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

Chapter Fifteen

Carter

The new office building is nothing but bones and bad memories. I hate anything having to do with Lacey, and this place still reeks of his scent. Having Nicolas here to oversee the build of it isn’t helping. I decide to take a break, just to keep my cool, and hurry across town to get to my main office. It’s quiet here, less hectic and messy due to the lack of construction going on.

My office is warm, and I strip out of my wet coat, finding a large envelope on my desk before I can even sit down and catch up on emails. I turn it over, the sides of it damp, but nothing is written on the outside like it was sent in haste. It’s not even postmarked or addressed, so whoever brought it here clearly wanted it here pretty quickly.

I sit down and tear open the top, finding a few glossy pictures stuffed inside. They’re warm to the touch, hot off the presses, but not as hot as I am when I turn them over to see what’s in the images. Everything about these photos makes my pulse spike.

The first is of Isabella wearing the same clothes I saw her in this morning. She’s at some coffee shop downtown, the fuzzy haze of the photos clearing as the shot becomes more and more obvious.

She’s not alone at the table.

I squint, making out Rich’s familiar hair and his Lacey resemblance with surprising ease. He sits across from her and even reaches over in one of the photos, handing her something that I can only guess is a napkin. It’s hard to tell with the quality of the pictures, obviously taken from a distance, and the way the window is angled where she sits at the table, the reflection of the city faint on her gentle cheeks.

“What the…” I sigh, flipping through the stack with heavy determination.

I slip from my calmness more and more as I look further into the fresh stack of photos, one of them smearing as my thumb crosses the image in heated shock. She’s practically leaning against Donahue now, his hand over her shoulder with an umbrella while she smiles kindly at the gesture.

I toss the rest away at that, uninterested in seeing anything else.

That is until a little note flies out of the stack, separated from the last photos, where I catch a glimpse of some other people making their appearance, but it’s not that concerning. I can make out Tristan’s face briefly, and I trust he got this meeting—or whatever it was—taken care of.

It’s the note that has me heating up now, reading the cursive handwriting with a bit of skepticism about the intentions.

Hey, baby. Gave it some thought. Maybe handing out those sexual photos and stories isn’t my best move. If anything, it would just let Isabella know how much you’ve changed. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make you feel pain where it hurts the most.

Keep an eye out for your girl. Looks like she’s up to no good, just like you.

Something tells me you and she are just perfect for each other, after all.

I crumble the sheet, throw it away, and then kick my trash can over for good measure. “Fuck!”

As soon as I throw my fit, my phone rings with a notification. I take it out, seeing a news article flagged with the only keyword I am monitoring the internet for right now: Isabella Julis.

I skim the article, seeing the same photos plastered online with nothing but venom attached to the words that preceded them. It’s a gossip column, and it’s already doing its job. There are twenty comments when I first open it and another fifteen when I refresh the page.

I shouldn’t read them, but I do, so fucking troubled by Lilian’s obvious scam to smear the woman I love with this bullshit. I know she’s not seeing Rich—or any man, for that matter—behind my back, but that doesn’t excuse why she’s out with him in the first place.

She didn’t even tell me she was leaving the house today. If she had, she would have someone with her to prevent this shit, but it’s too late to get that done now.

The commenters show no semblance of control in the comments, hell-bent on smearing my dove’s reputation without considering her feelings. What angers me the most is the amount of vitriol these people spew while hiding behind the anonymity available online.

“She’s nothing but a gold digger, and she’s found a new bank to break into,” I say, reading one of many scornful comments on the gossip column. “I don’t see how Carter Blackthorne could fall for this scam! So happy he’s not the mayor. Just wait; we will hear about the many indiscretions of this woman in no time. He should dodge a bullet and ditch her.”

I have to put my phone away to try to keep calm. It’s no use, though, and I gather the photos I’ve tossed around, shove them into the envelope again, and head for the lobby downstairs. When I get past the security desk, Ernesto is already at the doors, storming inside the office building.

“Did you see it?”

