Page 148 of Carrick
“And risk him going silent,” I said.
“Or risk tipping him off too early and losing everything.”
“I don’t think he’ll betray Bellamy like that.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” I agreed. “But I do know he’s not fully gone. If he were, he would’ve burned us already. We all know that if the Dom Krovi had any idea of where this house was located, we would have already been hit.”
Jax nodded thoughtfully. “He’s not acting like someone who’s loyal to either side. That makes him volatile. But it also makes him… reachable.”
Maddy crossed her arms. “So we reach him. But who makes the call?”
I met her eyes. “Me.”
Sully snorted. “Of course it’s you.”
“I’m the one he’ll trust.”
“If he trusts anyone,” Deacon said.
“And if he doesn’t?” Niko asked, his voice calm, but iron underneath. “What’s your plan if he is feeding intel to the Dom Krovi? What if you call, and a bullet flies through a window twenty minutes later?”
“Then we know,” I said. “And we act.”
“You keep saying that like it’s simple,” Niko snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut through the air. He turned away from the table and started pacing, the tension in his shoulders radiating off him in waves. “But it’s not. You’ve crossed line after line already, Carrick. And I’ve backed you—we’ve all backed you. But you’re not a one-man op. You don’t get to keep making choices for the rest of us based on your fucking attachment.”
That landed. Hard. The room went still, the silence thick and immediate. Even the background hum of the heater felt louder now, like it was the only thing willing to move. Niko’s words echoed in my chest, each one striking something I hadn’t wanted to name out loud. My jaw tightened, but I didn’t look away. I couldn’t afford to.
“I didn’t choose this to serve myself,” I said, keeping my voice steady despite the burn working its way through my ribs. “I chose it because it was the only move I could live with. Rayden may be a threat. He may be compromised. But Bellamy…” My throat tightened. I pushed through it.
“She’s a person. A woman we’re responsible for. A woman I—” I stopped myself, the words catching mid-breath like they’d snagged on something sharp.
Too late.
Jax, who’d been silently watching from his usual place near the shelves, cocked an eyebrow, voice light but knowing. “A woman you what?”
I looked at him, just for a moment. Then back down at the table, staring at the scuffed wood like it might offer me an escape. But the truth was already out, hanging in the air like smoke that couldn’t be put back in the fire.
Niko exhaled slowly. Not sharp, not frustrated—just steady. A man who’d learned every detonation point in the minefield I was now crossing blind. “You’re in love with her.”
It wasn’t a question.
And I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.
Niko’s fingers tapped once against the table, then stilled. “It doesn’t take long,” he said quietly. “People think it does, but it doesn’t. Not when it’s real. Not when she walks in and everything goes off-axis, and suddenly the mission isn’t the mission anymore—it’s her.” He sat back with a huff and a look of understanding.
“I didn’t believe it either. Until I did.”
The words hung there—deliberate, heavy—as if saying them cost him something.
“And you weren’t here for it. But when I tell you I get it, Carrick—I mean, I get it.”
He looked up then, eyes sharp but not unkind. “It changes everything. Whether you’re ready or not.”
I didn’t answer—not out loud. But something in me went still. Because this wasn’t strategy. Wasn’t protocol. It was Niko leveling the field in the only way he knew how. Letting me know I wasn’t alone in this. That he’d already walked through the fireI was just now stepping into. And that maybe—just maybe—I’d come out the other side too.
Across from me, Quinn reached for the burner phone, his expression unreadable as he slid it back into the case and shut it with a quiet click. Then he stood.
