AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Is this about your sex life again?” Lorenzo asks, giving me a snide look alongside the inappropriate question. “We are crime lords in this city, boss. What’s the big deal about this journalist?”
A few people nod their heads in agreement, while the other half of the room is just as offended as I am. The divide in the family is becoming clearer every day. While I know that everyone here is loyal to me, I don’t think it’s for the right reasons anymore.
I change gears for a moment. “Who here thinks I should have control of this family?”
Slowly, hands raise into the air, and even though the majority hangs with me, there are a few stragglers. A couple of distant bloodlines, a particular cousin, and a family friend or two who have been introduced into the Blackthorne lineage one way or another.
It’s not something I want to see—this outright mutiny—but at least I know for sure it exists.
“Fine. I see how this is going to go. If you didn’t raise your hand, I want you to stand up.”
There are a couple of passing glances, but the handful of hands that didn’t rise all get to their feet one after another. Some of them are bloodline, purebred from the fucking motherland. I need them in this organization to keep it family-oriented, but I won’t be second-guessed.
“If you think I’m not arealBlackthorne and that I have no right to run this family as I see fit, then you can get the fuck out of this house and leave the business for good.”
A humming mutter crosses the room as soon as the words leave my lips. Everyone looks around in shock, a few of the people who are singled out already trying to take back their answer and sit down, but I won’t have it. I point them out and motion to the door, unwilling to budge on this matter.
“Boss, what are you doing?” Lorenzo asks.
“I’m taking control back. It’s time this family recognizes what I’ve done, and if you think I haven’t pushed the Blackthorne name to the echelon of respect in the city, then I won’t tolerate you being in my camp. You will fuck off, or I’ll drag you outside myself andhandle it.”
The people who naysay my reign all get up one by one, leaving the house with their heads down. I don’t meet their eyes when they look at me, unwilling to budge an inch on my ruling. I have to be the iron fist, the sturdy post, and I’m not going to let the poison that Nicolas spewed out first spread like a disease through this bloodline.
I’m a fucking Blackthorne, and whoever says otherwise will pay.
But they’re not the only ones who need to watch their mouths.
I’m going to double my efforts to stop Lilian McCoy from ruining the love of my life and tearing me away from her precious heart and her perfect body. Isabella is the full package that Lilian could never be, and she’s just the right amount of normal to tolerate my family.
I’ll protect her to the end, and I’m not going to let anything bad happen to her again. If it does, there will be hell to pay.
And it won’t fucking matter if you’re family or not, either.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Isabella
I wake up to the sounds of furious yelling downstairs.
Glancing at the clock on the nightstand, it’s only a few minutes before sunrise, and I can see that the spot in bed beside me hasn’t been touched. I grab my pajamas and throw them on, hurrying down the hall to the top of the stairs.
Carter is in the living room, pacing and on a rampage. He is throwing his hands into the air, his voice rattling off the vaulted ceilings, and I wince at the sound of his familiar spite.
He has softened lately—for reasons I don’t fully understand—but I can see how he got his sternness back. Tristan, Lorenzo, and Nicolas are all lined up in the living room, where Carter yells at them like a damn drill sergeant.
I shiver at the sound and emit a slight gasp, and Carter’s eyes find me like magic.
“Dove, go back to bed.”
I dare to turn, to walk away, but my feet don’t want to move! “Carter, you’re yelling.”
“Then shut the door. I need to handle this, Bella. Please, just go back to bed.”
I don’t know why, but I look at Tristan and meet his gaze from my spot on the stairs. He gives me a short nod like he’s granting me permission to let him get his ass chewed out from the man I love, but as soon as the look passes between us, Carter has already tracked it.
The burning temper of this wildfire man isn’t done with any of us yet, including me.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Carter steps forward, his hand curling into Tristan’s shirt to yank his attention back to him, but Tristan wiggles out of it quickly. Carter’s rampage is far from over. “Who the fuck is in charge of this family again?”
