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

Chapter Sixty-Four

Isabella

“Here, you need to cool down,” Jacob snarls, sick of me fighting him already. He shoves me down the steps, and I land between tall, endless shelves of wine. “Stay down here until I’m ready for you, baby. I’ve got work to do, no thanks to your dead boyfriend.”

He slams the door shut, the cold air already biting at my exposed skin. I find a light switch against the wall, only a dim light coming on overhead and illuminating all the bottles of wine inside the cellar. I didn’t know these would be so cold, but the thermostat on the wall shows it’s just under fifty-two degrees in here.

It may not be freezing, but I’m convinced that Jacob is going to keep me in here as long as it takes to break me. I fought him off of me in the car ride over here; his hand slapped over my mouth while screaming as he peeled me out of the car and dragged me up the porch, tossing me down here as soon as we got inside his tacky mansion.

I can guarantee it’s his daddy’s money that paid for this house and maybe even the endless shelves of wine. Stalking back to the end of the room, I look over a few of the bottles, seeing some date back at least sixty years.

I don’t need to be a sommelier to know these are perhaps the most expensive bottles in the world.

I can see Carter’s face in the back of my mind, the fear and dulled look of panic that crossed his beautiful, stern face. I know he can handle himself, but without knowing for sure how he will get out of Frances’ grasp, I can only assume the worst.

I break the top off the oldest bottle I can find by slamming its neck against the side of a tabletop and slide down to a seat on the floor. My wrist hangs limp and crooked in my lap, my other palm wrapped around the neck of the wine bottle. It tastes fruity and strong, my nerves settling soon by the alcoholic twinge of a buzz that fills my stomach.

Carter still reigns through my mind, everything about being apart from him instantly making things worse. I bring the bottle to the light, seeing that I’ve drunk about half of it by now. Anything to piss off Jacob is a win in my book, so I pour some out on the floor, getting a grand idea when I watch it puddling on the custom stone floors.

I break the bottle against the floor, watching the glass shatter into a million pieces. Then, taking another bottle off the shelf nearby, I throw it down, too, seeing it spray.

My dress is already ripped and ruined, soaked in wine, so I take it a step further. I use my shoulder to dig into the back of the first wine shelf, pushing with all my weight until I feel the hinges splinter under pressure. The first column falls, wine spilling and glass flying on impact.

I watch the door up the stairs, waiting for him to hear the noise of the crash, but it doesn’t open.

He’s going to regret trying to intimidate me by sticking me down here.

I knock over every shelf, throwing the surviving bottles against the wall and letting them dissipate into the mess below. It’s cathartic in a way; my angst and fear and sadness all swirled into one ball of fire, breaking through the atmosphere and wanting to demolish the planet below.

When there are no more wine bottles or shelves to tip over and shatter, I rip the artwork off the wall, stomping through the canvases with my pointy heels.

Eventually, there’s nothing else for me to destroy, so I sit back against the furthest corner, perched on top of a tipped-over shelf, holding myself to keep warm. My adrenaline is warm enough to protect me for an hour or two, but there’s no telling how long Jacob will keep me down here.

My dress is ripped all over, cut from the flying glass of his precious wine stash. I ignore the stinging cuts and hardly even notice them. Carter’s belt against my ass hurts worse than this ever could, so in a way, I thank him for numbing my senses to pain.

I get comfortable, thinking of Carter Blackthorne, so my mind can unscramble.

He had to have gotten free of that ambush outside the mayor’s event. I know he is resourceful enough to defend himself, especially when I’m not there to be used as bait, but I’ll always worry about him.

I just hope he isn’t too concerned about me.

***

Carter

It was just a few hours ago that I had Isabella chained to my headboard. The tables have obviously turned, my wrists wrung with silver cuffs that link me to the chair where I sit. Frances hits like a bitch, so I lick my little wounds and shut up about it.

He has one of his bastards whip his fist across my face, sweat and blood trickling down my bare chest. I should have shot him first instead of his brother, the guy he keeps whining and crying about with every connection of his knuckles against my cheek.

“Worthless asshole.” I spit at his face, watching him recoil like a child who just got scolded. It’s too easy to get under his skin, his face beet-red and his breathing coming in and out with a deep, scratching noise. “Why don’t you go lay next to your fucking brother outside and just die already.”

He snarls a noise, cocking his fist back again, stopped short by a whistle from the front of the room. I’m in some kind of cafeteria in the back of the event hall, my shirt taken from me while they searched me for more guns. They got most of them, making the mistake of not checking my sock for my pocket knife.

“Enough,” Frances says in an irritated whisper. He dismisses his friend, taking in the extent of my wounds—if there are any worth seeing. That bastard before couldn’t bruise a peach if he gave it his best shot. “Come on, Carter. Can’t we just get past this already? Just sign over the accounts, and I’ll let you walk.”

“Should have gotten me to sign those contracts for the project downtown before wanting to fuck with me,” I say with a shrug, twisting my wrists around the cuffs. If I sweat and bleed on them enough, I might be able to yank out of them, but not without some collateral damage. “You’ve got ties to me already, Frances. You just can’t escape that.”

