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

Chapter Thirty-Six

Isabella

It’s a long, silent drive to the hospital. I didn’t want to take this car in the first place but was trapped inside of it with my moody, sullen boss. I park the car and, thankfully, when we are inside the hospital, we part ways.

I breathe for the first time since I left Carter’s penthouse. My father is right where I left him, settled in bed while an old western movie plays out over the old television screen on the far wall. His face lights up when he sees me, and for a moment, I think he recognizes me.

“Hey, Dad,” I mumble, collapsing into the chair beside his bed.

I wish I were in a better mood to come see him, but after this morning and the fear it filled me with, I do feel a little more on edge than I thought I would. The gunshots still echo in the back of my mind, but I push that aside for my father’s sake.

“How do you feel?”

My father stares at me for a long, thoughtful moment. “Are you a nurse?”

Whatever little sliver of my heart is left after today is obliterated further. “No, I’m not a nurse. I’m your daughter.”

“Isabella,” he sings, my name smooth in his raspy, aged lungs. “She’s a great girl. She comes by a lot and visits me all the time. She looks like her mother, and I’m so proud of her—she’s in college, you know?”

I look at the whiteboard nearby, lists of countless painkillers scribbled out. It would explain his loopier-than-normal attitude.

Sometimes, he is so delved deep into reality that he asks about his hospital bills, but the more medication he is strung on, the more this hospital looks like a neighborhood, and I look like a nurse.

I just need a day when I can talk to my father like my father, and I wish so terribly that day is today, but it obviously isn’t. I bow my head in another treacherous defeat.

“Dad, I really need you right now,” I plead, fighting back the heavy tears in my eyes. “I need your advice or your help or… I don’t know anymore.”

His voice goes a little deeper as he replies, “Are you in trouble?”

The tears fall down my cheeks at once. “I don’t know yet, but I think I might be very soon.”

“I’m sure you will figure it out, dear. You look wise.”

I sniffle back a chuckle. He may be confused and doped on pain medication past recognizing his own daughter, but I guess that doesn’t matter. I’m forced to come up with my own solutions as per the norm lately. Somehow, I hope he is right.

My composure needs to be addressed first, so I kiss his forehead, adjust his blanket, and hurry from his room at once. I can’t sit at his side and weep all day, not while he doesn’t know who I even am.

I hurry for the ladies’ room down the hall, turning the corner too sharp to be paying attention. I run straight into a solid chest and stammer backward, landing on my back and catching myself with my already wounded, gauze-wrapped palm.

The man I rudely ran into immediately reaches for me, holding out a hand for me to take. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even see you there.”

I catch myself looking into his algae-green eyes a little too much for comfort, so enticed by the flecks of gold that line his irises. Eventually, I zone back into the present and take his hand, allowing him to help me up, but the conclusion is far from over.

My breath hitches, and I squeeze my hand together into a fist. “Ouch… oh no.”

I peel my fingers from the fist they’ve created, seeing blood streak across my palm. The stranger stands over me with his towering height, and his beautifully unique eyes dart across my hand. He brushes back his somewhat disheveled brown hair and looks hastily around the hallway.

“Nurse… hey, nurse,” the man calls for assistance, and several of the nurses nearby hurry over to him at once. He lightly takes my wrist in his hand, holding it out for them to see. “I ran right into this woman, and her hand is badly bleeding. Can someone help her, please?”

I curl my fingers together and step away from the crowd. “No, it’s okay, I swear.”

The nurse nearby scolds me with a look. “You need to get that looked at right away. Come with me. I’ll take you to a room to see if you need to have this sewn or not.”

As much as I want to refuse, I know I can’t. The stranger stops me, though with a light brush of my arm, his eyes crawling down my frustrated posture. “What’s your name?”

I want to question the relevance of it, but I haven’t got the time with the nurse before me just about ready to drag me down the hall. “Isabella Julis.”

His eyes widen for a brief, almost ignorable second, but I manage to catch a glimpse of it before he continues stalking off down the hallway. The nurse clears her throat, and I finally hurry to match her pace while we head for the intake lobby.

She gives me a wristband, tells me to sit in a bed, and unwraps my palm meticulously. Someone pokes a needle in my arm, and I ignore the procedure of two or three stitches that the nurse weaves through my palm. I blink back more tears, still feeling somewhat scorned by my own father.

“I feel dizzy,” I admit groggily.

