Page 68 of Carrick
Her throat worked. “What if I ruin it?”
“You won’t.” I brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “But even if you did… I’d still choose you.”
Her eyes slammed shut. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to mine once more, both hands curling into my shirt now, like she needed to anchor herself to something real.
“I want to believe you,” she breathed. “I really do.”
“Then let me show you how.”
I kissed her—not with heat or hunger, not to stake a claim or stir desire. I kissed her with reverence. With stillness. A press of lips that spoke of quiet promises and the kind of tenderness most people forget how to ask for.
She answered with a kiss of her own—aching, unhurried, full of something deeper than longing. It wasn’t about lust. It was about recognition. About finally being seen by someone who didn’t look away.
And I gave her that. All of it. Not in grand gestures or whispered declarations, but in the way I held her when the kiss faded, when our foreheads touched and our breaths found the same rhythm. I held her like she was already home.
We didn’t move much after that. Didn’t chase the next step. We simply laid there, limbs tangled, hearts exposed, letting the silence stretch around us like shelter.
There was no fire, no thunderclap—just the quiet gravity of staying. Two people, bruised by the world, choosing not to run.
14
Bellamy
Confidence isa delicate myth—one I woke up believing in. It clung to me like the echo of Carrick’s touch, warm and quiet, the illusion of healing wrapped in skin and breath. For a fleeting moment, I thought maybe the pieces of me had begun stitching themselves back together.
But then I walked into that dining room.
And the unraveling began again.
Because safety is not certainty. And calm isn’t comfort—it’s silence dressed in civility, an emptiness where answers should be.
No one was talking about Rayden.
Dinner smelled like garlic and indifference.
Sully had made pasta—something rich and buttery that smelled like garlic and nostalgia, filling the house like a promise no one could keep. He’d been humming Sinatra earlier, swaying to the melody as he stirred the sauce, smiling like the world hadn’t tilted sideways.
The table was full. Steam curled from plates. Silverware clicked against ceramic. Jax leaned back mid-story, gesturing animatedly while Maddy laughed under her breath. Niko passed the breadbasket without looking up.
Not one of them—not a single one—looked like they gave a damn that my brother might be dead.
I sat at the far end, wearing one of Carrick’s T-shirts, the hem grazing the tops of my thighs, the sleeves shoved high near my elbows. My hair was a collapsing bun. I hadn’t changed. Hadn’t eaten. Hadn’t spoken more than a few words. What was the point?
I’d felt like I was crawling out of the dark in Carrick’s arms. But it found me again—quiet, slow, insidious. Carrick hadn’t said much since morning. Niko had spent the day behind closed doors. Every hour without news felt like a countdown.
I wasn’t spiraling. Not yet. But the ground was shifting under me again.
Every swallow burned tight. And every time someone smiled like things were fine, something in me splintered deeper.
“I’m just saying,” Jax said suddenly, his tone light and conversational, as if we were brainstorming over beers, “if the Dom Krovi want to recoup the money Rayden lost, they have to keep him alive. Dead men can’t make good on their debts. So I think it is logical to assume that Rayden is still alive.”
“Exactly,” Sully replied, nodding like this was some kind of reasonable roundtable debate. “If he were dead, someone would have found a body by now. No trail is better than the wrong one.”
I dropped my fork.
It didn’t clatter dramatically; it just hit the table with a dull thud. But the silence that followed was immediate and loud, like everyone at the table had been slapped at once.
“You’re all way too calm for people discussing a missing person,” I said, my voice flat but slicing through the quiet like a scalpel.
