Chapter Twenty-Five
Thorne
Sebastian's exit still echoes in the silence.
The billiards room stretches cavernous around us, empty except for Ivy and me and the wreckage of our evening— a few articles of clothes scattered across antique rugs, pool balls abandoned mid-game, the bottle of Blackstone Reserve sitting on the bar cart like an accusation.
The newspaper lies crumpled on the floor where Sebastian threw it, that damning photograph of me at Williams's door visible even from here.
Just like Dad.
The words circle in my head, each rotation cutting deeper. The silence should be a relief. Instead, it's suffocating.
Ivy retrieves her sweater from the floor. When she turns back, she doesn't meet my eyes.
I reach for the bottle and pour. Three fingers this time, the amber liquid catches the low light.
"Didn't you already have your drink?" Ivy asks.
I gesture at the newspaper on the ground, at the chaos Sebastian left in his wake. "After all that? I think I need a little more."
She doesn't argue. Her jaw is tight, and I can practically see the thoughts racing behind her eyes.
"Those photographs," she says quietly. "Of you visiting Williams." Her voice shifts, lawyer-brain engaging. "This could compromise everything I've been advising on."
I take a slow sip. The bourbon burns, but not enough. "I know."
“Do you?” She moves into my space, every inch of her radiating anger. “Or do you just not care that you handed the EPA ammunition to discredit every legal opinion I've given your family. We agreed that no one from Blackstone would contact him. And what did you do? You went to see him.”
“We—I had to get to him quickly. We have a lot of property. I had to know if there was more my father had done.”
“You left Blackstone exposed.”
“No, I left myself exposed.”
“What are you talking about?”
I should deflect. Change the subject. But she's looking at me like she already knows I'm planning something. How does she do that? We've known each other a month, and she reads me better than people who've known me for years.
Fine. If she can see through me anyway, I might as well be honest. This won't put her at risk—it's my plan, my consequences. And after Williams, I owe her the truth.
"I have a backup plan,” I admit. "If the Williams thing blows up even worse. If the EPA comes after us."
"Which is?" She is measured. Controlled. But I can see her pulse jumping at her throat.
"I’ll go to them first. To the police, the EPA, whoever's running the investigation." I’m past sipping and take a healthy swallow of my bourbon. "If Williams is talking, I’ll be Blackstone’s fall guy.”
“Why would you do that? This is your dad’s mistake, not yours.”
"Nobody cares who's really to blame as long as they can blame someone. Preferably someone alive. And I should have looked closer at that acquisition when Dad first brought it to me four years ago." I take another drink, feel the burn. "But I didn't. I just signed off."
"Why?" The question is simple, but I can see her lawyer brain working. "You're meticulous about everything else. Why not this?"
The answer sits stuck in my throat. I've never told anyone this. Not in nineteen years. The only people who know are dead or betrayed me to my father in the first place.
But Ivy's looking at me with those eyes that see too much, and the alcohol has loosened something in my chest, and I'm so fucking tired of carrying this alone.
"My senior year." I stare at the bourbon in my glass, can't look at her for this.
"I discovered he was cooking the books. Fraud.
Massive scale. Shell companies, dummy accounts, the whole thing.
" My hand tightens around the glass. "He was putting everyone at risk.
Employees, investors, our family name. All of it. "
I hear her sharp intake of breath but keep going. If I stop now, I'll never say it.
"I thought I was protecting the company. Thought if I quietly went to the right people I trusted, we could fix it before it destroyed us." The laugh that escapes me is bitter. "I was seventeen and stupid enough to believe doing the right thing mattered."
"Thorne..." I can’t look at her. Seeing her pity would hurt too much.
“I talked to a board member. Warren Hartwell. He went straight to my father." I finally look up at her. And I don’t see pity, but anger. "Sure, my dad cleaned it up. Couldn't risk me going public. But he made damn sure I paid for my disloyalty."
"How?" She's barely breathing.
"Sebastian became the heir. Got the distillery, the legacy, the real power—everything that was supposed to be mine." I drain my glass, pour another. "I got acquisitions. Important, sure, but safely away from Blackstone's heart."
"Oh my God." Her hand covers her mouth.
She's blinking fast, like she can't decide whether to cry or hit me. I can't stop now. It's all coming out.
