Page 69 of Worth the Wait
Until Freddie had to ask in a desperate whisper, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Tracing Alfie,” Nathan shot back. “What the fuck areyoudoing here?”
Freddie waved his hand at the property. “House is under surveillance.”
“For what?”
“Drugs. Trafficking. Shit way above my pay grade. We’re minutes away from a tactical breach.”
Nathan paled in the half-light.
Freddie caught the flash of panic and shoved it home. “Alfie’s in there. Do you know what thatmeans?”
Nathan scrubbed a hand through his hair, panic visibly breaking through his resolve. “He’ll get nicked.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got to get him out.”
“Shit, Nate. It’s too late. Place is wired. They’ve already got eyes on. I’m meant to be logging it.”
“Then stall it. Buy me time.”
“I’m already breaking every rule standing here and you don’t just go knock on the door of a fucking drug den and ask for your boy back. We’ve got intel there’s weapons in there. Armed response standing by.”
Nathan glanced up to the house. “I can get in and out before your lot even makes the call.”
Freddie exhaled, breath misting white in the freezing air. He looked around, every instinct screaming at him to shut this down, to follow orders, to protect them all. But one look at Nathan’s eyes, at the sheerterrorandlovein them, undid him.
“Fuck!” Freddie raked his hands over his head. “I’ll try and stall Carrick. Buy you some time. But it won’t be much. You’ve got maybe two minutes before they hit that door.”
Nathan nodded once, a hard soldier’s nod, and he glanced up to the house. Then he hesitated. Turned back. Lingering his gaze on Freddie. And for a heartbeat, everything stopped. The shouting in Freddie’s earpiece, the cold cutting wind, the blinding panic inside his own head. All of it faded. Because Nathan reached out, grabbed the front of Freddie’s stab vest, yanked him forward and kissed him.
Not gently.
Not even tentatively.
Messy and hungry andneeded. Heat and desperation and years of regret crashing into a single brutal moment. Freddie gasped, and Nathan swallowed the sound, angling closer until there was no space left between them.
The buzz of urgent voices crackled through Freddie’s earpiece, snapping the moment and he staggered back, breath coming in hard, broken bursts, chest heaving.
“Go!” Freddie pulled him from the wall. “If you’re in there when they breach, you won’t get treated like a concerned dad. You’ll get treated like one of them.”
In a blink, Nathan went. Silent stealth, he scanned the house as if he was reading terrain, assessing the weaknesses. Then he crouched low, grabbing hold of an old drainage pipe bolted to the brickwork.
Freddie watched, heart hammering, as Nathan moved. Fast, fluid, ruthless. With a precision learned from spending years crawling through mud in camo. No wasted motion. No hesitation. It was all honed strength, every movement stripped down to exactly what was needed and nothing more.
He then hauled himself up to a narrow bathroom window tucked around the side, boots finding purchase on the uneven bricks, and at the ledge, he paused. Listening, checking, before easing the window open enough to slip inside, vanishing into the darkness without so much as a creak.
Freddie pressed himself deeper into the shadows, every nerve screaming, every instinct wanting to drag him back out and stop this insanity. Instead, he stayed frozen, fists clenched, heart pounding.
Praying he hadn’t helped Nathan Carter walk straight into a fucking warzone.
Again.
Chapter fourteen
Lines in the Dark
