Page 99 of Carrick
Her lips parted. “Carrick?—”
“You said you needed something that was yours.” My hand dropped to her shoulder, fingers curling lightly into the sleeve of her hoodie. “So let’s go get it.”
She stared at me like she didn’t believe it. Like she couldn’t.
“You’d risk that for me?”
I shrugged, but there was nothing casual about it. “I’ve broken worse rules for less important people.”
Her lips trembled.
“And Niko?” she whispered.
I huffed out a breath. “I’ve pissed him off before. He’ll get over it.”
She looked like she might cry, and for a second I thought she would. But then she did something worse—she exhaled. Shaky. Soft. Like she was letting go of something she’d been holding onto so tightly it had bruised her ribs.
Her shoulders shook—not with fear. Withrelief.
I stepped closer, and this time, when I pulled her into me, she came willingly. Her hands gripped the front of my shirt. Her forehead pressed to my chest. She wasn’t sobbing. She wasbreathing. Deep and ragged, like this was the first full breath she’d taken in days.
I held her.
And for the first time in too damn long, she let herself be held.
20
Carrick
The night swallowedus the moment we crossed the fence line. Not peaceful, not quiet—this was the kind of dark that clung like wet wool, thick and suffocating, heavy with the taste of coming violence. It sank into your skin, crawled into your lungs, made your instincts sharpen even as it dulled everything else. The kind of dark that whispered: You’re alone out here. And if something goes wrong, no one’s coming.
Bellamy sat behind me on the bike, arms locked tight around my waist, her cheek pressed between my shoulder blades. She didn’t speak, didn’t shift, but her stillness wasn’t calm, it was containment. She was holding herself together with nothing but sheer will, and I could feel every ounce of it in the tremor of her hands.
Before we left, I’d asked how she planned to bring anything back. How we were supposed to carry her life on two wheels without tipping anyone off. She’d just said she had a backpack. That she didn’t need much. That she could carry what mattered.
But the truth wasn’t in her words. It was in her silence.
She didn’t just want the bag. She wanted the ride. She wanted her arms wrapped around something solid. Something that made sense. Something that felt like forward.
She hadn’t spoken since we left the stables, but I could feel the words choking her, the silence between us drawn tight like tension wire. With every mile we put between ourselves and the compound, her grip around my waist got tighter. Not from fear, not exactly, but from need. This wasn’t about a notebook or a photo album. It was about control. Identity. Reaching for the last thread of the person she’d been before her world was shattered and sealed inside a box labeled Witness Protection. She needed to touch the life she’d lost, even if it cut her open to do it.
And me? I needed to let her.
Every mile off the map blurred the lines I was supposed to honor—between protector and partner, professional and personal, the man I was trained to be and the man I became the second she said my name like a prayer.
So far, the plan had gone flawlessly. We’d walked the bike from the barn to a quiet stretch along the north perimeter—one I knew well. I’d killed the GPS, wiped the logs, shut down the cameras for exactly six minutes. Just enough to slip through the blind spot without tripping the alert grid.
Back at the house, our story was solid. We were at my cabin. Off-duty. Alone. Bellamy didn’t want company, didn’t want anyone overhearing the sounds she’d probably be making later. As far as the others knew, we were already half a bottle deep and fucking like rabbits.
That’s what the report would show. That’s what Jax would log when the system synced.
But none of it was true.
The truth was quieter. More dangerous.
We were heading straight into the wreckage of Bellamy’s old life, unsupervised, unprotected, and completely exposed. No team. No backup. No plan B. And I didn’t care. Because earlier that day, she’d stood in front of five trained operatives andbegged to be seen. Her voice had cracked. Her shoulders had dropped. And not one of them moved. No one but me. I’d seen the unraveling in her eyes, the flicker at the edges that said she was two steps from falling apart. The weight she carried was swallowing her whole, and no one else knew what to do with that kind of pain.
But I did.