“So you see, I should have caught these environmental violations.
Should have known he wouldn't stop just because I'd exposed him once.
Should have kept watching." I look at my drink, but it holds nothing but numb oblivion.
"But I was too angry. Too bitter about what he'd taken from me.
So I stopped looking closely at anything he touched.
Signed off on acquisitions without digging deeper because. .."
"Because he'd taught you that trying to do the right thing only gets you punished.” She looks away when she says it, her hand curling into fists.
“I suppose,” I sigh. “But so does doing nothing. Because of this I missed what he was doing. I didn’t look too close. Let him do what he wanted, because then maybe I’d get to keep something."
Neither of us speaks.
"You were seventeen years old." A tear falls from each of her eyes. The sight of them is almost too much. They are for me. Who has ever cried for me? “You were a child who discovered his father was a criminal and tried to do the right thing. And instead of protecting you, he punished you for it."
"He taught me a valuable lesson—"
"He taught you that morality was weakness." Her hand tightens on mine, almost painful. “He taught you that doing the right thing gets punished. That the only way to survive was to become like him. And then he spent the rest of his life proving it to you over and over again."
My throat's closed up. I manage a nod instead.
She moves closer, and I expect her to pull away, to finally see what everyone else does. But instead, her hand finds mine.
"You're not responsible for the deals he made.”
“I knew firsthand the kind of man he is. I should have looked closer, not in the other direction."
His retaliation was harsh. You can’t be blamed for wanting to protect yourself. That's survival, not complicity,” she says fiercely
"Doesn't feel like it." My voice is hoarse. "If I'd kept watching—"
"You'd have been punished again. That's what he did, Thorne.
He made you believe that his crimes were your fault.
That if you'd been different, better, quieter, he wouldn't have hurt you.
" She squeezes my hand. "Your father was a criminal.
He was committing crimes before you caught him, and he committed crimes after. That's on him. Not you."
“But I enabled it. By looking away.”
Her other hand comes up to my face, gentle, making me look at her.
"You were a kid who’d tried to do the right thing.
Two people took away more than your promised career.
They stole your trust. And instead of breaking completely, you found a way to survive.
Maybe you made choices you regret. But you survived him. That's what matters."
I’m not sure that’s true, but her words still soothe me. "I've never told anyone," I admit. "Not in nineteen years. You're the first person who knows besides Hartwell."
"Thank you," she whispers. "For trusting me with this."
We sit there. Her hand on my face. Mine, gripping my empty glass. Then reality crashes back in. The newspaper on the floor. The photographs. The investigation closing in.
“That's why I have to be the fall guy," I say, pulling back from her touch. The loss of it is immediate. "I should have looked closer. But if I step forward now—"
“You could go to prison for a crime you didn’t commit.”
"I’m not innocent. I did meet with Williams. I am paying his lawyer fees to keep the Blackstone name out of his testimony. Hell, if he’s telling them that, I’m in trouble anyway."
"So your plan is to throw yourself on a grenade that might not even go off?"
"If it protects them? Absolutely." I stare down at my glass. "I'm doing this. I just thought you should know first. Not after. Not like Williams."
“Then let me help. Let me go with you.”
“No.” I gesture with my glass, bourbon sloshing near the rim.
“Please don’t go alone. Is the other guy in the photo with you an attorney?”
“Yes, but I think it’d look better if I went without being lawyered up.”
“I don’t give a shit how it looks. Bring him. Please, Thorne.”
Her words echo what Voss said before the Williams meeting. The meeting where I ignored half his advice.
She knows it too. Of course she does. It should unnerve me how quickly she's figured me out.
“I’ll bring Voss.” A small grin tugs at the corner of my mouth. “And I’ll actually listen to him this time."
“Let me be there when the two of you strategize what you'll say and do when you meet with the FBI.” She steps closer and takes my hand not holding my drink. Her touch grounds me. “Please let me help.”
"I'm not good at asking for help."
"I've noticed." There's the ghost of a smile on her lips, though it doesn't quite reach her eyes.
"But you're going to learn. Starting now.
If you're serious about this backup plan.
If you really think it might be necessary then we bring in Voss properly.
We review every option. We make sure if you're going to fall on your sword, it's because there's no other choice, not because you’re convinced that you deserve to burn. "