Page 10 of Velvet Betrayal (The Dark Prince of Boston #3)

Kieran

R osie weighed almost nothing, but the snow made it a slog.

I carried her anyway, arms burning, Ruby close behind.

She’d wanted to do it herself, but the drifts kept tripping her up—so when I offered, and Rosie launched herself into my arms like a missile, Ruby didn’t argue.

She just gave me a look that could’ve curdled blood and let it go.

The shed was half-buried at the edge of the yard, shadowed by a dense copse of birch trees. I set Rosie down gently, crouched so we were eye to eye. “You’re killing it,” I whispered. “Just hang tight, okay?”

Rosie nodded, but her mouth twitched like she was about to break into a giggle. For her, this was a game…and that made me feel relieved and terrified all at once. The world wasn’t safe for Callahans…and she was a Callahan. But she was also a kid , and she deserved to be a kid.

Fuck.

Fuck , being a parent was fucking hard.

I primed the ATV, flipped the choke, thumbed the starter. Nothing. Again. Third try, and the engine finally roared to life—loud, guttural, smelling like oil and grit.

“Get on,” I barked, already swinging a leg over the seat. Rosie was light as a snowflake when I lifted her, wedging her between us, puffer jacket stiff with cold. Ruby climbed on behind me, hands on my shoulders for balance.

“Hold on,” I said—and gunned it.

The back wheels fishtailed as we hit the packed trail.

Not ideal. The tires had chains, but not much bite—just enough to keep us moving forward instead of spinning out.

The snow was powder over frozen dirt, which helped, but I still had to wrestle the handlebars through every bend like we were dragging the weight of our past behind us.

Rosie squealed, delighted. Ruby didn’t. One hand locked tight around my ribs, the other braced on the seat. Every time we jolted, I felt her brace harder.

Branches whipped past. I ducked instinctively under a low one, too fast to see if they followed. Snow sprayed in clumps as we clipped a buried root, the ATV bucking beneath us.

Still, for one wild second, I let myself feel it—this heat at my back, this kid laughing into the wind, this impossible, perfect, stolen family.

I checked over my shoulder at the crest of the ridge. The cabin was already gone, swallowed by trees and distance. What hit wasn’t relief. It was that old knot in my gut—the one that always came with a job unfinished. A life interrupted.

We hit the first fork and I veered right, hugging the ridgeline where the trees got thicker. A left past the burned-out mill, like muscle memory. I’d used this route before, back when the stakes were lower. Back when no one was counting on me to make it out alive.

Rosie whooped, arms in the air like it was a theme park ride. “FASTER!”

“We’re not in a race,” I shouted over the engine. “We’re in a plan.”

We jostled over a half-frozen creek bed, and Ruby’s arms locked tighter around me. There was a warning in her grip. Not fear—expectation. Responsibility. Don’t fuck this up. Maybe I imagined the forgiveness in it. Maybe I just needed it to be there.

The trail dipped, the trees giving way to a stretch of brittle birch and maple. I let off the gas and let us coast. Not silence, but quieter. Breathing room. Enough for me to listen—for engines behind us, for boots crunching where they didn’t belong.

Rosie groaned dramatically. “Why are we stopping?”

“Leader’s got to plan the next move,” I said, keeping my voice light. “You good?”

“I wanna go again!” she chirped, twisting to see if the cabin had disappeared. It had.

Then she looked at me. Not past me. At me.

“You’re scared,” she said.

“Not yet,” I lied, and braced for the next move.

Ruby leaned in close, her breath cold against my ear. “How far to the car?” she murmured.

“Quarter mile. We’ll walk. The ATV’s too loud—they’ll be listening.”

She nodded, eyes already scanning the woods. “We have time?”

“We do,” I said, hoping I was right.

We ditched the ATV and slogged through knee-high powder. My legs felt hollow, adrenaline draining out. I parked the machine off-trail and doubled back to a half-buried cut that ran along the stone wall. Ruby caught on instantly, steering Rosie with her, pushing through the drifts.

We hustled. Rosie whined, but Ruby bribed her with promises of mac and cheese, Froyo, hot chocolate, whatever YouTube channel she was obsessed with this week.

We made the walk in under fifteen minutes—miraculous.

At the end of the trail, the shed waited: prefab, ugly, next to a Civic I’d stashed here months ago for exactly this scenario.