I don’t need him to elaborate on what it is. “Yeah, I have. We need to get home and deal with this. Now.”

He nods, and we get into the SUV in a hurry to avoid the rain, but that’s not all we end up dodging. There are photographers everywhere, swarming the sidewalks with or without umbrellas. I hope Ernesto drenches their lenses as he speeds away, but I can’t even get the satisfaction of that.

Long brown hair catches my peripheral, and I tense, seeing Lilian on the outskirts of the mayhem. She doesn’t have a camera, but she does wear a satisfied smirk on her face. I nearly tell Ernesto to stop so I can wring her neck, but I know better than to do that.

There are too many cameras watching right now.

We lose them all on the way home, and my body fills with fury while I try to make sense of this sudden turn of events today.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks, filling the void of silence with his voice.

“Nothing, I’m just pissed off,” I gripe.

“I know that, but what are you going to do about it.”

My belt comes to mind first, but I think better of that after a moment. “I don’t know yet.”

“Try talking to the girl, Carter.”

“Why? So, she can tell me it’s nothing? She will talk this Rich Donahue thing away without trouble, and I know that. But it’s not even about that now. I mean, it kind of is. She shouldn’t be meeting with him in coffee shops behind my back, but she can’t see this news article, Ernesto. She’s already so…”

He pulls the SUV down our dead-end street. “So?”

“Fragile.”

He parks in silence, and I jump out of the car with the envelope in hand. Anita’s car is parked in my driveway, so I head for our house first, finding company already lingering in my kitchen when I do so. Lorenzo looks elsewhere, shirtless, while his shoulders spot a well-used towel. His pants are soaked, though, and I’m happy he’s decided to keep them on.

Tristan comes forward in the same drenched state. I shove the envelope into his chest, and he takes it at once, opening it and thumbing through the photos quickly before tossing everything in the kitchen trashcan nearby.

“Fuck those photos,” Tristan says.

“They were on my desk today. Right before the article went live.”

“Not just live. It’s going fucking viral now, boss,” Lorenzo chimes in.

Tristan nods solemnly. “Around thirty thousand people have viewed it in the last thirty minutes since it came up, Carter. They know you’re still reeling after the election, and punishing this just feeds the sharks wanting to see you fall.”

“Well, it’s not me they’re attacking now. They’re calling Isabella the worst kinds of names in the comments. The article was just as scathing, too, and I didn’t need to look at the writer’s name to know who is doing this.”

Tristan gives me a knowing nod. “She’s gunning for you both.”

“Where is Isabella?”

He looks up the stairs and then shakes his head. “She’s been terrified all day.”

My brows crease. “About what?”

“You, Carter. She didn’t want you to find out about what happened, but Lorenzo and I got there and escalated things. Then Lilian came by and took those damn photos. I don’t think she’s seen them yet. Her phone and computer are down here, both ruined from the rain and the scuffle. She left them with me and hurried upstairs. Won’t talk to anyone, not even Anita.”

I hate to ask, but I do, anyway. “Has Sam come by?”

He looks uncomfortable with that question. Sam is her best friend, and while it wasn’t anything I could have seen coming, she’s now very close to my cousin. They’ve been together so much lately that I haven’t been bugging him about some stuff having to do with the family. I sent him to the docks on easy work that could have been done later rather than to the meeting with everyone else that lasted all damn night.

I haven’t talked with him since I asked him to check out the dock project, so I guess it went well.

But now isn’t the time to bring it up.

“Sam was supposed to meet Isabella for coffee this morning, but she didn’t go. I texted Sam, but she said she didn’t want to see Isabella right now. I’ll talk to her tonight. I just didn’t want to leave Isabella here alone. Not with the article coming out so damn fast.”

I don’t even mention the scathing article again, trying to block it from my mind before I go to Isabella. I will deal with Lilian personally and swiftly, but I need to check on my dove first. I don’t need her to be afraid of me. She loves me, and I love her. I can handle this without rage.

I can handle this without rage.

I can… Bullshit.

I hope that I can handle this without rage.