Carrie
The morning after the fire, I wore black for the thousand barrels of Stillwater that died screaming in the flames, the wasted years and secrets turned to char.
It suited me. The skirt suit was tailored, expensive, but I’d picked it for the way it made people underestimate what was underneath.
I wore my father’s watch, two minutes slow.
My neck throbbed where the mate-mark sat, dull and persistent as a migraine aura.
The boardroom was already full when I arrived, the hush inside so heavy I could’ve dipped a finger in it.
Even the wildcats carved into the table looked uneasy, their snarling faces half-swallowed by smoke stains from last night’s fire alarms. I clocked every face, every tell.
Bennet Shore was there, arms folded, jaw flexed, hair still wet at the temples where he’d tried and failed to comb it down.
Next to him, Celia Monroe wore her best blue blazer and a look like she was about to comfort a dying friend.
Lila Vargas was all sharp lines and even sharper legal briefs, her laptop open and already recording.
Evelyn Hart had her gloves off, hands folded, face inscrutable as a porcelain mask.
I didn’t see Marcus, but I smelled his aftershave.
I set the folder on the table. The sound broke the silence like a gunshot.
“Thank you all for coming in early,” I said, not even glancing at the head of the table where Marcus would inevitably position himself. “I hope you’ve all had time to review the preliminary forensic reports on last night’s attack.”
Celia nodded, her eyes shiny. “I’m so sorry, Carrie. This is—unforgivable.”
“We’ll save the apologies for when we’re sure who to blame,” I said, and it came out colder than I intended.
I didn’t correct it. I pulled the files from the folder, flipping through the evidence one page at a time.
Each document was marked, tagged, and color-coded.
I’d spent the hours between dawn and boardroom slicing the data myself, prepping it the way my father had taught me—never hand them the whole story.
Bleed it out in small wounds. Make them feel every cut.
I held up the first sheet. “Financials,” I said.
“The transfers that paid for the mercenaries who torched the rickhouse. It took the IT team all night to decrypt, but every wire, every money order traces back to an off-book LLC.” I let the pause linger.
“Registered in Nevada to a shell called Elmwood Development.”
Lila whistled, low and impressed. “Someone did their homework.”
“Not enough to hide from our accountants,” I said, and passed the page down the table. “Page two: communications. Burner phones. Four voice calls between the Elmwood number and someone in this building in the twelve hours before the attack. Those calls originated from Marcus Ellery’s direct line.”
A ripple went through the room. Bennet’s chair creaked. Evelyn’s nostrils flared, just a fraction. Lila’s fingers danced on the keyboard, already prepping her questions.
I didn’t smile. “Page three: security footage.” I thumbed the tablet on and tossed it to the middle of the table.
Video played, grainy but clear: a figure in a dark suit, slick as an undertaker, strolling the aging warehouse floor at 2:47 AM, forty-five minutes before the fires started. The timestamp did the rest.
Celia’s hand flew to her mouth. “That’s—”
“That’s Marcus,” I finished.
It was then, on cue, that the glass wall of the conference room slid open and Marcus strolled in.
He wore his usual blue suit, immaculate except for a tiny white thread on the lapel that made my teeth itch.
He carried no notes, just a single envelope.
He took the head of the table without asking, smiled a wolf’s smile at the room, and said, “Caroline. What a show.”
I ignored him. “The point is, this was an inside job. Designed to look like a random act of terrorism but so precise it cut the heart out of our inventory without leaving a single trace back to the real perpetrator. Except, Marcus, you made one mistake.”
He opened the envelope. “Do tell.”
I flicked the final page at him. It skittered across the varnished table and stopped dead under his hand.
“You gave them the security codes. Only two people had access: myself, and you. I changed mine last Friday. IT confirms your credentials unlocked the system at 3:18 AM, disabling the fire suppression and the silent alarm. You’re not just an arsonist. You’re a traitor. ”
For a moment, he said nothing. Just stared at the document like he might eat it. Then, slow and deliberate, he slid a second page from his envelope and placed it on top of the pile. “You missed a detail, Carrie. Or maybe you just didn’t want to see it.”
He stood. He liked to do this—loom. With most people, it worked. With me, it just made me want to see if I could break his kneecaps before anyone stopped me.
