Page 7 of Carrick
I flinched.
The air in the car felt too thick. My jeans were too tight. The seams of my hoodie scratched at the back of my neck. Everything felt wrong. I wasn’t meant to be here. I wasn’t meant to be some pawn in a game I didn’t understand.
“Almost there.” Mercado said quietly.
I didn’t answer. My throat felt swollen shut. My heart thumped hard against my ribs like it was trying to escape. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, then opened them again. It didn’t help.
The noise of the tires changed from pavement to gravel—rougher, crunching under the weight of the vehicle as we turned down a long, narrow driveway. Headlights illuminated a house that looked like it belonged on the cover of a Midwest real estate catalog—tall, well-built, rustic-chic. The house was three stories of wood paneling with a wraparound porch, and its soft yellow lights glowed like a safe harbor.
It was a lie. I could feel it in my bones.
We parked. Mercado stepped out, closing his door gently, like slamming it might set me off. Maybe it would have. I didn’t move until he opened mine for me. The cold night air slapped me in the face, sharp and sobering. I pulled my duffel over my shoulder, the weight of it grounding me just enough to make my legs work.
The house was beautiful. The kind of beautiful that hid secrets. Every detail was too perfect—trimmed hedges,reinforced porch columns, motion lights that clicked on without a sound. I saw the cameras tucked discreetly beneath the eaves. The reinforced windows. The high fences disguised as landscaping. This wasn’t just someone’s country home. It was a fortress in a farmhouse’s clothing.
A shiver crawled up my spine as we approached the door. Mercado knocked twice—measured, deliberate. Footsteps inside. A pause. Then the door opened, and I came face-to-face with what could only be the man whose name I’d heard more times in the last twenty-four hours than my own.
Nikolai.
Tall. Broad. Dark hair and a trimmed beard hiding a chiseled jawline, and eyes like sharpened flint. He looked me up and down once—assessing, not leering. Still, I tensed.
“Ready?” he asked Mercado, voice low.
“Absolutely,” The detective replied. “This is Bellamy Cross.”
“Good to meet you, Bellamy. I am Nikolai Sokolov. Welcome to our home.”
I just nodded, not sure what to say. Nikolai stepped aside, giving us room to enter. I crossed the threshold and felt the shift immediately—the air cooler, drier. The faint smell of clean linen, leather, and gun oil met my nose. It was spotless inside, every surface gleaming, every object placed with military precision.
No one said it, but I felt it: I was the disruption. I didn’t belong.
Footsteps echoed from the hallway, followed by another voice. “Quinn brought the witness?”
“She’s early,” someone else muttered.
A man rounded the corner into view. He looked like he’d just stepped off a movie set—long, curly hair pulled into a messy bun, dark, tawny skin, cheekbones that could cut glass, and eyeslike molten honey. Dangerous eyes. Beautiful, yes, but sharp and knowing.
“Huh,” he said, stopping a few paces away from me. “Definitely not what I pictured. I was expecting some twerpy accountant. Maybe glasses. Possibly a tragic backstory involving spreadsheets.”
“Carrick,” Nikolai warned.
“What?” Carrick threw up his hands. “I’m just saying. This is more of a… wildcard situation.”
I stared at him, jaw tight. “I’m not a wildcard.”
“Mm,” he said, unbothered. “We’ll see.”
Then came another presence—larger than the doorway should have allowed, a mountain of a man with kind eyes and a gentle smile.
“Ignore Carrick,” he said, voice like warm bread and Sunday morning. “He likes to poke at things until they snap. In the meantime, hi. I’m Sully.”
I blinked up at him. “You’re huge.”
He grinned. “Thanks. I eat a lot of protein.”
Another voice cut in, fast and bright. “Actually, that’s not entirely inaccurate. Sullivan’s diet consists of roughly forty percent lean meats, thirty percent complex carbohydrates, and the rest is coffee and sarcasm.”
A tall man entered next, adjusting his glasses as he talked. “I’m Jax. I do data analysis and behavioral prediction. Also, I run the trivia nights. Welcome.”
