Chapter 1 #3
So we stay in my room. Syd scrolls through her phone, and I put an old movie on TV.
Not that I’m paying attention to it. It’s just background noise to the thoughts swirling in my head about what we’re going to do now that Samantha is gone.
She should go back to New York with me. That’s the only reasonable conclusion I can come up with.
Samantha didn’t have any sort of living will, and she never listed Barrett O’Neil on Syd’s birth certificate, so there’s no paper trail to attach him to Sydney.
Not that he would care either way. As far as I know, Samantha never spoke to him after he skipped town with a payoff from our father.
Syd has recently been asking questions about him. She told me she’s asked her mom about her dad, and Samantha told her he was a loser who didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. I was inclined to agree.
She came to me and asked questions too, but I knew where Samantha stood, and I was not about to rock that boat.
My sister could be erratic and a bit vindictive, and I was afraid if I overstepped, she’d lessen my time with Syd.
But Syd had found a picture of the two of them in her mother’s things, and she brought it to me.
I was confused why Samantha had that picture.
Maybe she thought Syd would want to know about her father someday, or maybe Barrett meant more to her than I ever thought.
Not that it matters now. I’ll never get an answer.
There’s a loud knock on the door just before my father swings it open. “You missed the entire reception. I expected more from you, Camryn. Sydney may not know any better, but you certainly do.”
“Sydney doesn’t know anyone there, and I wasn’t about to leave her alone the day of her mother’s funeral. I’m sure your associates understood.” There’s a steeliness to my voice that was never there when I was still living at home.
Instead of responding with words, my father simply hardens his stare as he holds my gaze. But I don’t look away, I don’t cower.
“I need to speak with you in the study.” He glances at Sydney then back to me. “Alone.”
He doesn’t wait for me to answer, simply turns around without shutting the door and walks away, expecting me to follow.
“I think we might be in trouble,” Sydney says.
I nod. “I think you’re right.” I offer her a smile, and she returns it with a small one of her own. “It’s fine, honey. I’ll be right back, okay?”
Sydney nods, and I get up from the bed, slipping back into my black heels and straightening my dress before walking out of my room and down the staircase to my father’s study.
When I knock, he calls out for me to enter. We were never allowed to walk into his study without an invitation when we were younger. I guess some things never change.
My mother is sitting on one of the leather couches against the dark-blue wall with a drink in her hand.
Typical. My father sits behind a huge mahogany desk with a file in front of him.
Also typical. This is their little power play.
They are a united front on all things, or so it seems. In reality, it’s my father who is in charge, and my mother follows along with anything he says.
“Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to the leather club chair in front of his desk. When I settle against the stiff leather, he opens the file and takes out a sheet of paper.
“This is a list of everything the private school we’ve enrolled Sydney in will need for her transfer from whatever under-budget public school your sister had her enrolled in. I’ll need you to go over everything and have it on my desk by Monday. She will be starting school on Tuesday.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “Sydney lives in New York. I’m going to take care of her.”
My father rolls his eyes. “By what means? You have a teaching job that hardly pays anything at all. Raising a child takes a lot of time, patience, and money.”
The only thing my parents have from that list is money, and they use it as a tool to try to keep everyone in line—especially their daughters.
“As far as I know, Samantha never made arrangements for where Sydney would go in the event of her death. Syd wants to come home with me,” I reply.
The smirk my father gives me sends a chill down my spine. “There isn’t a court in all of Connecticut that will give you custody, Camryn. You’re a single woman who lives in a dangerous city. You work full time and can’t be there to provide Sydney with a stable home environment.”
I tilt my head to the side and stare into my father’s eyes. “Are you saying you’ll take me to court over custody?”
“You have no legal authority over who or where she lives,” he replies.
“Neither do you! She doesn’t want to live here.
She doesn’t even know you, and so far, you haven’t made any attempt to get to know her.
Have you even given her a hug? Told her you were sorry that she lost her mom?
” My blood pressure is rising with my voice as I spit every accusatory question that I know I’ll never get an answer to.
How dare he?
“Camryn, don’t start a fight you can’t win,” my mom chimes in.
I whirl toward my mother. “I can and I will,” I grit through a clenched jaw before turning back toward my father.
“I will use every dime I have to make sure you don’t get your hands on her.
I called you when Samantha died because I thought maybe after all these years—after your daughter’s death—you would have some compassion.
Maybe see the years wasted because Samantha wanted her baby and was willing to fight tooth and nail for her.
