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

Chapter Fifty

Isabella

I’ve never been much of a fighter or one for arguments when it’s just easier to shut down and plead for it all to end, but hearing Tristan try to hurt my feelings when all I want to do is help—it sucks.

I can’t let it continue.

“Why are you being like this?” I breathe, keeping calm in the doorway to his unkempt bedroom, everything about his drunk, messy appearance proving that he spent his night making horrible choices. “You and Carter are like brothers.”

“Brothers don’t let bitches get in the way of their relationship,” he snaps. “I was on his side because I thought having a constant source of sex would tame his wild streak, but all you’ve done is make it worse. He’s better off going to the street corner and finding a bitch who’s less trouble on her back than sticking around with you.”

I bite back a flinch, fighting my instincts to run off offended. It won’t solve anything, especially because I set out to fix Carter and Tristan’s relationship, and I won’t leave here making it any worse.

“You can call me every name you want, Tristan, but I just want to help.”

“That’s the problem!” he yelps, fighting to stand up straight, his legs weak and wobbly as he charges toward me. I stick my ground, letting him come against my chest and pin me into the frame of the doorway. “You just need to get your fucking nose out of our family.”

“What are you saying? I’m not trying to put my nose anywhere, Tristan. I had to take this job for Carter. I wasn’t really given a choice in the matter!”

“You had a choice. You were just magnetized by his fucking cock and the fact that you were a shy little virgin who never got any attention before some rich fucker came around pretending he gives a damn about you.”

My bruised lip quivers, and I sniffle lightly. He sees it and grins.

“I should have never saved you that night Jacob and his goons attacked you,” he exhales. “The minute Jacob gets what he wants from you and your precious pussy is tainted by another man, Carter will kick you to the damn curb like the useless slut you are.”

I can’t take his drunken, slurred insults anymore. I push him back, running toward the front door, only to feel something hard and solid knock into the back of my head. When I land on the cold tile floors, my vision is spinning, still reeling from my concussion, and this doesn’t help.

I turn over onto my side, feeling around my scalp where a cut lays. Tristan stands back, his eyes wide and horrified, while I pull my hand back in front of me to see the blood that laces a fresh cut. He shakes his head, and in doing so, he looks suddenly sober.

“I… I’m sorry, Bella, I didn’t… I didn’t mean to take it that far.”

I lay my cheek down on his cold floor, feeling my thumping pulse ring through my damn teeth. There’s a bookend on the ground nearby, laced with a bit of my blood from the impact it had against the back of my head.

I choke lightly, shocked he even thought to throw anything at me, let alone how it has taken us both off guard. “Tristan, I… I just wanted to help. I didn’t mean for this to… to happen.”

He comes forward, either to help me up or hurt me worse, and I tremble on his floor, inching away from his presence over me. He stops a few feet short, still shocked by his own actions. I manage to stand up, trotting past his belongings that I brought over and tripping over my broken heel.

It feels like forever before I make it to the elevator, fumbling with the keys until the doors open and I collapse, the ringing pain of my scalp sending hot flushes of agony through my body.

“Someone call an ambulance!” a male voice shouts.

I try to blink straight, to steady my warped vision, but I fail, accepting unconsciousness instantly.

***

Carter

I lay my head on my solid desk, my mind fogged in the spat of a fight I just had with my precious dove. I should have done everything so differently. She was irritated over the Tristan ordeal, and I can understand why she feels like she needs to fix my cousin and me, but when she gave me sass, I should have shut down my frustration from pouring over.

Instead, I took her attitude, tripled it, and threw it back in her face. Now I have pissed off Micah Phillips, Donovan’s older brother, which means our dinner is definitely canceled tonight. I just created an enemy I don’t need—not that I can’t handle him accordingly.

I just needed things to go over smoothly for the last stretch of this damn election.

My phone rings, and I pick it up reluctantly. “Hello?”

“What the hell did you do?” Donovan snarls. “You just fucked us over, Carter.”

“It was a misunderstanding. Don’t even try to take that damn tone with me, either. I am the one offering this deal to your ragtag family. Without it, you’d be taking pennies from Jacob.”

“Yeah, well, you just pissed off my brother, so those pennies from Jacob Lacey are looking a lot more appealing if it means coming after you and your family, Blackthorne. You need to solve this and do it fast. If not, you’re going to be in some heavy trouble.”

“I’m at the end of my rope here, Donovan. I’m about ready to take the risk and just funnel the money under the table to Frances myself.”

“I’m not talking about trouble for the election,” Donovan hums. “My brother just told me to come after you, Carter. In an effort to make things right, so we don’t create a war here, I thought I’d give you a heads-up.”

