Carrie #2
I didn’t bother to toast. I turned away, feeling the tremor in my jaw before I could clamp it down.
I wanted to retreat, lock myself in the cellar, run until I could taste blood, anything to escape the perfume-and-sabotage fog.
But the room closed in behind me, and I could sense Bennet before I saw him—his shuffle, the slow, deliberate way he made space for himself in any crowd.
He pressed a glass into my hand before I could protest. “Didn’t think you’d come back,” he said, voice low. His face, lined and pitted like a stave left too long in the sun, held no judgment. Just worry.
“I didn’t have a choice.” I tried the bourbon—my favorite, the ‘04 vintage, honey and smoke and clove on the tongue. “They’ll come for us now.”
Bennet nodded, eyes on the cask display. “Your father built something worth protecting. And there are vultures circling.” His hand, gripping my arm, was steadier than mine had ever been. “You don’t have to do it alone, Carrie.”
I laughed, harsh and short. “I don’t see anyone else stepping up.”
He looked at me, and for the first time in my life, I saw real fear in his eyes. Not for himself, but for what might be lost. “You’ll need allies. Even if you hate asking for help.”
The room shifted. Conversations rose and fell, the bourbon elite already recalibrating their social positions for the new order. Above the fireplace, a portrait of my great-grandmother glared down, daring me to break.
I wouldn’t. Not in front of them.
I sipped the bourbon and forced my spine straight. “I won’t let them take it.”
Bennet squeezed my arm again, a touch that was both comfort and benediction. “Damn right you won’t,” he said.
Behind us, Marcus and Nadia laughed at something private, their heads close. I caught a few words—“auction,” “distressed assets”—and felt the heat rise on my neck. I turned, using the anger to propel me forward.
If the war for Stillwater had begun, I’d fight it on my own turf, under my own roof, with the only weapon my father ever respected: absolute, unbreakable will.
And maybe, if I was very lucky, a little help from the dead.
When the last of the mourners had drained their glass and drifted off, Stillwater Mansion exhaled. The hush was absolute, even the clocks silent, as if the house was holding its breath, waiting to see if I’d pass whatever test came next.
I sat behind Daddy’s desk, in the chair that still held the ghost of his shoulders.
It didn’t fit me—I was taller, narrower, less suited to the idea of power—but I sat anyway, because ritual mattered.
I left the desk lamp on low, bourbon-amber light puddling over rows of leather-bound ledgers, a lifetime of balance sheets and bottling records stacked alongside faded photographs.
The office always smelled like dust, tobacco, and the last dram of whiskey evaporating in a glass.
The house was dark except for this one glow.
I’d killed the security lights outside, hated the way they spotlighted you for the world.
Here, I felt invisible, safe. At least, that’s what I told myself as I riffled through the day’s mail, each envelope a new threat in the form of “condolences.” The phone didn’t ring, but my inbox pulsed with messages—some heartfelt, most transactional, a few outright predatory.
I sipped from the glass in front of me, letting the 25-year soak into my bones, sweet and slow. I could almost hear Daddy’s voice: “Don’t waste good bourbon on bad news, Caroline.” But that was the point. The bad news was all I had.
Tonight, the numbers made sense in a way they never had before.
I read the trailing zeroes and knew how many hours of labor, how many generations of sweat, each one represented.
Daddy always made me learn every step of production before he’d let me near the books.
He said you couldn’t run a distillery if you didn’t know the difference between old wood and green, between river water and well.
I’d thought he was preparing me to inherit; now I saw he’d been inoculating me against the poison coming for our line.
The desk drawer stuck a little, like always.
I yanked it free and found, between the checkbooks and the family pistol, a stack of index cards with Daddy’s handwriting.
On the top: “Never sign anything after midnight.” Underneath, a list of names—some crossed out, some circled, all familiar from the day’s reception line.
At the bottom, one word, underlined twice: “Ellery.”
A heavier envelope rested beneath the cards. I slit it open, careful not to rip whatever it contained. Inside was a sheaf of papers, legal letterhead, and a note scrawled in a hand that slanted hard right.
Let’s not make this difficult, Carrie. We both know you’re not cut out for this. Take the offer, walk away. No one has to get hurt.
—M.E.
I’d recognize Marcus Ellery’s handwriting anywhere. It always looked like he’d stabbed the page, every letter a knife wound.
I read it twice. Then I burned it with a book of matches from the Trophy Room, because if you let a letter like that linger, it made you sick from the inside out. I ground the ashes into the glass tray, the scent of sulfur mingling with the bourbon fumes.
The silence was broken by the ring of my personal cell, muffled and urgent. I checked the screen. Lila Vargas, Daddy’s attorney.
I answered on the second ring, trying to sound awake. “Stillwater.”
“Carrie. I know it’s late, but I had to call.”
Lila never sounded frazzled, not even when half the bourbon district tried to sue her at once. Tonight, she was breathing hard, words clipped.
“What is it?” I said.
“The Board’s moving up the meeting. They’re calling a vote to accept an acquisition offer—Marcus’s, if I’m reading the fine print right. He’s got the support of at least four members, maybe more if he buys out the O’Shaughnessy proxy.”
I swore, then bit my tongue. “How soon?”
“Tomorrow morning, 9 AM. They’re trying to catch you off guard.”
I pictured the sharks from the wake, already circling, ready to feast on whatever was left of us.
“What do I do?” I asked, hating how small my voice sounded.
Lila didn’t hesitate. “You show up. You fight. That’s what your father would have done. And don’t sign anything. Not after midnight.”
She hung up before I could thank her.
I sat in the dark, phone in my lap, watching the shadow of my own hand ripple across the desk. The 25-year glowed where the lamplight caught it, gold as a sunrise and twice as fragile.
I got up, wandered to the family photo on the wall. I raised the glass, bourbon trembling in the crystal.
“I won’t let Stillwater fall,” I said. This time, my voice didn’t shake.