Feathers and Thorne Series Books 1 - 3: The Complete Collection

Chapter Thirty

Isabella

The scaffolding shudders in the wind. This project is so huge, one I’m thankful I wasn’t forced to be a part of when under Jacob’s thumb. At least I was stuck onsite at the docks, on the ground. We’re at least twelve stories in the air by now, and there are no walls or windows installed on this building yet.

My stomach aches while looking through the boards of the stairs. Tristan nods at me to go while Carter fearlessly leads the way.

We reach the next floor, a hum of noise echoing through the construction, but it doesn’t sound like hammers and woodwork. It sounds like music and drunken laughter while Jacob’s voice peaks over the rest of them.

Carter holds a hand back, stalling Tristan and me as he peers over the stairwell.

I back up a few steps, Tristan taking my place directly behind Carter Blackthorne and his confident power. I keep a hand over my mouth, biting back a shriek as a gunshot, then two, rattles off just a few paces ahead of us.

Pulling my fingers down just a tad, I look to Tristan for answers.

“Should we be here? Maybe we should get help…”

Tristan snickers a laugh and shrugs in reply, “You’ve got the best two shots here, Isabella. I wouldn’t worry about it. We’re safe. Have you ever seen Jacob handle a gun? He’s worse with that thing than he is with his own dick.”

I muffle a laugh into my palm. Carter shoots us both a stern look.

The gunshots die down, but Jacob’s voice rings out over the concrete shell of a building. “We’ve got automatics, guys!”

Everyone cheers, Carter and Tristan moving slowly to their waistbands where pistols lay there in waiting.

“With the dock project suspended until further notice, we have a perfect launch to sell and trade with our overseas advisories!” Jacob cheers. “We are in business, boys.”

Carter shakes his head, inhaling sharply before he launches into the room, Tristan close at his side.

I have no gun or any interest in being shot at, so I hang back and kneel on the stairs, peering over the last step to see a standoff in real time. I picture an old western movie my dad showed me once, but it was filled with dust, a vast desert, and rusty revolvers. This is very different. There are tables lined with ammunition and stations where parts of large automatic rifles are being assembled. I don’t think this is anything like I’ve seen in the movies before.

This is worse because it’s real.

“Jacob, I’m upset by the fact that we seem to have a few conflicts of interest inside of our business together,” Carter breathes, his pistol oddly not aimed at Jacob at all but at a man who sits in a chair nearby, not wielding a gun in return. “Why are you making business so difficult?”

I recognize these men as the construction workers from the docks where I worked for Jacob. They’re all cousins, uncles, or married-into-the-family members of the Lacey Construction business.

Why are they manufacturing guns in the middle of downtown Manhattan?

“Our conflicts are nothing but competitive squabbles, Carter,” my old boss grumbles, holding his rifle in his hand but not daring to point it at my new boss.

“There’s no competition here,” Tristan mutters.

Carter grins wildly, watching Jacob’s face turn into a smug scowl. “So, you’re manufacturing guns now, is that right? Sounds a lot like what I do in this city. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re busy trafficking drugs up north and running gambling halls underground…”

Jacob’s face goes taut, more so than before, and it’s an answer in itself without verbal assurance. Whatever Jacob has gotten himself into now, it doesn’t seem like he’s going to weasel his way out of it.

“So you are trying to infringe on my business,” Carter groans. “I really hate competition, especially from a lesser man.”

Jacob looks frightened but swallows it outright. “You can’t kill me, Blackthorne. We still have a deal, and I’ve held it up just fine. Frances has received all the payments you’ve made to his campaign. He even has a scheduled news conference in the morning to announce his lead in the election.”

“I wasn’t going to kill you, Jacob.”

Carter flinches slightly, his gun rearing in recoil from a shot, but it’s damn near silent. The man sitting in the chair, unarmed, slumps forward to the floor, blood curling around his lifeless body.

I hiccup at the sight of death. I hate knowing about it so much now, let alone having to witness it at the behest of a man I have come to admire and respect. Carter is brutal and harsh, but aside from his ruthless antics in sex, I would have never assumed he’d be such an effortless killer.

I inch backward. I could dart down the stairs right now and run all the way home, quit my job, and just pray my father’s bills will get paid—forgetting this whole debacle at once! But I know that wouldn’t work well for me… or for Carter.

He moves the head of his pistol to another unsuspecting, frightened worker of Jacob’s, and the tension is so hot it could set this building on fire.

It all goes cold when I feel a metal, round pressure in the back of my neck and recognize it instantly as a pistol. Some brute cousin of Jacob’s snatches my wrist in his meaty palms, throwing me forward from the stairs and into the middle of this old west standoff in the center of Manhattan.

I shudder under their gazes yet again, recalling the last time I was in this spot. Tristan had to bail me out with the help of a few of his helpers with guns. We don’t nearly have the numbers now, and the gun pressing to my back makes my breath hitch.

I’m only a pace away from the man Carter shot dead.

No one here is upset at the sight of death, so killing me would be easy for them, I’m sure of it.

“Well, look at that,” Jacob taunts. “Another conflict of interest.”

Carter gives me a rather uninterested look. “Why bother dragging her into this? We can keep this between our families, Jacob. The Blackthorne and the Lacey families are stuck with each other in this damn gridlock—you can manufacture your guns elsewhere without stepping on my business.”

