Chapter Three
Thorne
The minister finishes his closing remarks and the organ begins playing softly.
People start to drift from their pews, but no one's in a hurry to leave.
They cluster in small groups. Some head toward my mother to offer condolences; others linger in the aisles, talking in hushed voices about business deals and bourbon futures, as if this were a networking event.
I loosen my tie. The formal service is over, but we're still trapped here for at least another half hour of this performance.
My gaze shifts to the back corner. Madison.
I might have been preoccupied with a woman who had me coming so hard I forgot my own name—and the one I gave her. But on the way here, I googled my half-sister. There wasn’t much. Dad did a good job of keeping her hidden, but I found a few pictures.
And there she sits in the back of the church in a black dress, oversized sunglasses, sitting ramrod straight like she's afraid to take up space. She sat through the entire service, but she hasn't moved. Hasn't approached. Just sits there while people mill around, oblivious.
Or maybe not oblivious. I catch a few glances her way, whispers behind hands. She's young, alone, and doesn't belong to any of the usual Kentucky families. People will talk.
I exhale sharply through my nose. My mother shouldn’t have to see husband’s infidelities at his funeral. Madison should know the deal. Dad paid them to stay quiet and out of sight. That didn't change because he died.
My sister steps up next to me. “You look even angrier than usual. What’s up? Sleep bad on the train.”
What I’d give to rewind to last night. To be back in Ivy’s bed. I shake my head, dismissing that thought. I’m not the kind of man that fucking pines after a woman.
“Because she’s here.” I point with my chin, quick and sharp, toward Madison.
Lillianna follows my gaze. "Oh."
"Did you know she'd be here?" I ask her and my brother.
"No. But, Thorne, she's fourteen. Her mother just died. This is—"
"Don't." My voice is flat. “She shouldn’t be here.”
I can feel Lillianna's disapproval, but she doesn't understand. Sympathy is a luxury we can't afford. Not today. Not with all of Kentucky watching us. Not with the little shit forcing us to meet with her.
Mom appears at my elbow, her face pale but composed.
She's noticed Madison too. For a long moment she stares at the girl in the back pew.
Then she straightens her shoulders in that way that's pure steel wrapped in Kentucky grace. “Handle her, please,” she says to us, but I know she means me. It’s my role in the family—dealing with the messes everyone else wants to pretend don't exist. I’ve always been good at it.
Even when I wanted a different part to play.
I walk down the center aisle, my footsteps echoing off the vaulted ceiling. Madison doesn't move. Doesn't look up. She keeps her gaze trained on that casket with her jaw clenched tight.
Entering the pew before hers, I stop in front of her. "What the hell are you doing here? How did you even get here?”
She turns her head slowly, and even through the ridiculous oversized sunglasses, I can feel the weight of her stare. "Paying my respects. My new guardian dropped me off.”
"Respects?" The word comes out sharp. "To a man who paid your bills and fucked your mother but never let either of you near his real life? You think showing up here does what, exactly? Proves you're family?"
"I am family." I catch the slight tremor underneath her statement.
"Biology doesn't make you family. It makes you a complication.
" I lean against the pew, arms crossed. "Bad enough you're forcing a meeting with us, making demands like you have any right to, but showing up here?
Sitting in my father's funeral, where my mother has to see you?
That's not respect. That's a power play. "
Hurt flickers across her face, but she blinks it away.
"You think this is a power play?" She stands up, and even though she's a full foot shorter than me, there's something in her posture that reminds me of Dad when he was about to destroy someone.
"I came here because my parents are dead. I have a right to—”
"He wasn't your parent." I shift closer, resting my hands on the back of the pew, forcing her to tilt her head back to hold my gaze. "He was your mother's married boyfriend who knocked her up and kept you both secret for fourteen years. That's not a parent. That's a mistake he tried to hide."
Her hands ball into fists at her sides. “I have the right to—”
"You have the right to show up at our office in twenty minutes for the meeting you demanded. That's it.” I still can't believe this teenager is commanding the most powerful family in Kentucky like hired help. “Now get out.”
“No.”
My annoyance shifts to anger. “What do you mean, no? I refuse to let you hang around here embarrassing my mother, the Blackstone name, any more than you already have just by existing."
She stares at me, the silence stretching. I stare back, waiting. Then she yanks off her sunglasses. Her eyes are red-rimmed but dry. Angry.
