Threads That Bind Us (Syndicate of Fate Book 1)

Epilogue One

Eight Months Later

My hands are shaking as I clasp them in my lap, trying to hold still so Ana can finish painting my lips a red that matches the stone on my finger. My eyes are closed, but I can hear Kenzie and Clara making polite conversation behind me. Well, Kenzie’s putting in an effort. Even without looking, I can tell Clara is still fuming.

“Okay, all done,” Ana announces, swiping her thumb under my lip once more.

When I open my eyes, I have to blink back tears. Not just because Ana did a wonderful job—she did all of our makeup perfectly—but because of how happy she looks. My beautiful, brilliant, cancer-free sister, caring about the things she should care about, like her application to Carnegie and softball championships.

“Thanks, kid,” I whisper, reaching back to pat her face. She smiles and scrunches her nose at me before brushing my hand away.

“No crying, and no touching faces,” she orders, turning to Clara and Kenzie. “That applies to you, too.”

Clara’s only met Ana once, when she and Emily came for a visit to D.C. last winter. Ostensibly, it was a family Christmas celebration. In reality, we were strategizing about the threat lurking in Gia’s team. The girls had stayed for dinner, and as soon as Ana went to bed, Clara had asked what position we’d like to train her for in The Syndicate.

I was less surprised by the question, and more by Charlie’s reaction. He nearly bit Clara’s head off, vehemently opposed to the idea of Ana ever joining The Syndicate.

“She’s been through enough,” he said, his arm wrapped protectively around my shoulder. “And she’s under no obligation to take any sort of role with us.”

But Clara had just kept her eyes on me, nearly bored with her brother’s outburst.

“She can decide when she’s of age, obviously,” Clara said, sipping her glass of wine. “But you can guide her. She’d be good.”

I have just over a year to decide. And I’m going to take every last moment until her eighteenth birthday to make that choice.

So I recognize that look in Clara’s eyes. For the first time since we started getting ready this morning, she’s not pissed out of her mind. She’s assessing. Watching my little sister as she meticulously cleans her brushes and packs her bag. I catch Clara’s eyes in the mirror I’m sitting in front of and shake my head, but she only smiles. Never a good sign.

“Ana, can you go downstairs and grab my shoes? I left them in our room.”

Despite the fact that we are already legally married, Charlie’s father had insisted we sleep in separate rooms the night before the wedding, in the name of tradition. So Ana and I spent last night watching movies and doing face masks. And I left a few things there, just in case I needed to get her out of the bridal suite at any point.

“Yeah, no problem,” she shrugs, lifting the skirt of her midnight blue dress and padding out of the sunroom-turned-bridal-suite, her feet bare.

As soon as the door shuts behind her, I glare at Clara.

“None of that, she’s not even seventeen,” I say, standing from the vanity and walking to grab myself a water from the little dry bar Aurelio set up. Clara’s eyes flicker to Kenzie, who’s staring at her phone studiously. “Kenzie’s become used to ignoring things she can’t ask questions about, don’t worry.”

“I am checked out until invited back in,” Kenzie mumbles, popping her headphones in and burrowing into the corner of the sofa.

“Your sister’s smart,” Clara says, that little calculating look in her eyes. “And she’s got the disposition to do well in The Syndicate. She gets it from you.”

It’s still strange, having Clara’s approval. At the council meeting in October, she was the most vehement vote in favor of our marriage. She made her argument to a crowd that didn’t need convincing about how I’d proved my dedication to their family and mission through blood and gore. It was touching, if not slightly graphic.

“While it warms my heart to hear you say that, I’m not convincing her into anything,” I say, forcing myself not to down a second bottle of water. There is no one in this building I want holding my dress up while I pee tonight. “She could decide she doesn’t want to know anything else when she turns eighteen, and that’s completely fine with me and Charlie.”

We actually haven’t discussed it much, but Clara doesn’t need to know that. Charlie takes my lead most of the time anyway.

She slumps into the vanity chair, dropping her head back and letting out a whine.

“Please, just let me train her? I’ll adopt her or whatever, and she can become the next Costa matriarch after me. She’s clever and has a good wit. She’ll do fine.”

