Family. Christ. The kid’s been in our lives for less than an hour and she’s already throwing that word around like it means something. Like the Blackstone name isn’t synonymous with betrayal and broken promises.
“Three months to what?” I ask, though I already know she’s about to pitch me some sob story designed to tug at heartstrings I don’t have.
“To get to know each other. To see if I belong here. And to give you time to figure out if you want me to belong here.”
Clever little girl. She’s making it sound like she’s doing us a favor, like we have a choice in any of this.
“I don’t need three months to know the answer. We’ll never be family,” I tell her.
She flinches, and Ivy mutters, “I can’t believe I…such an asshole.”
"Fine!" Madison jolts in her seat like a nervous bird. "I didn't want to play this card." She reaches into the bag at her feet and pulls out a manila folder, sliding it across the table toward me. "But here."
I don't touch it. "What is this?"
"One page. The real environmental assessment for the Frankfort facility. Four years ago." She folds her hands in her lap like she's trying to keep them still. "Mom kept the originals. I only brought one, but I have more."
Sebastian picks it up first. His eyes scan it, His face goes through three different colors. He sets it down carefully and slides it to me without a word.
I lean forward to take it. Ivy sits back exactly as much as I move toward her. Not flinching. Calibrated. The kind of distance you maintain when proximity is dangerous.
The Blackstone letterhead is missing, but the property address isn't. Neither is the date. Four years ago, exactly when the acquisition went through. The contamination readings are flagged in red. Groundwater. Soil. The inspector's name at the bottom: Williams, K.
My stomach drops.
"This could be fabricated," I say, because I need it to be.
"It could be," Madison agrees, with a calm that guts me. "But it's not. And you know it's not, because you recognize that property."
I do. The Frankfort parcel. Dad had pitched it as a strategic expansion. Telling me that it’s perfectly positioned fordistribution, adjacent to existing operations. The price had been suspiciously low, but he'd explained it away. Motivated seller. Tight timeline. Family connection.
I'd signed the acquisition papers. Taken his word instead of digging.
I'm a fucking idiot.
I was thirty, thirty-one. Old enough to know better. But when Dad pushed a deal across my desk and wanted it badly, I'd fallen right back into the old pattern — don't look too close, don't ask too many questions. Like I was still the seventeen-year-old who'd learned what happened when you challenged Louis Blackstone.
My name is on those papers. My signature authorized this disaster.
Daniel takes the sheet from me and sets it down. His face goes carefully, professionally blank. "I need to stop right there." He stands. "If what you're discussing involves potential environmental violations or regulatory non-compliance, this falls outside my purview as Blackstone Bourbon's counsel of record. Conflict of interest."
"Plausible deniability," Sebastian says quietly.
"Exactly." Daniel closes his folio and picks it up. "I'll prepare the paperwork for Ms. Payne's trust fund access and guardianship matters. But this conversation..." He looks at each of us. "I was never here for this part."
He leaves, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.
The silence in his wake seems to scream. We're in it now. No lawyer, no buffer, just family and a fourteen-year-old holding a grenade she actually brought the pin for.
“This makes no sense,” Sebastian says, leaning forward. “Why would he buy contaminated property? It's a ticking time bomb. Eventually someone tests the soil, the water. The EPA catches it, or we face lawsuits from neighboring properties."
"He'd have to keep paying off inspectors indefinitely," Lillianna adds, tapping her pen hard on the table. "One person talks, and the whole thing collapses. Dad was ruthless, but he wasn't stupid."
I let out a bitter laugh. “Have you met our Dad? He owns half the state officials. Do you think he cares about adding an EPA inspector to that list? You know how he was; he thought Kentucky land was his birthright to destroy.”
The room falls quiet. Each of us taking in the disaster. Sebastian’s probably calculating the board meetings, environmental certifications, and the green initiatives he’s championed. His face goes sickly white.
Since he took over as head of Blackstone Bourbon, he’s publicly championed environmental responsibility. One of his goals was to make our Kentucky location a green-certified facility. If the media got hold of this, they’d think it was a cover-up.