” I run a hand through my dark hair. “God, I was so stupid,” I mumble more to myself than anyone else.
“You need to think about what you’re doing here.
If you want the money from your trust next year, I suggest you find a way to ensure Sydney stays here with your mother and me.
She listens to you, and you can explain this is what’s best for her.
Of course, you can come home to visit, but she will be living here with us.
” My father sits back in his chair as though that’s that.
A derisive huff escapes me. “Naturally, you would use money to try to control me. That’s what you’ve always done.
You tried with Samantha, and now you want to do the same thing to me.
Well, guess what? It didn’t work with her, and it won’t work with me.
Sydney is more important than any trust I was going to come into. ”
My father scoffs. “Your piddly savings won’t even be enough to get in the door at any law firm you would need to fight this in court. The girl stays here.”
I stand from my chair. “No.”
My father’s face begins to turn red. He certainly isn’t used to that word. “You have no leverage against me.”
“Actually, I do. Sydney has been talking about her father. I think it’s time I found him.
” Barrett may not have wanted anything to do with Sydney before she was born, but that works in my favor.
He can sign custody over to me since he’s her father and his rights trump my father’s.
Any court will have to agree to that, regardless of the money my father wants to throw at it.
“Camryn, if you travel down that path, there will be no turning around. I’ll ruin you—and him. It’s not as though he cared about her in the first place. That boy isn’t going to give a damn now.”
I turn and walk toward the door, flinging it open. “I guess we’ll see about that.”
When I make it back to my room, Sydney isn’t there.
I walk to Samantha’s old bedroom where she has been sleeping and peek in.
Sydney is facing the wall opposite the door, curled under the covers.
I quietly step toward her, but she doesn’t stir.
Poor thing is exhausted, and the last thing she needs to worry about is being forced to move her entire life to Connecticut.
I bend and kiss the top of her head then walk out of her room, closing the door behind me.
Tears prick the back of my eyes. How can my father be so damn callous?
This girl’s entire life has been turned upside down, and now he wants her to grow up in this house?
There’s no way in hell I’m going to allow that to happen.
Even if I have to find the one man who abandoned her and my sister fourteen years ago.
The next morning, I wake up early and pack the few things I brought with me.
We need to get back to New York, and I need to figure out what the hell to do.
There’s no doubt in my mind that my father meant every word he said last night.
At this point, I don’t think it’s about him and my mother wanting to raise Sydney—if it ever was.
He only wants to win, to prove that no one can stand against him and come out victorious.
It’s not quite seven in the morning when I knock on Sydney’s door and open it. Her bed is empty. I check the bathroom, and she’s not in there. I don’t think she would have gone wandering around the house without waking me first, but I head downstairs and have a look around anyways.
Thank God my father or mother hasn’t gotten up yet. The kitchen, living room, and parlor are all quiet. I open the back door to the large patio and expansive backyard. It doesn’t look like anyone has been out here since yesterday.
Okay, this is getting a little scary.
I hurry back upstairs and throw the covers off Sydney’s bed.
I don’t know what I’m expecting to find, but she’s not in it.
I look around the room, and my eyes zero in on the chair that’s in the corner.
The chair where she’s had her backpack sitting for the four days since we’ve been here.
It’s gone. Opening the closet, I look around for the bag and notice that the few T-shirts and sweatshirts she had hanging are also gone.
Walking back to the bed, I sit down and take several deep breaths.
Okay, Camryn, think.
I stand and quietly run back to my room to grab my phone from the nightstand. When I dial her number, the call goes straight to voicemail. So I call again and again, still only hearing her voicemail message.
“Sydney, where the hell are you?” I ask after the beep and hang up.
I head back into her room and see her laptop still sitting on the small desk. Thankfully, she hasn’t changed the passcode from when I gave it to her for her thirteenth birthday. Checking her search history, I find tab after tab for a small-town online paper. The Shine Gazette.
What the hell? What would Syd care about some tiny town in Massachusetts?
I scroll through everything she was looking at, and that’s when I see it.
A picture of a bunch of men in vests handing out toys to little kids at some community Christmas festival.
My gaze catches on a familiar face. Years have passed, but there’s no mistaking that cocky grin he’s always worn.
His arm is draped over another man’s shoulder, both of them wearing vests as they smile for the picture.
Barrett fucking O’Neil.
I zoom in on the picture and read the patch on the front of his leather vest.
The Black Roses MC.
Well, guess Syd found him after all.