Page 6 of Carrick
“Then I file a report saying I strongly advised protective custody, and you walk out of here on your own. And I wait for the call that they found your body in a dumpster.”
I pressed my face into my hands, breathing through the rising panic. “This isn’t real.”
“It is,” he said gently. “And I know it’s not fair. But it’s the only option that keeps you breathing.”
“Why does this have to fall on me?” I whispered. “I’ve always been the one to clean up his messes. Always. I kept him fed when foster care forgot about us. I kept him in school when he wanted to drop out. I got him into rehab, twice. And now… now they wantmeto pay for whathedid?”
Mercado’s eyes softened. “Because they know you’re the only thing he has left. And they think you’re weak enough to break.”
“Then they don’t know me at all.”
Rage curled up under my skin, mixing with the fear. I didn’t want to be protected. I wanted to fight. To find Rayden. I wanted to rip the people who did this to him apart, bone by bone.
But I couldn’t. Not from here. Not like this.
He slid a piece of paper and a pen toward me. “Write down anything essential you need from your place. I’ll have someone retrieve it. I’ll be taking you to the safe house tonight.”
I stared at the paper for a long moment. Then I picked up the pen and wrote down as many essentials as I could think of. My brain was so scattered, it was difficult to keep anything straight.
I handed it back soberly.
“I’ll be back soon,” Mercado said. “Rest if you can.”
“And please ask my neighbor, the one in 14B, to watch my cat. She’s taken care of him before, he knows her. He’ll be safe there.”
Mercado nodded and walked out. The door clicked shut.
And I was alone again.
YOU’RE ON THE HOOK NOW.
I couldn’t run from it. Couldn’t scream loud enough to drown it out. It had already wrapped itself around my throat, slithering into my chest and squeezing like a vice. I was in too deep, caught in the current of something dark and violent and far beyond anything I’d ever prepared for.
But I wasn’t going to drown quietly.
The Dom Krovi thought I’d break. That I’d fold under pressure. That fear would make me obedient.
They forgot one thing?—
I’ve walked through fire before.
And if I’m going down, I’ll take every last one of them with me.
3
Bellamy
I didn’t knowwhat I expected from the drive out to the safe house, but it wasn’t this silence. It wasn’t this long stretch of endless road, broken only by the low rumble of tires over cracked asphalt and the occasional flash of headlights blinking past in the dark. It wasn’t this gnawing ache in my chest, like my ribs had wrapped around something sharp and wouldn’t let go.
I sat stiffly in the passenger seat of the unmarked SUV, arms crossed, body tense, like if I moved too suddenly I’d shatter. Outside the window, the city bled into rural Missouri plains—wide open spaces slowly tightening into tree-lined roads and heavy shadows that pressed in like fog. Somewhere beyond those trees, someone knew my name. Knew my face. Knew I had a brother worth punishing.
I kept my gaze fixed on the passing blur of the dark landscape. I didn’t dare look at Detective Mercado. Not because I didn’t trust him—he was one of the few people I did trust—but because if I caught even a flicker of sympathy on his face, I might fall apart.
My fingers twitched in my lap. I hadn’t even unpacked the emotions yet—fear, anger, guilt, panic. They were all tangled together, fighting for space in my chest. I felt like I was on theverge of crying and throwing up and passing out, all at the same time.
My mind filled the silence with imagined sounds; Rayden’s laugh, distant and mischievous. The hum of our old apartment’s broken fridge. The sound of my voice cracking as I tried to sing Rayden to sleep when we were kids.
The thud of a severed finger hitting my kitchen table.
