Chapter 24
Twenty-four
Alaric
Dot’s usually feels warm, scented with the kind of comfort you can inhale, but this morning even the smell sits wrong, too sweet and heavy.
I’m here to meet my sisters for Friday morning breakfast, but I’ve already decided not to tell them what Evie said last week when I got home or about her ramblings when she called in the middle of the night last night.
Worrying them like that has to be her job. Not mine.
I spot Sera and Josie in a booth near the back. They’re not talking. They’re not drinking their coffee. They’re just sitting, pressed close, their bodies angled toward each other like they’re bracing against wind.
Neither of them looks up until I’m almost at the table.
I slide in across from them. The vinyl groans. Josie’s arms are clamped tight across her chest, and Sera keeps turning her empty mug in small, repetitive circles. The way they look at me—sharp, worried—stirs something cold in my gut.
I try for something like lightness. “Morning.”
Josie raises an eyebrow. “You look like hell.”
She’s not wrong. I slept maybe an hour. I couldn’t settle after Evie’s middle-of-the-night, frantic, splintered tone she gets when she’s convinced the world is tilting against her.
The server comes over with a fresh carafe of coffee and some water for tea, and she takes our order. I go for my usual ham and cheese omelet.
When she leaves, I drop a tea bag into the hot water. But the mug just warms my hands while the rest of me stays cold.
Sera leans forward, putting her elbows on the table. Her gaze flicks toward the window as if she’s checking for shadows. “We need to talk about Evie.”
My spine tightens. “What happened?” I ask, though I probably already know.
Josie and Sera exchange a look, the kind siblings use when they’re deciding who has to drop the bomb.
Josie exhales first, rubbing her forehead. “She called me at two this morning. Screaming.”
My stomach tightens. “About what?”
“Me.” She gives a humorless laugh. “She said I’m leaking internal documents to the police because she saw me carrying a clipboard.” She shakes her head. “I was doing inventory, Ric. A clipboard doesn’t mean espionage.”
Sera rubs her temples. “Then she called me. Said someone in the family is betraying her. Then in the middle of her rant, she decided all of us are betraying her. She kept saying she could feel it ‘in her bones.’”
My breath goes shallow. Evie used that same phrase with me last night. Over and over.
“Seems she locked herself in the office after I left yesterday,” Sera goes on. “She changed the meeting schedule, fired the tasting room manager, and canceled the spring shipment of seedlings I’ve been working on for three months.”
I blink, trying to make sense of the words. “She canceled it?”
“I got the notification at four this morning,” Sera says.
Josie shifts forward, her shoulders curled inward. “And that’s not the worst part. She told me the Paradise family bribed inspectors to shut down our expansion. She said it as if she had proof. When I asked for it, she said she didn’t need any because she ‘knows how they think.’”
A cold line of dread slides down my spine. This isn’t stress or worry. This is full-blown paranoia.
I drag a hand down my face. “She’s escalating.”
“She’s unraveling,” Sera whispers, staring at the table.
Josie leans closer, lowering her voice. “The police were at the vineyard again yesterday, asking questions. She thinks they’re stalking her.”
The booth feels smaller by the second.
“If she keeps going like this, she’s going to blow everything up,” Josie says. “The vineyard. All of us.”
Sera looks at me with tired eyes. “What do we do?”
I don’t have an answer. Not one that doesn’t break something else in the process. My hands tighten around the mug. “I’ll talk to her.”
Sera gives me a soft, almost sympathetic look. “The only person she trusts right now is Dylan.”
That doesn’t make any sense. I try not to react, but my jaw tightens anyway.
“She told me yesterday that you’ve been ‘too quiet’,” Josie says. “Like you’re hiding something.”
“Too quiet?”
She shrugs helplessly. “She’s twisting everything.”
The knot in my chest pulls tighter. I should have seen this coming. I should have pulled her back before she jumped so far off the rails none of us can touch her anymore.
Sera folds her hands on the table. “If she’s charged with a crime, we won’t be able to protect her.”
The word lands like a punch. “You think they have something?” I ask.
“They keep showing up,” Josie says. “And it’s not to taste wine.”
“Do you think she did something?”
