"If the EPA later determines you should have reported immediately, there will be penalties. Possibly significant ones. But if you're actively remediating and can show you started the moment you confirmed the extent of the problem, that's mitigating. You're not ignoring it, you're fixing it."
Sebastian nods slowly. "Check the thresholds. I need to know where we actually stand."
"I'll have an answer by tomorrow," Ivy promises.
I return my attention to the EPA files. "We should keep Inspector Williams on the payroll."
Ivy's eyes narrow. "You're suggesting we continue bribing him?"
"I'm suggesting we keep him comfortable." I lean back in my chair. "Williams knows everything—the contamination, the bribes, the four-year timeline. He’s got a lot on us. Keeping him happy protects the family."
Lillianna shakes her head. Sebastian presses his lips into a thin line. Of course, they’re going to fight me on this. Which is why they need me here.
But it's Ivy who speaks. "Every payment you make to Williams from this point forward isn't your father's crime. It's yours."
"It's a continuation of—"
"No." She cuts me off. "Your father bribed an EPA inspector. That's already done. If you continue those payments, you're actively participating in ongoing public corruption. That's a separate federal charge with separate prison time. You're not cleaning up his mess, Thorne. You're making your own."
Sebastian leans forward. "I won't commit new crimes to cover up old ones. We deal with what Dad did, but I'm not becoming him."
"And neither are you," Ivy adds, her gaze locked on mine.
Most days I believe I already have.
I look between them. At my brother's moral certainty, Ivy's legal precision. "Williams is a legitimate threat."
“But Williams is as exposed as you are,” Ivy counters. “It’s mutual assured destruction. If he tries to leverage that, we have legal options. But we don't commit new federal crimes to prevent a hypothetical threat.”
I disagree, but fighting against everyone at this table isn't going to get me anywhere.
After a long moment, I nod once. "We'll try it your way."
For now.
“I’d like that in writing,” Ivy says with the hint of a smile. “Thorne Blackstone agreeing to do things my way is a rare enough event that it should be documented.”
The corner of my mouth twitches. Damn if her confidence isn't attractive, even when she's telling me I'm wrong. "Don't push it, counselor."
She bites her bottom lip. The same way she did on the train when I asked if I could kiss her. Heat coils low in my gut.
The library door opens and I drag my gaze from her to Patricia, who announces, “Mrs. Blackstone is here.”
The room freezes. My mother. Fuck.
I haven’t been able to get a hold of her. So she still has no idea that Madison is living here. About the blackmail. About any of it.
“Show her in,” I tell Patricia, meeting my siblings’ eyes with a silent message: Follow my lead.
“Your mom?” Madison’s voice cracks to a high-pitched panic.
“It’ll be fine,” I lie, gathering the incriminating documents into a folder as the distinctive click of my mother’s heels sounds in the hallway.
Catherine Blackstone enters the library with the practiced grace of someone who’s spent decades as Kentucky bourbon royalty. At fifty-nine, she’s still striking with black hair pulled into a perfect chignon, tailored dress, and pearls at her throat. Her eyes scan the room, landing first on Sebastian and Rosalia, then Lillianna, me, and finally on Ivy and Madison.
Her spine straightens. “Why is she here?”
Madison shrinks in her seat. I’ve spent a week trying to intimidate this kid into leaving, and my mother manages it with three words and a look.
