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“It’s not about Carter right now. It’s who is on your side, Isabella.”
I shake my head. “It’s the same answer. We’re one and the same.”
“Are you sure about that, Isabella?”
“Of course, I am. Carter is the love of my life, and he loves me, too. If someone is against him, they’re against me. Same either way you look at it.”
I lean back, noticing his stiff posture.
“I don’t believe that for a moment,” he sighs.
“Don’t believe what exactly? I do love him and—”
“No, not that, Isabella. I mean that your enemies are his. You don’t have any enemies. You’re just a side effect of the plague that runs this city. Not to say that the Blackthorne family is a virus.”
“It’s not a virus,” I whisper, mostly to myself. “It’s a poison.”
He doesn’t reply, and I know why he doesn’t. He agrees.
I love Carter, but even I know the truth when it’s staring me in the face. The Blackthorne family and its twisted reality are nothing like a virus. Viruses spread—they infect and multiply. The family that once ran this city unchallenged isn’t something that spreads and defeats.
It works from the inner circle, and it weakens until one day, it’ll be nothing but a limp body.
I love Carter, but I hate the Blackthorne curse.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Carter
I hate handcuffs when they’re not on Isabella.
They’re pinching my wrists behind my body, and my face is bruised and bleeding. I stare straight ahead at the blank wall just to satiate my fury, but it’s pointless. When I get out of this fucking police department, out of this interrogation room, I will burn this damn place to the ground.
My body shivers as the door opens, a cold breeze pouring in from the hallway into this little space. The hallway is still laced with Isabella’s perfume, and it accompanies the cooler air. I inhale her scent, needing to have her in my arms so I can breathe in her smell and hold her body. I want her all to myself.
The detective coming in is familiar, a man I had on the payroll at some point. He turned a blind eye to my corruption, but the rules have changed, and their boss is a prick who won’t be stopped when it comes to taking me down. Still, I recognize him as the one who took Isabella away.
I trust that he got her out of the precinct safely, but I can tell by his flat, pursed expression that that isn’t the case.
“Where is she?” I bite right off the bat. “Where is Isabella?”
“I told her I could get her out of here if I took her to the hospital. But for some reason, she panicked and ran from me, Carter,” he says, speaking low as if the cameras are still on. He glances up for a minute, and the red light on the dome of a camera flicks off. “There, we have the room for a few minutes to ourselves.”
“Where the fuck is she?”
He shakes his head at first, his eyes distant and glassy. “Lacey.”
I nearly jump out of my chair that I managed to kick back into place after my outburst earlier, but he pins me back to sit down, giving me a warning of a look that—if not for these fucking handcuffs on my wrists—I would wipe right off his face with my fist.
“Who? What Lacey took my dove?”
“No, she ran into one. I don’t know his name, just that he looked like Jacob.”
I swallow the fire that lurches up my throat. “Not a Lacey. It’s a fucking Donahue. Rich Donahue, to be exact.”
He waves me off, uncaring of the semantics. “She jumped out of my car, dammit. I tried getting her to the hospital, but she freaked out and bolted. I couldn’t take on any Laceys, so I left her with them. They seemed friendly enough with her.”
“You made her uncomfortable. This is your doing.”
