloned in almost every aspect. Both of us are tall, with long arms and legs, wide hips, and small chests. Her hazelnut eyes are just a shade lighter than my dark brown ones, but the freckles scattered from nose to temple are shockingly identical.

I’ve been on the receiving end of the look Ben’s giving me a few times. The shock and intrigue, like an unaging ghost from their sexual past has come to haunt or fuck them. It’s all I can do to force myself to ignore the obvious question in their eyes—exactly how much like her mother is she?

“Gwendolyn, how are you?” Ben asks, and I hold back a massive eye roll. My name, in fact, is Guinevere. Guinevere and Morgana, childhood friends and future conspirators in King Arthur’s court. Our mother’s odd obsession with the fable forced us into some early nickname decisions, hence Gwen and Ana. It’s not lost on us that, in the tale, Morgana eventually murders Guinevere, but Isabelle’s not a stickler for details.

“Gwen is fine, Mr. Mattherson, and I’m…” I stumble a bit. How am I? There is literally not enough time in the day to explain. “I’m doing okay, all things considered. How are you?”

“Wonderful, now.” He smiles at me from across the table.

The lighting from the cheap battery-powered candle on the table casts an ugly shadow across his face, giving me full body chills. He picks up the red wine in front of him, and I can see his teeth through the glass as he drinks, which requires me to plaster my face still in order not to gag. This is for Ana. For Ana.

“You’re very kind,” I say as naturally as I can while forcing actual bile back. I grip the water glass sweating in front of me and take small, practiced sips. “How is your work going?”

That question alone is enough to get Ben rolling. It’s shocking how easy it is to get people like Ben to talk about themselves at length. Usually, with Ana and her friends, or co-workers at the restaurant, I love hearing people get ramped up about something they love. For Ana, it’s early 2000s vampire media, including an anime called Vampire Knight, whose two seasons we have watched an unholy number of times.

But when people like Ben talk about themselves, there’s no passion. They’re not doing it because their devotion to their work is so unbridled they can’t help but go on and on about what they love. No, they talk to maintain relevance.

It’s boring and trite, and I smile and nod through the conversation like I do with every table of men who want to impress their waitress. It’s nearly twenty minutes before Ben shifts the subject.

“So, Gwen, do you want to tell me why I’m here tonight?”

It feels harder than it should to open my mouth and ask for money from this monstrosity. He should feel obligated to help his own child. But I’ve got this sinking feeling that Ben has never felt obligated to anything but his own dick.

“I’m actually here to ask a favor,” I start, putting a soft, simpering smile on my face. Play the part, Gwen. His eyebrows raise slightly but gives nothing away. “It’s about Ana.”

I truly should have expected the blank look I’m getting right now, but it somehow shocks me.

“Ana. Morgana. Your daughter?”

He laughs once, a bark turned toward the ceiling that raises the attention of the surrounding tables. He’s cradling his wine glass, and the urge to break it against his face is consuming.

“Of course, Ana,” he says, a little too loud. “How is she?”

I’m going to lose it, I really fucking am. Only the image of Ana doing treatment alone because I had to pick up another shift for the money keeps me from falling victim to my poorly-managed temper.

“Ana’s actually not well at all. She’s recently been diagnosed with early stage cancer. She’s had surgery, but she also needs radiation therapy and the costs are incredibly high. I’ve been raising Ana on my own for a while now, and haven’t been able to get ahold of Isabelle in a few years. I’m coming to you hoping, as her father, you’d be willing to assist with the cost of the treatment.”

I withheld as many non-pertinent details as possible, but I can see Ben’s brain working. Piecing together my level of desperation, my commitment to Ana, my lack of options. He’s obviously surprised by the news, but he doesn’t seem particularly affected.

The waitress drops another glass of wine for him, and tops off my water. When she departs, he seems to have come to some sort of conclusion.

“How much are we talking?” he asks, and I’m almost relieved. He’s considering it. Holy shit, this might have all been worth it.

“I’m still working through some insurance information, but the estimate is up to eighty thousand dollars.” I resist the urge to cringe at the number. Ben is the beneficiary of generational wealth, and is involved with some very lucrative and relatively shady shit; the amount wouldn’t go unnoticed, but it wouldn’t truly affect him.

“And what do I get in exchange?”

I should have known. I should have fucking known. I grip my hands together in my lap, trying to stave off the anger rising again.

“What do you mean?”

“An investment needs a return, Gwendolyn,” he responds, and I’m shocked a real human smile can look so cartoonishly sickening. “What is my return?”

“The life of your daughter?” The response comes out biting, but I can’t help it. I had thought prepubescent rage fueled my teenage hatred of Ben, but looks like thinking he was a fucking rat at eleven years old was pretty fair.

“I don’t know Morgana. She doesn’t reach out and doesn”t seem to want to be a part of my life.” I barely cover my disbelieving scoff with a cough. Apologies that your child didn’t pick up the phone and call her absentee father, you bastard. “But maybe you can give me that return.”