Page 144 of Carrick
I went still.
That single sentence cracked something wide open. I’d kept that phone close, protected it like it was just a contingency plan, but she saw it for what it really was.
Her voice dropped, softer now—but the weight behind it landed just as hard.
“You gave it to him for a reason, Carrick. Because somewhere inside you, you knew he might run back to the Mafia. And you didn’t want him running blind. You gave him a tether.”
I looked away, jaw clenched so tight it hurt. I didn’t want her to see how close she was to the truth.
“Don’t pretend it doesn’t matter,” she said gently.
Her fingers brushed my arm. Just once. Barely a touch. But it was enough to unravel the hold I’d been clinging to. Enough to break the wall I’d built between what I felt and what I let show.
“It’s not that simple,” I said quietly, the words thick in my throat.
“Nothing about this is,” she whispered.
The silence that followed stretched between us. Not cold. Not angry. Just… heavy. Weighted with all the things we hadn’t said. All the things we couldn’t take back.
She took a breath—deep, deliberate, like she needed the air to hold herself upright.
“If there’s a chance he can be pulled back—if we can give him that chance—then we have to try. Or what are we doing here? What the hell is any of this for?”
I didn’t have an answer. Not one that wouldn’t sound like a lie. And that was how I knew she’d won.
I stoodoutside the main room for a full minute before walking in. They were all there—already waiting. Maddy leaned against the far wall with her arms crossed and her jaw tight. Jax had his ever-present tablet on his knee, screen dark for once, fingers steepled beneath his chin. Sully sat with one ankle slung over his knee, sipping coffee like it was whiskey. Deacon was standing, quiet, arms folded, his back to the window. And Niko?
Niko was seated dead center. Eyes locked. Elbows on his knees. Waiting. He knew. Not everything. But enough to feel it in the air.
I didn’t sit. Just stood near the fireplace, the silence between us taut like wire. “I have something you need to know,” I said.
No one moved.
“The night we found Rayden in her apartment…” I hesitated, then forced it out. “I gave him a burner phone.”
Sully’s brows shot up. “You did what?”
“I gave him a way out,” I said. “A clean line. Untraceable. It wasn’t part of protocol, and I didn’t clear it. I know that. But I did it. Because I saw the way Bellamy looked at him. Because he was barely standing. Because he was scared.”
Niko stood slowly. “Damn right you broke protocol. You doubly broke protocol by not including this in your report.”
“I know.”
“You compromised the security structure of a federal witness protection scenario,” Jax said flatly. “Technically, you created an unsecured communication pipeline that could endanger every single one of us. Especially her.”
“I know.”
“That’s the part that pisses me off,” Sully said, standing now too. “We all trust each other with our lives, Carrick. You don’t get to go cowboy and make decisions that risk this whole op.”
Deacon didn’t speak. But the way his arms tensed across his chest said enough.
Niko walked toward me, slow and measured, eyes never leaving mine. “Why?” he asked. Not angry. Just razor-edged. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
I didn’t blink. “Because Bellamy was breaking. Because Rayden was already gone, and she needed hope. Because I looked at her and knew if I walked out of that apartment without doing something—anything—she’d come apart.”
“And you think that justifies putting a tracking device in the hands of a man tied to the Dom Krovi?”
“I didn’t give him a tracking device,” I said. “I gave him a choice.”
