Chapter 14 Cold Coffee
The East Wing was looking good.
Not literally, though with the history of this house, I wouldn't have been surprised. It was the sound of metal grinding against stone, the sound of the radiator system being ripped out by the roots.
I stood in the center of what used to be the Morning Room, holding a tablet that glowed with the schematics of the HVAC system. The air was thick with the smell of ozone and old, burning dust. It was Wednesday. We were three days into the occupation, and the house was beginning to look less like a home and more like a ribcage picked clean.
"The pipes are shot, Boss," Russo yelled over the noise of a reciprocating saw. He was standing on a ladder, his face streaked with grease. "Corroded all the way to the mainline. We’re gonna need to replace the whole vertical stack."
"Do it," I shouted back. "Copper piping. Insulated. I don't want to hear a single water hammer when this is done."
"It’s gonna cost a fortune."
"Tristan has a fortune," I said, tapping the screen to approve the budget override. "Let’s help him spend it."
I walked out into the hallway, needing a break from the noise. The dust hung in the air like a fog, catching the beams of light streaming through the uncurtained windows.
I checked my watch. 10:00 AM.
I needed coffee. Real coffee. Not the sludge the crew brewed in the breakroom.
I headed down the main staircase toward the kitchen. The house was a hive of activity.
I pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen.
The noise stopped instantly.
The kitchen, usually a chaotic hub of my hand-picked staff prepping lunch for the crew, was silent. My chef, a burly man named Marco, was standing by the stove with his arms crossed, looking annoyed.
And sitting at the island, looking like a pearl dropped in a mud puddle, was Lorelei.
She had brought reinforcements.
Agatha sat beside her, sipping tea with her pinky extended, looking at the industrial-grade stove with disdain. Lorelei was scrolling through her phone, a venti Starbucks cup sitting in front of her.
On the counter were two cardboard carriers filled with coffee cups. The smell of roasted beans and vanilla syrup filled the room, warring with the scent of sawdust.
"Finally," Lorelei said without looking up. "We were wondering when the foreman would show up."
She lifted her head. Her eyes were bright, hard, and utterly devoid of warmth. She was wearing a pale lavender dress today, something light and airy that made her look like a spring flower. I looked like a gravedigger in my charcoal coveralls and heavy boots.
"What are you doing here, Lorelei?" I asked, walking to the coffee machine. "The kitchen is a designated work zone. Marco needs space."
"We’re bringing morale," Agatha sniffed. "Since you fired the entire household staff and replaced them with these... roughians, we thought a little civility was in order."
"We brought coffee," Lorelei said, gesturing to the cardboard carriers. "For the boys. They look so tired, poor things."
She smiled. It was a terrifying expression.
"And for Tristan, of course," she added, tapping the cup in front of her. "A flat white with oat milk. His favorite. I’m just waiting for him to come down from his call."
I poured myself a cup of the black, oily liquid from the pot Marco kept on the counter. It was cold. I drank it anyway. The bitterness grounded me.
"Tristan is busy," I said. "And the crew has coffee."
"This slop?" Lorelei wrinkled her nose at my cup. "Please. It smells like asphalt. I bought premium roasts. Go on, take one. Even you deserve a treat, Minerva. I’m sure architectural school didn't teach you about high-end beans."
I set my cup down slowly.
"Architecture school taught me about structural loads and tensile strength," I said. "It taught me how to build things that don't collapse when the wind blows. I didn't have time for electives in latte art."
I looked at the cups on the counter. There were twelve of them. My crew was twenty strong.
"You brought twelve cups," I observed. "There are twenty men on site."
"Well," Lorelei shrugged, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. "I only bought for the skilled laborers. The ones doing the actual work. Not the ones just... smashing things."
The insult was precise. She was trying to divide my team. She was trying to act like the benevolent lady of the manor, bestowing gifts on the "worthy" peasants while ignoring the grunts.
"Marco," I said, keeping my eyes on Lorelei.
"Yes, Boss?"
"Throw it out."
Agatha choked on her tea. "Excuse me?"
"Throw the coffee out," I repeated. "All of it."
"You can't do that!" Lorelei stood up, her chair scraping against the tile. "That is fifty dollars' worth of coffee!"
"It’s a safety hazard," I lied smoothly. "My crew is on a strict schedule. Caffeine spikes lead to jittery hands. Jittery hands drop tools. Dropped tools cause lawsuits. I’m protecting the estate from liability."
Marco grinned. He grabbed the cardboard carriers and dumped them, cups and all, into the trash compactor. The sound of crunching cardboard and splashing liquid was incredibly satisfying.
"You are a monster," Agatha hissed. "Tristan will hear about this."
"Tristan signed a contract giving me control over site safety," I reminded her. "Now, unless you have a hard hat in that Hermes bag, Agatha, get out of my kitchen."