Sera and Josie exchange another look.
“We don’t want to believe she’s behind this,” Sera says.
“Grandpa sold that parcel of land in block seventy-three to Paradise Hill decades ago. But she’s been telling people possession makes it ours.
And we think Zach Paradise, Dylan, and Scott may have helped her with the sabotage.
The entire valley is taking sides, and she’s burned so many bridges, they’re lining up against us. ”
I lean back, stunned. “You think she manipulated them?”
“When is she not trying to manipulate us?” Sera shrugs one shoulder. “Zach just found out he’s our half-brother, and she immediately started chirping her bitterness into his ear. Dylan and Scott will do anything she asks if they think she’ll change her will.”
My stomach sinks. “What will you do if she burns everything down?”
Josie folds her arms tighter. “Go north to Dad’s. Grapes are already planted. We’ll probably join him. He tells us all the time he’d love it if we came up.”
“It’ll kill us, though,” Sera whispers. “All the work we’ve done for ten years. Gone.”
“Literally or figuratively?” I ask.
“Dylan and Scott have talked about turning the winery into a pot farm,” Sera says.
I rub a hand over my face. Jesus.
When I look back at them, there’s fear in their eyes. Real fear, something that’s rooted in a childhood built on instability and a mother who spent years trying to stay in Evie’s good graces while Evie lit matches around everything.
“I’ll try talking to her again,” I say. “I’ll go to the house. Get her to sit down. If I can just—”
“No,” Sera says gently, and the softness is what kills me. “You can’t fix her.”
With that, the fight leaves me. She’s right. I know she’s right. Evie doesn’t want to be fixed. She wants to be right.
Josie touches my hand. “We’re not asking you to fix her. We just need you to see how bad it is.”
I swallow. “It’s bad.”
Sera nods, resigned. “Then we deal with it together.”
“Do we bring in Addie and Ginny too?” I’m not sure if that helps or hurts. Ginny is married to a Paradise, and Addie walked away from all of this. She’s an artist with a sensitive soul and couldn’t take the manipulation Evie dished out. So she left.
“No,” Sera says. “We can bring them in later. But for now, it’s just the three of us.”
For a moment, none of us speaks. The morning rolls on around us—plates clinking, someone laughing, the hiss of the grill. It all feels too normal for what’s happening.
The server brings our plates, but none of us touches them.
Josie pushes her oatmeal away. “I can’t eat.”
“Me neither,” Sera murmurs, setting her fork down.
I try one bite. The omelet I love turns to paste in my mouth. I shove the plate aside.
Josie’s phone buzzes. She glances down, then pales. “It’s Mom. Evie’s already at the vineyard. She’s in a mood.”
Sera grabs her bag. “I should get there before she fires someone else.”
Josie stands, bracing herself on the table. “She’ll fire me next.”
I reach out, steadying her wrist. “She won’t.”
“You don’t know that,” she whispers.
Sera touches her arm. “Come on. The more people around her, the less damage she does.”
I’m not sure that’s true, but I keep it to myself.
They gather their things with shaky movements, two grown women who look, for a moment, like scared kids.
Sera pauses halfway to the door. “Are you coming?”
“In a minute. I need to think.”
They nod and don’t argue. That tells me everything.
When they leave, I take a breath, drop some bills on the table to cover our breakfast, and walk outside. The air is cold, and I stand on the sidewalk and inhale until my lungs ache.
Evie is unraveling.
The police are circling.
And my family is terrified.
My phone buzzes with a call from Trinity.
Dread shoots straight through me all over again. I answer before the second ring. “Trinity?”
“Alaric… I’m sorry to call so early.”
Something pulls tight in my chest. “What’s wrong?”
“Hudson called Liz in early this morning,” she says. “It didn’t go well.”
My heartbeat kicks up. “What happened?”
“It was bad.” Her voice breaks. “Misty’s been stirring things up. The gossip is awful. Hudson put her on paid leave this week. We don’t know what he’s going to do. I’m going in to see him at the hospital. I need to be sure he has all the facts.”
I close my eyes. She’s only in this mess because of me.
“I’ll fix this,” I tell Trinity, already walking toward my car. “I promise.”