Chapter 3

The first few days were a blur of packing. I moved my life out of the cold, sterile mansion I had shared with Nicole and into a small, rented apartment across town. The silence was deafening, but it was a clean silence, not the tense, oppressive quiet of the Hewitt house.

My phone rang constantly. First, it was Nicole, leaving a string of furious, threatening voicemails. Then it was her father, his messages colder but just as menacing, full of legal jargon and threats of ruin. I didn't answer. I let them scream into the void.

Then, on the fifth day, the call I was waiting for came. It was from a number I didn't recognize, with a Japanese country code. I let it go to voicemail. A few minutes later, a frantic email landed in my inbox. The subject line was just "URGENT: HEWITT RESERVE TASTING."

It was from Mr. Tanaka, the head of the luxury hotel chain. I didn't open it. I didn't need to.

An hour later, my own phone rang. It was Nicole. Her voice was no longer angry. It was thin, high-pitched with panic.

"Ethan... pick up the phone, please, I know you're there."

I let her talk.

"It's Tanaka. He called me. He... he said the tasting sample we sent was a disaster. He called it 'raw' and 'undrinkable.' He's accusing us of a bait-and-switch. He's threatening to sue us for the full contract value, plus damages. He said he's going to tell every journalist in the industry that we're frauds."

Her voice cracked. "Ethan, what did you do?"

I finally picked up the phone. "Me? I did exactly what you told me to do, Nicole. I stepped aside. This is Ryan's project now. Remember? The 'visionary'?"

"Ryan... he said he was following your notes! He said everything was on schedule!"

"Did you ever once," I asked, my voice cold as ice, "go down to the distillery to check? Did you ever look at the fermentation tanks? Did you ever monitor the temperature logs for the rickhouse?"

Silence. Of course she hadn't. That was my job. The dirty work.

"Ryan has been cutting corners," she whispered, a dawning horror in her voice. "He's been lying."

"Congratulations, Nicole. You've finally figured it out," I said. "Your marketing guru from Napa Valley doesn't know the first thing about making bourbon. He killed my yeast culture on the first day and has been trying to fake it ever since. The ticking time bomb just went off."

"You have to fix this!" she shrieked. "The company... my family's name will be ruined! The financial penalties will bankrupt us!"

"That sounds like a 'you' problem," I said. "Not a 'me' problem. We're getting a divorce, remember?"

"You bastard! You did this on purpose! You sabotaged us!"

"No, Nicole," I said, and for the first time in a decade, I felt no anger, no pain, just a profound and chilling indifference. "You did this to yourselves."

I hung up the phone. I knew what would come next. If she couldn't get me to fix her mess, she would try to destroy me.