"I am waiting for my fiancé!" Lorelei shouted, grabbing the cup she had saved for Tristan. "I am going to give him this coffee, and I am going to tell him exactly how you treated us!"
The kitchen door swung open again.
Tristan walked in.
He looked wrecked. His hair was messy, his eyes bloodshot, and he was wearing a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the top buttons undone. He radiated heat and exhaustion.
He stopped, looking at the scene. Me, standing by the trash compactor with my arms crossed. Lorelei, clutching a Starbucks cup like a holy relic. Agatha, vibrating with indignation.
"What is happening?" he asked. His voice was gravel.
"She threw away the coffee!" Lorelei cried, rushing toward him. She pressed the cup into his hand. "Here, darling. I brought you this. Your favorite. She threw everything else in the trash because she’s jealous!"
Tristan looked at the cup in his hand. Then he looked at me.
"Jealous?" he asked.
"Safety hazard," I said flatly. "They were disrupting the workflow."
"She’s lying!" Agatha stood up. "She’s a tyrant, Tristan! She treats this house like a prison camp! She refused to let us treat the workers! She’s trying to isolate everyone!"
Tristan looked down at the cup Lorelei had given him. He popped the lid. Steam rose from it. It was hot. Perfect.
He looked at my cup on the counter. The black, cold sludge.
"Lorelei," Tristan said quietly.
"Yes, darling?" She beamed, expecting him to thank her, to reprimand me.
"Did you bring enough for everyone?"
Lorelei’s smile faltered. "I... well, I brought enough for the foremen. The important ones."
Tristan stared at her. His eyes were dark, unreadable pools.
"Every man in this house is important," he said. "The guy sweeping the dust is just as important as the architect."
He walked over to the trash compactor. He looked inside at the ruined lattes.
Then, he walked to the counter. He placed the Starbucks cup down.
He picked up the pot of black, cold coffee Marco had brewed.
"Tristan?" Lorelei whispered. "What are you doing?"
"I’m working," he said. He poured himself a mug of the sludge. He took a sip. He didn't wince.
"This is fine," he said. "It wakes you up."
He turned to me. "Russo needs you upstairs. He found something in the master bedroom ceiling."
"Tristan!" Lorelei grabbed his arm. "You’re drinking that? I drove all the way into the city to get you the oat milk!"
"Thank you," he said, pulling his arm away gently but firmly. "But I don't like oat milk anymore, Lorelei. It’s too sweet."
The silence that followed was devastating.
Lorelei looked as if he had slapped her. Oat milk wasn't just milk; it was their thing. It was the safe, trendy, sanitized life she offered him. And he had just rejected it for bitter, burnt sludge.
"You’re changing," she whispered, her voice trembling. "She’s changing you. She’s turning you into... this." She gestured to the dust on his shirt, the exhaustion in his face.
"She’s not changing me," Tristan said, looking at me. "She’s excavating me."
Agatha slammed her teacup down. "I have had enough! This woman is poison, Tristan! Can't you see it? She comes back, and suddenly the house is in ruins, you look like a vagrant, and you’re treating Lorelei—the daughter of a Senator!—like a nuisance!"
"She is a nuisance right now," Tristan snapped. "She’s interrupting the lead architect."
He walked over to me. He stood close, invading my personal space in that way he had started doing lately, claiming the air around me.
"Go upstairs, Mina," he said softly. "Russo is waiting."
"I can handle them," I said, looking up at him.
"I know you can. You can handle anything. But I’m paying you to design, not to babysit my family."
He turned his back on them. He put his body between me and their glares. It was a shield. A wall.
"Go."
I nodded. I picked up my cold coffee.
"Ladies," I said, nodding to Agatha and Lorelei.
I walked out of the kitchen.
As the door swung shut, I heard the sound of Lorelei bursting into tears.
And I heard Tristan’s voice, low and weary: "Stop crying, Lorelei. It’s just coffee."
I walked up the stairs, my heart pounding.
He chose the sludge.
It was a small thing. A stupid thing. But in the language of our war, it was a nuclear strike. He had publicly rejected her comfort in favor of my reality.
I reached the second floor. The noise of the construction washed over me, grounding me.
Russo was waiting in the master bedroom.
The room was a shell. The drywall was gone, revealing the wooden studs like the ribs of a whale.
"Hey, Boss," Russo said. "You okay? You look like you saw a ghost."
"Just a ghost in a Chanel suit," I muttered. "What did you find?"
Russo pointed up.
"The ceiling," he said. "We pulled down the plaster to check the joists. Look."
I looked up.
In the space between the ceiling joists, tucked away in the shadows, was a bundle. It was wrapped in black plastic and duct tape.
"Is that..." I trailed off.
"It’s not a camera," Russo said. "It’s too big. And look at the dust on it. It’s been there a long time."
"Get it down."
