Page 183 of Carrick
I shook my head. Once. Hollow. “No. It’s encrypted, like I said. Quinn’s got the drive. Rayden was going to send us the decrypter program via email. He… well, he can’t, now.”
I fell silent for a moment, shock still blanketing the room. Then, quietly, Niko spoke. “Then what happened?”
I hesitated—every part of me did—because I knew, deep and absolute, that what came next would end something. It would tear through the room like shrapnel, severing the last fragile threads Bellamy was clinging to—that trembling hope, that quiet maybe, that desperate belief he was still out there.
Once spoken, it couldn’t be undone. I couldn’t shield her from the words, or from what they would mean—not from the truth, not from Rayden, not from the ruin he’d left behind. So I stalled, heart thudding in the hollow pause, while the weight of it all coiled tighter around my ribs, crushing what little breath I had left. But the truth had already happened. And it was mine now—mine to say, mine to break her with.
“He showed up in a new car,” I said, the words hitting my own ears like gravel. “Still had the fucking plastic on the seats, practically.”
It was stupid—how clear that detail was. How it stuck.
“No plates. No scuffs. Paint so polished it looked like glass. Said they gave it to him. Told him it was for him to run errands and shit. The kind of car you don’tearn—the kind you’rehanded, you know? Gift-wrapped by people who expect obedience. And silence.”
Across the room, Maddy drew in a sharp, unsteady breath. Her eyes closed. Her shoulders curled inward like she was trying to disappear into herself. Like maybe if she went small enough, she wouldn’t have to hear the rest.
“It must have been tagged,” Quinn added beside me. His voice came rough, dragged over something raw. “He didn’tknow, obviously. Didn’t sweep it. Didn’t even think to. Just took the keys and drove straight into the fucking fire.”
Sully’s hands curled around the edge of the kitchen table. The tension in his forearms pulsed like cables pulled taut. His knuckles went bloodless. “So he brought a goddamn spotlight to a covert op,” he said, voice low and shaking. “Lit the whole place up like a fucking runway.”
“No.” Bellamy’s voice cracked through the tension like a whip. It wasn’t loud. Wasn’t sharp. But it cut.
We all turned.
She hadn’t moved from the couch. Still curled in on herself, her spine bowed, her arms wrapped so tightly around her middle it looked like she was holding herself together with sheer force of will. But her voice—God, her voice had teeth now.
“He didn’t know,” she said, repeating Quinn’s words. Louder. Worse.
And when her eyes lifted to mine—when they locked—I stopped breathing. Something in her had broken. Cracked wide open. But instead of shattering, it had caught fire. Her gaze wasn’t just hurt. It was burning.
“I know,” I said softly. “I know he didn’t.” But knowing didn’t change a goddamn thing. “By the time I put two and two together, it was already too late.”
My throat was thick. Tight. Dry as ash. “A black SUV rolled up on us,” I said. “No plates. No lights. Tinted windows dark enough to swallow stars. It came in like a ghost—silent, smooth. Like they’d done it a thousand times.”
I hesitated, the memory of that streak of fire seared behind my eyes—the trail that marked Rayden’s end. I didn’t want to speak the words. But I had to.
I looked at Quinn, hoping—for one brief, irrational second—that he might say it for me. That he might lift the weight of it from my shoulders. But he didn’t. He just sat there. Bleedingquietly. Breathing slow. Letting me carry it like he knew it was mine.
“One guy stood up,” I said. “Through the roof hatch.”
Deacon’s voice came low and steady. “Sniper?”
I met his eyes. And I gave him the word that would detonate the rest of the night. “RPG.”
The word hit the room like a live wire dropped into floodwater.
Bellamy screamed — not a sob, not a cry, not even a wail. It was a raw, wordless sound, ripped from the deepest part of her, born in the marrow where grief lives before it has a name. It tore through the room like shrapnel, slammed into the walls, and rattled the bones of the house.
Maddy reached for her instinctively, a hand outstretched, soft with comfort—but Bellamy recoiled. No—shoved her back hard enough that Maddy stumbled. Then she was upright. Barefoot. Trembling. Her whole body shuddered like it couldn’t hold her together anymore.
“No—” Her voice cracked down the middle, frayed and raw, splintering on the air. “No, no, no—he was safe! He thought?—”
Her hands flew to her face. Fists clenched against her cheeks like she could block the image out if she pressed hard enough. “He had a car, Carrick.” Her eyes locked on me, wild and wet and glassy. “You let him—you told me?—”
The words broke off like glass beneath a boot. Her chest heaved, trying to form a sob, but it stuck—lodged somewhere too deep.
I took a step toward her.
She hit the wall.Hard.
