Page 44 of Carrick
Not anymore.
“You ever get tired of holding other people’s shit together?” I asked, my voice muffled against his chest.
He huffed a quiet laugh. “Only when they don’t deserve it.”
“Do I?”
His hand paused.
Then resumed its slow motion, just a little firmer. More certain.
“You earned last night,” he said. “And this morning.”
That didn’t answer the question.
But maybe it didn’t have to.
“I keep thinking about the last time I saw Rayden,” I murmured. “He’d just started a new job. Said it was boring. High pay, low stress. Too good to be true. I should’ve asked more questions. By the time I figured out he was in the mafia, it was too late for me to get him out.”
Carrick didn’t reply.
His silence wasn’t passive—it was permission.
So I kept talking.
“We fought,” I admitted. “Not a huge fight. Just... I was mad he didn’t tell me where he was living. He kept moving around, wouldn’t give me a number that stuck. Said it was safer that way. That I didn’t need to know everything.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “And now, I know too much, and I feel like I don’t knowanything.”
I felt Carrick’s breath slow. Felt his chest rise beneath my cheek like the tide.
“You’ll get answers,” he said. “We’ll get them.”
I looked up. “You believe that?”
“I do.”
He didn’t blink when he said it. Didn’t smile. He just meant it. And for the first time since that message hit my burner and changed everything, I let myself believe it—just a little.
I shifted, let my legs tangle with his, leaned more of my weight into him. He held me like it cost him nothing—and maybe it didn’t. But it meant something. To me.
I wasn’t sure when it started, but my eyes stung with that sharp, hot pressure—grief and exhaustion colliding in a place no sleep could reach.
Carrick noticed before I could blink it away.
“You need sleep,” he said gently.
“I won’t be able to.”
“You will. You’re safe here.”
It should’ve sounded like a line. But it didn’t. It sounded like a vow.
“I’ll stay,” I said, a whisper against his throat.
“I know.”
He pulled the blanket back over both of us without shifting me off his chest. His heartbeat was slow. Solid. Steady.
