Page 11 of Carrick
Deacon’s mouth twitched—just enough to suggest it might have been a smile.
It was surreal. They were joking. Laughing. Acting like this was a sitcom instead of a hideout, like I hadn’t dragged death to their doorstep. But when I looked closer, the illusion cracked. Carrick’s hand never strayed from the sidearm on the stool beside him. Jax’s screen scrolled through what looked like an intel dossier. Deacon’s stillness wasn’t casual; it was practiced, coiled. And Sully, even while smirking over the stove, kept glancing at the windows between movements. They weren’t relaxed. They were ready. Always.
And I realized—so was I. I had to be.
After breakfast, Maddy hopped off the counter and wiped her hands on her pajama shorts. “Alright, new girl. Time for the grand tour.”
I hesitated, still holding my fork. “Can’t I just pretend this is a hotel with room service and never leave my bed?”
She smirked. “You could. But then you’d miss the weapons vault, the tech room, and Sully’s secret cookie stash.”
“Tempting,” I muttered, pushing back from the island.
She waved me along, humming as she walked barefoot into the hall. I followed, tucking my hands into my hoodie pocket to keep them from shaking. The kitchen had been overwhelming. This next part was worse—entering the belly of the beast.
Every hallway in the house was designed with military precision. Not sterile exactly, but intentional. Cameras in corners. Reinforced door frames. Steel doors heavy enough to brush off a grenade without a scratch. The farmhouse exteriorwas a lie; the bones of the place were iron clad. This was a stronghold in disguise.
“First up,” Maddy said, gesturing toward a wide doorway on the left, “that’s the library. Actual books, not just fake spines for aesthetic. It’s where we pretend to be civilized.”
As we passed, I slowed, drawn by the stillness spilling into the hall. The door was cracked just enough to reveal floor-to-ceiling shelves arranged in perfect rows—some filled with weathered, leather-bound volumes, others stacked with bright, dog-eared paperbacks. Two plush armchairs sat angled before a stone fireplace, a half-full teacup resting on the table between them. There was no dust. No clutter. Just quiet, intentional calm. A room made for breath and thought and disappearing without leaving.
I wanted to step inside, to drag my fingers across a spine or collapse into a chair and pretend I still lived a life untouched by blood and fear.
But I kept walking.
“Jax keeps part of his soul in there,” Maddy said softly, almost like she could sense the way I hovered near the threshold. “It’s his calm space. But the rest of him? That’s in the tech cave.”
Maddy jerked her chin toward the next door at the end of the hallway. Sleek, steel-reinforced, with a keypad embedded in the wall beside it. No windows. No markings. Just quiet intimidation.
“Don’t go in without knocking,” she added. She stepped up and gave the door two sharp raps. “He’ll have a minor coronary if you don’t announce yourself.”
The door opened a moment later, revealing Jax already waiting—somehow he’d gotten ahead of us while Maddy was showing me around. He leaned on the doorframe with a coffee mug in one hand and a stylus in the other, his glasses slightlyaskew and hair pulled back in a low, haphazard knot. The light from inside spilled out behind him in a soft blue glow, screens flickering with lines of code, surveillance feeds, and data maps I didn’t even have a name for.
“Bellamy,” he said by way of greeting, his tone as clipped as it had been earlier. “Do not touch anything.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
He blinked at me, then stepped aside in invitation. “You might as well see it. Most people can’t conceptualize this space unless they experience the full sensory impact.”
Maddy snorted. “Welcome to the Batcave.”
I stepped inside cautiously, eyes adjusting to the glow. The room was bigger than I expected, and colder—in both temperature and vibe. Screens lined the walls, stacked three high in places, all displaying different feeds: traffic cams, encrypted comms, digital maps overlaid with flashing markers. There was a long metal desk in the center with three chairs, but only one looked like it had ever been used. Wires coiled across the ceiling like mechanical vines, and tucked against one wall was a high-backed rolling chair that screamed ergonomic obsession.
“This is where I live,” Jax said, stepping in behind me. “And by live, I mean engage in every form of intelligence gathering available to me—legally or otherwise.”
“Or otherwise?” I echoed.
He sipped his coffee. “Figure of speech. Mostly.”
“You got surveillance in the bathrooms too?” I asked, half-joking.
Jax’s eyes sparkled just slightly behind his lenses. “Only if you request it.”
I blinked. Maddy coughed to cover a laugh.
“Jax,” she said, nudging him lightly, “maybe ease off the intensity. She’s had a rough time.”
“I’m being welcoming,” he argued.