My jaw drops a bit before I can recover, but it doesn”t seem to matter, because Clara’s not looking at me. Her eyes are clenched shut, and she’s rubbing the bridge of her nose like she has a migraine.

“Going to have to pass on that one,” I say, watching her crack her neck. One of their parents must do it, seeing how she and Charlie both have the habit. “Ana’s been forced into enough. She’ll choose this if she wants it.”

“And she’ll be over the age where I can adopt her once she does. Yeah, I know. Worth a shot,” Clara mumbles, straightening in her chair and smoothing over her foundation where she rubbed it off.

“Deniz seems…nice?” I can’t even convincingly finish the sentence.

Clara’s date—and probable future husband—has barely said a word to me since we met yesterday. He hovers around Clara like she’s the center of his gravity, and she generally looks like she’s contemplating the most painful ways to remove his internal organs. Clara scowls at me, the steam back to rising out of her ears.

“Well, he at least looks fertile. You’ll get an heir out of him.”

“I would rather self-replicate than let that man impregnate me,” she growls, adjusting the straps of her dress nervously.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you. There’s no way you’re not fucking,” I scoff, heading over to the garment bag hanging on the door.

“I didn’t say that,” she says, almost to herself, before catching my eyes in the mirror. “Also, since when is that your fucking business?”

I abandon my dress and cross back to Clara, yanking her hand off the back of the chair and cradling it in mine.

“Isn’t that what sisters are for?”

For a split second, I think she’s going to slap me across the face, wedding makeup or not. But then she gives me her vicious grin, pulling me down to throw her arms around my shoulders.

Ana returns, my shoes and a bottle of champagne in her hands. Kenzie takes her presence as a sign she’s welcome back in the conversation and tosses her phone on the coffee table.

“I saw Charlie in the hallway and he gave me this,” she says, waving the bottle. “Told me to share.”

“Give me that, no champagne for you,” I say, bopping her on the nose and snagging the ice-cold bottle from her. Clara procures champagne glasses out of god-knows-where.

“Oh, come on. In Italy, minors can drink with their guardians,” Ana whines, cuddling up next to Kenzie. “Plus, I’m almost seventeen.”

“How do you know Italian liquor laws?” I ask, popping the bottle to the sound of Kenzie’s polite clapping. A little bit of foam drips out of the top, and I lick it off.

“Google,” Ana and Kenzie say in unison, and I roll my eyes.

We toast to a future filled with whatever we can dream of, and Clara whispers per cent”anni after the glasses are empty.

The breeze off the ocean is cool, but the sun warms my skin under my suit as I stand in my family’s backyard. The gathering is small—just my family, Kenzie, Sammy, Catalina, and a few close friends of The Syndicate. Only Ana will walk Gwen down the aisle.

Gwen had thought this unnecessary, but even if my father and sister hadn’t insisted, I would have asked her to do this for me. Marry me in front of a crowd of the people we care for. Tell me she loves me in this beautiful place.

I can hear the sea rocking the boats against the docks, and the cries of gulls as they dive for their meals. All familiar sounds of my childhood. But I don’t feel at home until I see her.

Ana’s on her arm, and despite how lovely she looks, I barely see her. Because Gwen is, as always, a vision.

Long hair tied up, soft curls framing her face. Shoulders freckled and bared to the sun, the sleeves draped on her upper arms delicately. It’s like she’s floating above the terracotta tiles, the satin of her dress flowing like the waves of the ocean beside us.

Perfect. So, so perfect.

When they reach me and the officiant, Ana kisses her sister”s cheek and takes the small bouquet from her hands before finding her seat next to Clara.

The words are a formality. Because I will show her every day how sincere I am about my commitment to her. We listen to the officiant tell us about duty, about sickness and health, about good times and bad, and all I can think is that the worst times with her will be better than the best with anyone else. When I slip the wedding band on her finger, over the red thread tattooed there, I wonder again what I did to deserve someone so fierce and loving and kind.

When I kiss her, I decide it doesn’t matter. She is my fate, and I will follow her wherever she leads.