Page 89 of Carrick
Carrick stood the second he saw my face.
I didn’t stop moving.
“Did you hear me?” I snapped. “I’mdone.”
“Bellamy—” Carrick’s voice came low, measured, already trying to corral the moment.
“No,” I cut him off. “Don’t ‘Bellamy’ me. Don’t start with your soft tone and your calm voice, like you’re going to calm me down.”
I planted myself in the center of the room, feet wide, arms folded across my chest like armor. My pulse was wild. My lungs felt too tight. And still—no one moved.
“Well?” I demanded. “Anyone going to tell me what the hell is going on? Or are we just going to sit around playing house while my brother fuckingvanishes?”
The silence was a slap.
Jax blinked at me. “Damn, Bell…”
“Don’t ‘damn, Bell’ me either,” I snapped, rounding on him. “You’ve all been so busy acting like this is business as usual, likenothing outside these walls matters, but I’m not playing that game anymore.”
“We’re not playing,” Niko said flatly. “We’reworking. You just don’t see all of it.”
“Then show me.” My voice cracked, but I held firm. “Prove to me you’re not just letting him fade into some cold case file while I sit here like a goddamn hostage, pretending it’s all okay.”
Carrick flinched.
Good.
Because itwasn’tokay.
I turned on him, furious. “You promised me we’d keep this real. That you wouldn’t try to fix what can’t be fixed.”
“I meant that.”
“Then why are you looking at me like I’m the problem?”
He stepped toward me. “Because you’re hurting. And you’re turning that hurt into a weapon.”
I barked a bitter laugh. “Iama weapon. That’s what happens when the people I love disappear and I have no answers. When the people I trusted—you—start acting like I should just sit down and shut up while they clean up the mess.”
“This isn’t about trust,” Niko cut in. “It’s about containment. About doing thisright.”
“Fuck ‘right.’ I want results.”
Carrick’s tone sharpened. “And what exactly do you think you’d do with those results? Storm into a mafia stronghold? Pick off leads on your own?”
“If I have to,” I said, deadly calm. “If it gets me closer than all your ‘containment’ has.”
That pushed him. I saw it in the flicker behind his eyes, the subtle shift in his stance—something dangerous surfacing. “Bellamy. Breathe. Now.” The command cracked through the room like a whip, sharp and practiced. My spine stiffened. Hewas doing it—slipping into that voice, that presence, the Dom he knew I couldn’t ignore.
Except this time, I could.
“No,” I said, cold and cutting. “You don’t get to do that here. You don’t get to pull rank like I’m some bratty sub acting out in a scene. This ismy life. This ismy fucking brother. And I didn’t give you power over that.”
His expression shuttered, but his jaw twitched.
“That dynamic stops at my skin,” I said, voice shaking with fury. “And youdon’tget to use it against me when I’m drowning.”
No one breathed.