Russo climbed the ladder. He reached up and pulled the bundle free. It was heavy. He climbed down and placed it on the floor, the only patch of subfloor that wasn't covered in debris.
I knelt down.
I pulled a utility knife from my belt.
"Do you want me to stay?" Russo asked.
"No. Give me a minute."
Russo nodded and stepped out into the hallway, giving me privacy.
I stared at the black plastic.
My hands were steady. I sliced the tape.
I peeled back the plastic.
Inside was a leather satchel. Old. Cracked. It looked like a doctor’s bag from the turn of the century. But it wasn't antique. It was from the 90s.
I opened the clasp.
It wasn't money. It wasn't jewelry.
It was journals.
Dozens of them. Small, black Moleskine notebooks.
I picked one up. I opened it to the first page.
The handwriting was jagged.
October 14th, 1998.
He looked at her again today. At breakfast. He smiled at her. Why does he smile at her? She’s nothing. She’s weak. I hate her. I hate her. I hate her.
I frowned. 1998? Tristan would have been... twelve.
I flipped the page.
November 2nd, 1998.
I put the cleaner in her tea. Just a little. Just to make her sick. She needs to stay in bed. If she’s in bed, she can't touch him.
My blood ran cold.
Her. The writer was talking about Tristan’s mother. Eleanor Johnston.
Eleanor had died in 1999. A sudden illness. Organ failure. The doctors had called it a rare autoimmune reaction.
I looked at the cover of the journal. Initials were embossed in the corner.
I.S.
Ida Stevens.
She was Tristan’s half-sister. Older by five years. She would have been seventeen in 1998.
I flipped to the end of the journal.
January 12th, 1999.
She’s gone. Finally. He cried all night. I held him. He’s mine now. Just mine. No one will ever take him from me again.
I dropped the book. It hit the floor with a dull thud.
I scrambled back, gasping for air. The dust in the room suddenly felt suffocating.
This wasn't just obsession. This wasn't just a sister who was too close to her brother.
This was murder.
Ida had killed Tristan’s mother. She had poisoned her, slowly, methodically, just to have Tristan all to herself.
And she had hidden the confession in the ceiling of the master bedroom.
Why?
Trophies, a voice in my head whispered. Serial killers keep trophies.
I looked at the pile of journals. There were at least twenty. They covered years. Decades.
I reached for another one. More recent. 2019. The year of my divorce.
April 4th, 2019.
Minerva is pregnant. I can smell it on her. She’s glowing. Disgusting. If she has a child, he will love it more than me. I have to stop it. I have to cut it out.
I stopped breathing.
I wasn't pregnant in 2019. I...
Wait.
I remembered that spring. I had been sick. Nauseous every morning. My period was late. I had thought it was stress. I had taken a test, but it was negative.
Or... had I?
I remembered Ida bringing me tea. Her special herbal blend. "For the stress, Mina."
I remembered the cramping. The heavy bleeding that followed a week later. I thought it was a miscarriage, or just a heavy cycle. I had cried in the bathroom. Ida had comforted me.
She poisoned me.
She poisoned me to induce a miscarriage. A baby I didn't even know I had.
I slapped a hand over my mouth to stifle a scream.
The horror was so absolute it made my vision blur. I rocked back on my heels, tears streaming down my face, mixing with the drywall dust.
She killed his mother. She killed our child.
And she was still out there. Watching. Waiting.
"Mina?"
Tristan’s voice came from the doorway.
I looked up.
He stood there, holding his mug of black sludge coffee. He looked concerned.
"Russo said you were in here," he said, stepping into the room. "What is..."
He saw the pile of journals. He saw the open bag. He saw my face.
He dropped the mug.
It shattered on the subfloor, black coffee splashing over his boots.
"What is that?" he whispered.
I couldn't speak. I couldn't tell him. If I told him right now, he would break. He would shatter into a million pieces.
I grabbed the journals. I shoved them back into the bag.
"Evidence," I choked out.
"Of what?" He walked toward me. "Mina, you’re shaking. What did you find?"
I stood up, clutching the bag to my chest.
"I need to go," I said. "I need to... I need to analyze this."
"Show me."
"No!" I shouted. "Not yet. You can't see this yet."
He stopped, hurt flashing in his eyes. "You said full access. You said no secrets."
"I lied," I whispered. "Tristan, please. Trust me. If you read this right now... you will kill her. And if you kill her, you go to prison. And I need you free."
He stared at me. He looked at the bag in my arms. He looked at the terror in my eyes.
"Is it that bad?" he asked softly.
"It’s worse," I said. "It’s the end of everything."
He took a deep breath. He nodded slowly.
"Okay," he said. "Take it. Hide it. But Mina?"
"Yes?"
"Don't let her win."
"She’s already lost," I said, my voice turning to steel. "She just doesn't know it yet."