The nurse finishes wrapping up my arm professionally, far better than I had, and she nudges me to lie down on my side. “Just rest here awhile. Those pain medications can have some adverse side effects. You might be here for a little while.”

I watch her leave the room, and my heavy eyelids beg so terribly to fall shut. I could use a nap anyway. After the night before, the chaos I’ve endured this week with Carter, and seeking advice from my father while he looks at me like I’m a stranger—I could use a yearlong nap where I wake up, and everything is fixed.

But not even a short nap seems to be a possibility.

The door to my little room opens up, and a set of mossy eyes find my paled, nauseous position in bed. He invites himself into the room and, surprisingly, takes my hand in his, looking over the new wrapping after the last time he saw my palm in a bloody mess.

“That wound looks a lot better, Ms. Julis,” he hums, setting my wrist down gently. “You’re not how I pictured you, Isabella.”

My brow furrows. “What—”

“Shh,” he groans. “It will all make sense, okay? You just rest.”

He pulls a chair up, falling into the seat where he gets comfortable. I can’t imagine why he would sit here with me until my eyes crawl up his body, seeing a chrome pistol set out in his lap, the barrel aimed directly at me!

I whimper, reaching for the nurses’ button on the remote nearby, but he gets there first, tossing it across the room and way out of my arm’s reach. I would scream, but my head is still spinning from the medication meant to keep me docile.

I wish I never even came here today.

“Are you going to kill me?”

The stranger shrugs, eyeing the door as he lingers around for the inevitable.

He’s waiting for Carter Blackthorne.

So, is there a bullet for Carter in that gun, or is it for me? Perhaps one for each of us.

“I don’t want to kill you, Isabella, but if I have to, then I will,” the man replies, utterly accepting of that outcome by his easy, smooth tone. “No one is really sure how you became so involved in this mess, but you’re here now.”

I pull my hand to my chest, the bandage a little too tight for relaxation, and the stitches throb, although it doesn’t hurt outright. Everything about today is just so damn uncomfortable.

“Who are you?” I breathe, figuring we should kill time somehow while he holds a gun to me.

The man meets my gaze, pity creasing his youthful features. “Donovan Phillips. I’m a friend of Jacob Lacey.”

I nod knowingly. “So that means you’re an enemy of Carter Blackthorne.”

“You’re correct.” He looks to the door, then to the gun in his lap. “My family does a lot of business out of Jersey, and we have tried coming to this city for a while, but your boyfriend is trying really hard to prevent competition.”

“Competition of what, exactly?”

He snickers a laugh. It’s throaty and raw and even a little lighthearted in nature. “Well, everything. Jacob Lacey is dipping into the gun trade, and my family sources a lot of the parts necessary for that to happen, so we’re taking proactive steps to prove ourselves to one another.”

I swallow at the meaning of those words. “So, if Carter interrupts Jacob’s plans in the business, it messes with yours as well?”

“Exactly.”

I turn over onto my back, my head throbbing in a migraine that just won’t stop. “So, was your family responsible for the shooting this morning?”

“At the mayor’s press conference?” he hums. “Of course not. My father and our family enterprise are just into the production of goods. We only kill when necessary, and we would never involve innocent people in that.”

My eyes cling to the pistol casually in his lap, pointing in my direction without a care.

“So, how am I not innocent in this fight?”

His focus falls to the gun. “I was told you double-crossed Lacey and undercut him to the Blackthorne family, on top of dating the head boss of the entire family organization. It certainly doesn’t make you completely innocent, Isabella.”

I scowl at those words. I’ve done nothing wrong! So, why is there a gun pointed at me?

“Jacob loses a lot of money if Carter dies,” I mumble. “They have a deal in place.”

For a brief second, Donovan leans forward, his interest piqued. “What deal?”

My eyelids are heavy, and they fall, but I fight to stay conscious for now. “For Frances to win the election, of course. Carter funnels money through Jacob’s company to sponsor Frances Johnson, so he can continue to cover for Carter’s businesses.”

Donovan brushes a hand up my cheek as if trying to keep me awake. “How much money is Jacob getting off this deal?”

“Few hundred thousand,” I groan. “Jacob can’t kill Carter. He’ll go broke.”

“You might just be right,” the gun-wielding man mutters. “I’m just confused about why Jacob never mentioned a word of this to me.”

Because Jacob Lacey is a filthy hypocrite, but he makes his choices, and as usual, they involve putting me in direct harm. At least, in that factor, he is consistent.

I pass out in utter relief and rejoice over the fact that I won’t feel the bullet hit me.