I roll my eyes. Donovan is a useless soldier, but if he wants to tip off his next plan, then I won’t stop him. “What is it, then? What are you planning?”

“Your girlfriend just got checked into the hospital,” he breathes.

I sit upright, my spine tingling all over. “The fuck did you just say?”

“One of my contacts works security at the downtown hospital. He said they found car keys in her hands when she went down. They ran the registration to the car, and your last name popped up,” he huffs, his voice tired and frustrated. “I don’t want to hurt the girl, Carter, but if you don’t smooth things over with my brother, then I will…”

I hang up, not needing to hear his baseless threat. I grab my coat and spare keys, hurrying to the garage downstairs. The tires squeal along the wet main roads, and I park in the emergency bay, throwing my keys to the valet and storming inside the hospital lobby like a lion let loose on the Serengeti.

One of the doctors perks up and waves me over, pushing through the back double doors. He stops in front of an exam room, the blinds open through the thick glass window where a nurse is tending to my dove, who is passed out in bed.

My mouth falls open at the horrible look of her, bruised by Jacob Lacey and unconscious, but that doesn’t explain how she ended up here today. She acted fine at the office.

“What happened?”

The doctor pulls a clipboard off the wall and flicks through the packet attached to the metallic clip. “She just got here about forty-five minutes ago. She needed thirteen stitches behind her right ear where it looked like she had blunt trauma to the back of the scalp.”

I feel fire in my blood. “Where the hell was she when this happened?”

He flicks around the pages some more. “The Magnolia Apartments, about eight minutes from here. The doorman called through the lobby phone when they found Ms. Julis in the elevator unconscious.”

I recognize that building instantly but manage to swallow my ferocity long enough to shake the doctor’s hand and enter the room with my lover. The nurse tips her head and leaves, doing one last look over the fluids hanging over Isabella’s IV.

“Is she going to wake up soon?” I breathe.

The nurse never meets my eyes, and I almost feel like she is accusing me of being responsible for the marks on her face. I can’t blame her assumption, everyone in Manhattan knows who I am and what I’m capable of, but I would never hurt my dove like this.

The nurse shakes her head at last, clicking along the machine screen nearby. “She might wake up in an hour or so. The stitches went well, and she won’t need to have any more work done today. We read her report that a bit ago, she had a cut on her palm. We checked over her wound there, too, and it looks like she won’t need any touch-ups there, either.”

I nod, relieved. “Thank you.”

The nurse hesitates in the doorway on her final way out. “Typically, we call the authorities when we find an assault case like this one.”

My mind is running too fast for me to even care about involving the police. “I wouldn’t worry about it. I can handle things from here on out.”

She nods at last. “Thank you for that assurance, Mr. Blackthorne.”

The nurse scurries off, and I push my way onto the bed, letting Isabella curl into my side in her medicated sleep. I pull the blankets up over her shoulders, hearing her hum in appreciation. I can see the gauze padded down to the back of her head, where she must have gotten her stitches.

I ignore the sight of the mark for as long as possible, feeling venom leak down my throat until I feel like spitting it up in the form of an all-out tirade on Tristan.

Why the hell was she at his apartment? If he had anything to do with this, which I’m inclined to think he does, then I’m going to unleash all I have onto him when we cross paths again.

I will unleash hell.

“Carter,” she groans, her voice weak and tired. I lift her cheek up gently, minding one of the many bruises that lay on her perfect jawbone. “Carter, don’t…”

My bow furrows. “Don’t do what, dove? What is it?”

“Don’t be mad at Tristan.”

That familiar strike of lightning through my spine is telling me to ignore her request, but for now, I tone down my anger and sigh. “Okay, Bella.”

“I’m serious.”

I fight a snicker at how cute she sounds, even in the looming threat of seriousness. She groans a noise into my side, her body sore and stiff in this horrible hospital bed. I can’t imagine she would need to stay here long. She needs a good night’s sleep in a nice bed—in my bed.

But she also has plans with her vivacious neighbor, who is convinced I’m an abuser of her new friend or that I’m some kind of model. Bella is loyal to her plans, and while she may have avoided the dinner with Donovan tonight, I can’t avoid confronting Tristan over this.

“It will all be okay,” I purr, speaking more to myself than to her.

She teeters on the edge of passing out for another round of a medicated nap. “Promise… promise you won’t… won’t hurt him.”

I hesitate and wait until she’s finally under the guise of unconsciousness before I reply, “I won’t lie to you, dove. I can’t promise you that.”