He folds his arms to his chest, a bit prissy in his cheap suit, while looking at his knockoff brand of watch. “I have a party to return to, Carter. Are you going to hand over those contracts or not?”

I lean back in my seat, pulling my lips inward and showing him that I have nothing to say.

He’s fucked himself on this one. While I was sending him money through Jacob Lacey’s bullshit construction business, it was all in the guise of Frances paying off the downtown building that Jacob has been using to build his guns.

Due to an intentional clerical mistake on my part, I signed over that building to my name and funneled the money through Lacey Construction, putting my name on that building’s contract. If I die, that part of my assets is released to a lawyer who may look at the history of the building and raise a few red flags.

Carter Blackthorne, the devil prince of Manhattan, owning a building that was previously under the ownership of Frances Johnson, the innocent mayor, with a connection in common—Jacob fucking Lacey.

I couldn’t plan this paper trail better if I tried.

“I want you to kill me,” I breathe, sporting a wicked, proud grin. “Do it, Frances. The minute I die and they dig my body out of the ravine, they’ll see my name on that contract where ownership of suspicious property containing the parts and pieces of illegal, untraceable guns are found, is said to have your name on the seller side, giving it to my name in the buyer’s section.

“You’ll be dragged through the mud in every election after that, not including scoped by the furthest reach of the government’s laws. The public loves a good politician hanging in the square, Frances. I suggest you get your neck ready.”

He spins around, whispering for his whimsy bodyguard to keep beating submission into me, but it’s not going to happen. Once he took Isabella from me, it was over.

Hell is here, and they’re about to feel the fire.

I take a few additional hits, but it’s just buying time. The exterior door does burst open at last, a familiar hoard of faces rushing into the dark cafeteria. Whatever guards posted outside that door are undoubtedly dead, per my earlier instructions to my family.

If they don’t hear from me in an hour, come after Isabella and me at all costs.

The bitch trying to bruise my face tosses over the key with little fight in him now, backing up while Ernesto unclicks the cuffs from my wrist.

Lorenzo hands me a pistol, but I tuck it into my waistband, jerking the pocket knife out of my sock and flicking the blade open against the edge of his neck. It’s not enough to kill him, but just the right amount for him to take me seriously.

“Where did Jacob take her?”

He shakes his head, his eyes darting back and forth, looking for a way out. “I… I don’t know for sure… “he stammers. “I think it’s… it’s the house on the Upper East Side.”

“I know where that house is,” my cousin Nicolas speaks up.

I’ve never been happier to have such a large, knowledge-rich family.

I whip the blade sideways, feeling his blood spurt out of his neck and land on my wrist. It’s nothing but a mess I’ll have to worry about later, cleaning the blade against my pants before taking my coat from Ernesto.

“Jacob has Isabella?” Ernesto grumbles, shaking his head. “That’s not good. He isn’t going to hold back this time, not after the hell they raised in the city over her in the last few weeks.”

I think about Jacob’s family taking out Tristan and Paul, going as far as to threaten her sick father, and wounding her innocent neighbor in the process. Everything about their tactics has been dirty, but one thing is clear cut and clean.

Jacob isn’t interested in killing my dove, just using her for his sick fantasies. I know she’s petrified right about now and that I need to get to her as soon as possible, but the minute Frances hears about me being cut loose and going after Jacob, the narrative will shift, and he’ll have the entire New York City Police Department knocking down every door in this state to get me.

I have to take down the gatekeeper before I storm the castle.

That starts with the precious mayor.

“We will go after her in a minute. I need to get Frances out of the way first.”

Ernesto tenses. “Are you sure we should do that? You know what he’s going to do to her, Carter.”

I step into his face, watching him cower instantly at my aura. “Don’t tell me what I know, Ernesto. I have no doubt in my mind that she will fight him like hell. She’s already done so in the past, running from him and his filthy, fucking father. She just needs to hang on another handful of minutes, long enough for me to cover our tracks before we retreat back to the battleground.”

He nods rapidly, unwilling to argue further. “Of course, boss. Whatever you say.”

Lorenzo tugs at my arm, pulling my focus. “So, what do you say, Carter? Kill Frances and make a run for it? If he dies, we’re stuck with his opponent—the cop.”

Although it is a concern, any point of reconciliation with mayor Johnson is out the window. But none of this election is important to me anymore. I have Isabella to worry about, and if that means letting my empire fall once and for all, then so be it. I want him to be as wounded as physically and socially as possible, and I’m willing to break my own neck to make that happen.

“I’ll go down with him,” I command at last. “Let’s just focus on bringing him down where it hurts.”

“Where is that?” Nicolas ponders.

“You’ve got the login information for the family electronic office files, right?”

Lorenzo nods, pulling out his phone. “Of course. I’ve got every password down to the confidential shit.”

“Good. Get those files open, and I’ll find a good vantage point,” I breathe. “We’re going to give Frances Johnson’s constituents a show.”