“Says the guy who messed around with his brother’s wife before she was an ex.”
The air leaves my lungs. That story was buried. Paid off, sealed, destroyed. Dad made sure of it. Only a handful of people know the truth.
The phantom taste of bourbon floods my mouth from that night. I'd told myself I was too drunk to know better. But I'd been sober enough to want to prove what kind of woman she was. Sober enough to know Sebastian deserved to see the truth. Drunk enough to be the one to show him.
“How the hell do you know about that?”
"Dad talked. After—" She swallows. “People think kids don't pay attention. Aren’t listening.”
She shakes her head and stands, turning to the closest exit. "Mom said you were the most like Dad. Cold, smart, and always ten steps ahead.” Her voice cracks. “I hope she was right.”
I’m not sure what she means, but I don’t ask because she’s leaving. Objective met.
After everyone leaves, I move to the handcrafted mahogany casket and stare at the man who poisoned everything he touched. I dig around in my heart for love, but it had died for this man long before he took his last breath.
For the last three years, I tried to be a different man. It took ten minutes with his illegitimate kid to prove I’m still his son. I lean closer like he might actually hear me. "At least you can't fuck anything else up. Your poisoned legacy ends here."
I want to slam out of the church, but refuse to let his ghost see me upset. Pushing open the heavy oak and iron door, I step into the Kentucky heat. A woman in a summer dress crosses the street, and for a second my chest tightens before I realize it's not her.
Christ. I don't do this. Don't look for women in crowds the morning after. I don’t want to see them again.
I pick up my pace and walk to Blackstone's main building five minutes later. I’m the last to arrive. Sebastian sits between his wife, Rosalia, and Blackstone’s head lawyer, Daniel. Lillianna is on the other side of the conference table. My sister waves me to the empty seat next to her.
“Everything okay?” she asks. Her concern sounds genuine, though I’m not sure if it is for Madison or me.
“Everything’s fine,” I reply, having no idea if I’m telling the truth.
“I thought your train was supposed to get in early this morning. Why didn’t you stop by your house before the funeral?” she asks.
“There was a delay sometime during the night, so I got ready on the train. I sent my driver with all my luggage to the house after he dropped me off at the funeral.”
I leave out that part where, after Ivy and I went through the box of condoms, I fell into a dead sleep, not returning to my traincar until the morning.
I found a panicked Bruce the Porter who’d thought that, after I hadn’t returned and wasn’t where he’d left me, I either had fallen or jumped from the train.
I tipped the poor bastard enough to make up for the years I took off his life, thinking he'd inadvertently killed a Blackstone.
“Do you want me to find another place to stay while you’re here?” she asks.
Out of everyone in the family, Lilly’s the one who never wrote me off completely. And she’s always stayed with me during her infrequent visits. So when I left, I gave her the keys to my place. I wasn't ready to sell it, and she wasn't ready to buy something permanent.
“No, I’m only here a few days.” I prefer having my own space, and the house is big enough we won't cross paths.
The receptionist opens the door, cutting off our small talk. "Ms. Payne and her guardian are here."
We nod and the door opens all the way. Madison walks in and I register her, but my gaze slides automatically to whoever is behind her. Dark hair. A black pencil skirt, grey blouse, long hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail.
Something snags in my chest.
I know that hair. I know that elegant neck.
No.
I blink, certain I'm manufacturing her out of exhaustion and guilt. My brain is pulling last night's woman into the first female shape that walks through a door. It's a trick. It has to be.
Then she turns her head and scans the room, and her gaze finds mine, and the trick evaporates.
Her eyes go wide. She stumbles in her heels before catching herself. Her mouth pulls into a flat line and she looks away — fast, deliberate, like she's already building the wall.
It's her.
What. The. Fuck.
Daniel stands, pulling back the two empty chairs. “Ms. West, thank you for coming. I understand you're her half-sister and you’ll be Madison's legal guardian. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Ivy replies, her voice cool and professional. Nothing like the breathy gasps she’d made on the train.
Guardian. She's Madison's fucking guardian.
We all knew Dad had a fourteen-year-old daughter from an ongoing affair. The secret that wasn't quite secret. But we'd never met her. She was a name on documents. A reminder of Dad's infidelity we'd all agreed to ignore.