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Without waiting for a response, Carter turns around, and the door clicks shut behind him. My shoulders deflate, but I continue to hold onto Sam. She strokes my back and my hair, the repetitive and rhythmic motions lulling me to sleep. A short while later, I feel the bed dip and creak, and Sam moves away.
The smell of her fruity perfume lingers behind her as I bury my face against the pillow and try to sleep.
I’m drifting in and out of consciousness when I hear the door open, and Carter comes in. He and Sam are exchanging furious whispers when I open an eye. As soon as Carter realizes I’m watching, he stops and looks over at me with a smile. I give him a weak smile, then twist onto my side. Carter presses a kiss to the top of my head and adjusts the blanket over my body. When I wake up again, Anita and Ernesto are in the room, standing near the window, overlooking the hallway outside my room. I try to sit up but give up after a few tries.
Anita twists to face me, and her expression softens. “How are you feeling?”
I shrug and sink lower against the mattress.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of movement, and Carter is next to me, holding up a bowl of soup. “I know you don’t feel like it, and I can’t make you fucking tell me anything, dove, but you need to eat.”
I press my lips together.
Carter doesn’t move. “You need to eat, and you need to take care of yourself. If not for me or for yourself, then for the baby.”
My lips part, and I allow Carter to give me a few spoonfuls of soup.
But it isn’t long before I’m pushing the bowl away again, spots hovering in my field of vision. I lower myself onto the mattress, pull the blanket up over my head, and go still. Anita, Ernesto, and Carter’s voices all blend together, but I can’t make out anything.
I’m not even sure I want to. Because what good is it going to do me? Knowing what happened isn’t going to change anything, not as far as I’m concerned.
My last thought before I drift off is that the past few weeks were for nothing. Having to be locked up in the Blackthorne manor, day in and day out, with no one but Tristan for company, was for nothing. Instead of keeping the chaos and destruction outside our doorstep, I invited it in with open arms.
And I have no one to blame but myself for not seeing the signs sooner. I should’ve known Rich’s friendship was too good to be true.
He was part Lacey, after all.
Chapter Four
Carter
I slam my fists against the table hard enough to make it rattle. “There’s got to be another fucking way.”
Lorenzo links his fingers together and frowns. “These are the terms of the treaty, boss.”
I glance down at the contract, unable to shake away the rage still boiling inside of me. “Where the fuck do they get off demanding that I shut down some of my business?”
The Philipses and Natoris are testing me, goading me into a reaction, and I’m in danger of walking right into their trap.
With news spreading about the stunt I pulled at the press conference, more and more of my enemies are growing bolder and louder. Like they’re trying to see how far I’m willing to go.
Those fucking bastards are going to keep baiting me till I give them something to gawk at.
Being cooped up in the hospital over the past week hasn’t helped either, but with Isabella and Tristan still on the mend, there’s nowhere else I can go. Nowhere else I’d rather be.
My cousin, thankfully, is looking more and more like himself and has even convinced us to bring him into the fold. Even lying in a hospital bed hasn’t stopped him from making a few phone calls and strategizing, much to the chagrin of his brother and Sam.
Isabella, on the other hand, is fading away a little more each day.
It’s killing me to watch what this is doing to her, and it’s even worse knowing there’s nothing I can do to help. I have rarely left her side since she’s been admitted, but other than our argument the day after she woke up, Isabella won’t even look me in the eye.
And she refuses to let me take care of her.
“You’re going to have to give them something,” Tristan says after a lengthy pause. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but that’s the price of a treaty.”
In exchange for shutting down some of the business and divvying up parts of the docks, my enemies are willing to call a ceasefire.
Considering we’re spread thin and unable to hold our ground for much longer, I know we’re at a disadvantage. The Natoris and Philipses suffered significant causalities in the war, but we aren’t doing much better.
