Her mouth twisted. “Always was dramatic. Like your father.”
I held her stare. “He claims he’s my brother. That my dad fathered him. You and he seem to think you’ve got proof.”
She snorted. “DNA, you mean. That’s a funny thing, DNA. Tells you who someone’s blood is, but not who they are.”
“Don’t get philosophical. Was William Stillwater Marcus’s father?”
She took a long swallow of tea. “No. And he knows it.”
I blinked, unsure whether to believe her. “That’s not what the test says.”
“Then the test is a lie,” she said, so flat I almost missed it.
I set my mug down, not caring that it left a ring on her table. “Explain.”
She exhaled, cigarette invisible but present in the way she worked her jaw. “William Stillwater was a client. Nothing more. He came here to do business, same as every other fancy-pants bourbon man with a bottle and a problem. He and I—” she made a vague, dismissive gesture, “—had a drink or two. But my boy? His father was Jacob Ellery, just like it says on the birth certificate.”
She pointed across the living room, where a row of faded photographs lined the top of the TV. They were tiny, black-and-white, but the faces were clear. One was a young man, round-shouldered, dark-eyed, with Marcus’s chin but none of the Stillwater arrogance.
“Why is Marcus so certain?” I pressed. “He dropped a lab report on the boardroom like it was a grenade.”
Eleanor leaned forward. “Marcus always wanted what he couldn’t have. Always obsessed with the Stillwaters, from the time he was old enough to pronounce your name. First, it was your horses, then your distillery. Then he figured he’d just take the whole lot by saying he was one of you.” She smiled, but it was sad. “I told him a hundred times. But you can’t talk sense into a man who thinks he’s owed the moon.”
I swallowed, the tea suddenly bitter. “So what—you’re telling me he faked the DNA?”
She shrugged. “He’s good with papers. Always has been. But I kept all the real ones, just in case.”
She rose, moving with more energy than her years should allow, and fetched an old manila envelope from a box under her chair. She opened it, handed me a stack of brittle papers and a handful of photos. School records, a birth certificate with Jacob Ellery’s name in careful cursive, medical forms. In every photo, Marcus was a head taller than the other kids, always at the back of the line, always looking past the camera. Never smiling.
“He’s been obsessed with your family since he was a boy,” she said, and this time her voice was pure exhaustion. “I’m sorry he hurt you. But you should know—he’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. Even if it means burning everything else to the ground.”
I nodded slowly, hands shaking as I turned the photos over, one by one. It fit. The ambition, the sabotage, the calculated moves. I hated that I’d almost believed him. I hated that there was even a chance it could be true.
I looked at Eleanor, and for the first time, I saw not a rival matriarch but a survivor. A woman who knew exactly what men like Marcus could do, and still kept the receipts.
“Thank you,” I said, quietly.
She poured more tea. “Now, you get out there and show him what a real Stillwater does when someone threatens their kin.”
The way she said it, I felt it all the way to my bones.
I left the farmhouse as the sun dipped below the tree line. The evidence sat heavy in my lap, a stack of truths and lies waiting to be sorted. I glanced back once and saw Eleanor on the porch, watching the road, the air full of the smell of roses and the taste of battle to come.
The next morning, Shivs sent Canon to the lab.
He was the only man Shivs trusted to do it quiet and do it right—no fanfare, no threats, just the slow, relentless patience of a hunter who knows the best kill is the one nobody sees coming. I spent the hours pacing the empty halls of Stillwater, every nerve in my body set to vibrate, waiting for the text or the call or even a fucking smoke signal that would tell me what my life had been reduced to: a bad forgery, a cruel joke, or a bullet I’d need to put in someone’s brain.
Canon called at 3:17 PM. “What's up?”
I barked a laugh. “Haven’t slept. What did you get?”
“Meet me in an hour,” he said. “Bring gloves.”
Shivs and I did.
The lab was off the bypass, a new construction with more security cameras than windows. Canon was already waiting, leaning against his bike, thumbs ticking through a burner phone. He wore a black jacket zipped to the throat, but I could see the tattoos at his wrists, the fresh ones that marked him as RBMC and something else besides. He looked up as we parked, and the way he squared his shoulders told me it was bad. He and Shivs hugged it out.
He gave us each an N95 mask before we went in. “They don’t like strangers,” he said, eyes glinting. “Especially ones who look like trouble.”