The car was dusted with snow. The road beyond was empty. Perfect.

“We’re not going home, are we?” Ruby said.

“Not yet.”

“So where are we going?” She buckled Rosie in, stripped off her own coat, and slid into the passenger seat.

“The Ritz,” I deadpanned, turning the key. The engine whined, then settled into a steady growl. “Room service, yoga for kids, the works.”

She shot me a look, all calculation. “Cute. Real answer?”

I sighed. “I can’t tell you. You’ll get mad.”

“I’m already mad. This adventure was not on my to-do list.”

Her hand hovered on the door handle, knuckles white. She looked ready to bolt, even now, with her kid in the backseat and half the contract killers in New England probably combing the woods behind us. The Civic’s heat kicked in, fogging the windows. Rosie hummed in the back, lost in her own world.

“Least you could do is tell me,” Ruby said, voice low. “That’s the bare minimum.”

“We’re going to see my brother.”

Her head snapped around so fast I thought she’d break her neck. “You’re not taking me to Tristan Callahan.”

“I have to,” I said, and it sounded like a cop-out, so I followed with the ugly truth: “He can make this go away. All of it. He can keep you both safe.”

She laughed, wild and sharp. “No one is safe with Tristan. Not even you.”

“Family is,” I said, glancing at Rosie in the mirror. She was busy drawing smiley faces in the condensation. “You’re family.”

“I’m the DA. Tristan Callahan runs half the docks, two strip clubs, and enough black-market muscle to start a war.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. I work for him.”

“Doing what?” she demanded.

“Well, naturally I’m the muscle,” I said. “You and I both know I’m not the brains.”

“Be serious, Kieran.”

I shrugged. “You asked how I could afford my brownstone. This is how.”

I kept my eyes on the road, not wanting to see her recalibrate everything she thought she knew about me. “I know you hate it, but Tristan will take one look at Rosie and no one on the Eastern seaboard will ever so much as breathe weird in her direction again.”

“You think—” She started to yell, caught herself, and dropped to a whisper. Rosie was already dozing, cheek pressed to the glass, pink from the cold. “You think all you have to do is show up with the world’s cutest kid and he’ll just turn off every contract on me?”

“Yes.”

“And then what?” Her eyes were razor-thin, sharp. “We owe him?”

“No. We leave. I owe him.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

I shrugged. “It’s all I’ve got.”

We didn’t talk for the first stretch. The plow hadn’t hit this road since the storm, so the car fishtailed, tires gambling on every curve.

We drove the Pike at forty, then fifty-five, and in the hush, Ruby finally slumped against the headrest, hand to her forehead like she needed armor from my driving.

I knew, under the exhaustion and shock, she was running a tally: all the ways I could screw her over, all the ways she might still get away. It didn’t matter. This was my last card. If it failed, I’d lose both of them, or worse.

We stopped twice—once for gas outside Springfield, once for a bathroom at a place so camera-proof it was basically a feature.

Ruby kept her hood up, sunglasses on, like a celebrity in hiding.

Rosie, in neon boots, charmed the clerk into handing over Oreos and apple juice.

If anyone filed a report, the kid’s face would wipe it clean.

Back on the road, Ruby kept scanning the rearview, hunting for tails. The darkness thickened, the road iced over, and I drove straight for Boston, hands numb on the wheel.

She waited until we hit the toll road to break the silence. “Are you planning to meet him at the club, or…?”

“I can do the club or his house. Dealer’s choice.”

“You’re not actually giving me a choice.”

“Rosie needs sleep. We’ll hit a hotel, meet Tristan in the morning…but it needs to be his house or his club. I know we’re safe thereSo what do you want?”

“I want you to drop us off at home.”

“Home?” I shot her a look in the mirror, lowering my voice. “You mean the place where Mickey Russell almost killed you and where I saw some asshole lurking around the other night?”

She mulled it over, chewing her cheek, eyes locked on the night. “His house,” she said finally. “If he wants to play at family, let’s go all in.”

There was bitterness, but also a tired kind of acceptance. I nodded. “Alright. His house it is.”

“For the record, I hate this,” Ruby said.

“Cheer up, Rubes,” I said. “At least you’re one step closer to home.”

She almost laughed, then checked to make sure Rosie was asleep before she muttered, “That’s just fucking awesome.”