Jacob shrugs, directing his heavy gaze onto me. “You’re grasping for solutions, Carter. You know we will outrun your business, and I can afford to undercut the prices of my new automatic rifles to your overseas buyers. It’s just capitalism, my friend. Nothing to be so perturbed over.”

“It’s a direct conflict of our working deal, Jacob,” Tristan snaps. “You can’t run guns out of this city; we already have a latch on that market!”

“I’m just taking what’s rightfully mine!” Jacob barks, his voice booming through the open gaps of this large, unsteady building under construction. “I am the rightful ruler of this city, and without me, you wouldn’t be able to launder money into the election without bringing all the heat on you!

“This city thinks the Blackthorne family is nothing but dangerous, filthy crooks. I’m going to show through this election when Frances wins that the Lacey family is here to fill all the needs of this city, good or bad.”

Carter cracks into heavy, rolling laughter. Tristan lowers his gun, laughing into his palm nonsensically. Of all the times to have a laughing fit, I don’t think now is appropriate!

The gun presses harder into my spine, and I curl into the floor more, holding my breath while I wait for a bullet to pierce my spine.

“Carter…” I whimper. Jacob and his family of savages are not enjoying the idea of being laughed at.

Carter Blackthorne flicks a look at me on the floor, my arms covered in sawdust while I try to be as unnervingly submissive as possible. Something tells me Carter should have never got into business with Jacob in the first place, but then again, we would have never met.

I can’t determine if this whole ordeal was a blessing or a curse.

“Alright, Jacob,” Carter hums, soothingly collected in his demeanor once again. “Run your guns for now.”

Tristan perks up in surprise. “Wha—Carter, no.”

“Until the election settles,” Carter breathes, speaking clearly enough for all to hear. “I want to keep things amicable until Frances keeps his office, and then I can go about picking off your operation and the people inside of it one by one.”

I squirm with his words. Why would he tell Jacob his plan? Carter is confident, sure, and smooth in thought and precise in the execution of it, but Jacob is reckless and vengeful. If Carter stalls for a war after the elections, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that Jacob will start his warfare early.

Something terrible tells me that he might just start with me.

Tristan reaches for me as Carter holsters his gun, and to my surprise, Jacob and his men lower their weapons on the Blackthorne boss and his right-hand man. But the pistol to my back doesn’t move, so neither do I.

“Carter, I do want to ask one thing, though,” Jacob purrs.

Tristan retreats, his hand outstretched to take mine, and I swallow at the cold breeze flicking through the downtown project.

“What is it, Jacob?” Carter hums.

Jacob cracks his signature, wicked smile. “When you beat the hell out of her ass, did she beg you to stop?”

My lungs collapse, and I hit my side on the floor, coming face to face with the pistol that looms toward me from high above. My entire body trembles in angst, in warm, fresh embarrassment, and Tristan seems just as frustrated by the question and Jacob’s intent to piss Carter off.

Carter looks briefly at me, then to his right-hand man. “No, she didn’t. Why do you ask, Jacob? Are you jealous you couldn’t get that done, along with trying to fuck her against your desk? Are you jealous she lets me fuck her the way you never could?”

I strike down my distaste at his words.

Jacob snarls, his little attempt to piss off Carter more only backfiring. Jacob’s company snickers in laughter, and at last, Carter moves to my side, swatting the pistol away from my line of sight. He helps me up and brushes the sawdust and construction lint from my new dress.

When he looks at me, he hesitates, trying to read through my expression about how Jacob knows about the marks.

I know he’s not embarrassed by his work—Carter looks at my belt bruises like an art piece he made to admire, but he made them for him to admire, not Jacob. So Tristan and I obviously have a little bit of trouble to deal with later.

Just not right now.

I carry my heels in my hand and run down the stairs, hearing Tristan and Carter leisurely move themselves downstairs at their nonchalant pace. They may be accustomed to having guns shifted in their directions, but it’s not my reality.

It never will be.

I lean against the car door, my heart pounding in my fingertips, every static drop of panic overflowing off the sides of my limits. I want to melt into a puddle on the moonlit sidewalk of Manhattan.

Carter is beside me in a minute, his hand finding my hip and pushing my back into the car door. I hiss in surprise, his chest coming so close to my frame that I’m forced to look up at him, my chin poking into his carved muscles.

Any hint of his mercy tonight has vanished.

“How does Jacob Lacey know about those bruises of yours?” Carter drones.

I swallow, my eyes flickering to Tristan, who shakes his head ever so slightly. I bite my tongue, fake a shrug, and Carter nods with a knowing, irritated frown.

“Alright then, I get it,” Carter whispers.

He turns so fast that I don’t have time to process what his next move is until Tristan is doubled over on the sidewalk, a hand pressed to his already slightly bruised cheek. He spits blood out on the dirty concrete and covers his newly split lip with his fingertips, already tipped in crimson.

“Whatever you’re keeping from me,” Carter snaps to Tristan, who is busy trying to collect himself while he stands, a stream of blood sliding down his chin, “I suggest you tell me about it.”

“Fuck you, man,” Tristan spits. “You don’t have any right to punch me, not when my only focus has been keeping our fucking family business alive and well. Meanwhile, your biggest concern has been how you’re going to sink your cock into Isabella while you hide the real reason behind your sadistic desires.”

If there was ever friction between them before, it’s laced up in scorching hot fury now.