He looked at the room, one by one, like a judge about to pass sentence. “You want to tell them, or should I?”
My pulse quickened. The mark at my neck flared, then cooled, like an animal that knew it was being watched.
He faced me, his eyes so pale they almost seemed bloodless.
“The real reason this company is a nightmare, Ms. Stillwater, is because of you. Or rather, because of your father. He lied to everyone, including you. Did you ever wonder why he gave you so much leash, even when you’d just graduated from college, when you’d never run so much as a lemonade stand?
Why you, and not the experienced managers, or the board’s own pick? ”
He waited. I let the silence stretch. I didn’t have a comeback, just the tight, hot certainty that he was about to punch a hole in my whole life.
He lifted the envelope and dumped its contents out. Several glossy photos, a birth certificate, and—last—an official report stamped by a private DNA lab.
“Because you’re not his only child,” Marcus said. “He had another. With my mother.”
The words didn’t land so much as detonate. For a second, I heard nothing—just the static in my own head.
He looked right at me, every inch the predator. “I’m your half-brother, Carrie. William Stillwater was my father, too. And the DNA test proves it.”
I don’t remember standing, but I must have, because the next thing I knew my hands were flat on the table, knuckles whitening around the edge.
Lila stopped typing. Bennet let out a single, stunned “Fuck.” Celia’s teacup rattled against its saucer.
Only Evelyn seemed unfazed, her face unreadable as ever.
I stared at the report. I didn’t touch it. If I picked it up, if I read it, that would make it real. I heard my father’s voice in my head, teaching me how to sample the mash at ten years old: “Truth is best tasted neat, girl. Otherwise it’ll sneak up on you.”
Marcus held the room. “I didn’t want this, you know. The legal fights, the blood tests, the drama. But you forced my hand. I can’t let this company go under because of your personal vendettas and extracurricular choices.”
He let his gaze flick to the bite mark at my neck. I realized, with shame and a touch of fear, that my hair didn’t cover it. I let it show, because I was proud. But now, it was ammunition.
“I don’t care about your sex life, Carrie. I care about legacy. The Stillwater name means something. Or it did.”
I forced my mouth open. “If you really cared, you wouldn’t have burned our entire stock to the ground.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes you have to burn a field to save the next harvest. The market will recover. But if the board loses confidence—if the Feds start sniffing around—there won’t be a company left to fight over.
I did what had to be done. And I’ll do it again, if that’s what it takes to protect what’s ours. ”
Bennet spat into the trash can, missing by a good foot. “You’re a fucking vulture, Marcus. You always have been.”
Evelyn finally spoke, her voice soft but sharp as a scalpel. “The board will need to verify these claims. DNA can be faked, and so can the motives of a man who’s spent his entire life working in the shadows of better men.”
Marcus smiled. “Of course. But I’d suggest you verify fast, because the shareholders are already demanding answers. There’s a press conference at two o’clock. I’ll be making a statement—with or without you, Carrie.”
I felt the world tilt, just a little. In the shock, the pain of betrayal, something else rose: not anger, but hunger. If this was true—if he was blood—then he’d just made his biggest mistake.
I straightened, adjusting my jacket. “Meeting adjourned,” I said. Then I swept every sheet of paper into my folder and walked out, ignoring the stares, ignoring the sick roll in my stomach, ignoring the fire inside me that was not, for once, from the bite.
I made it to my office before my hands started to shake.
The mate-mark pulsed with every beat of my heart, a reminder that I was more than the sum of their secrets.
I looked at the DNA report in my hands. Then I tossed it in the bottom drawer, right on top of the whiskey and the loaded Glock, and called the only person I trusted to tell me the real fucking truth.
I didn’t wait for the bourbon’s slow burn to fade before hitting the gas out of Stillwater proper.
The Escalade handled like a tank with a grudge, so I pushed it over the posted speed limits on backroads lined with dented mailboxes and kudzu, every turn sharper than the last. The sun hung low, mean and yellow, blinding me whenever I crested a hill.
I kept seeing Marcus’s face in the rearview, smiling like the cat that finally caught the canary, only to find out the thing had fangs.