Page 2 of Velvet Betrayal (The Dark Prince of Boston #3)

I willed myself to nod, and not to think about how three days could become years in the Callahan world, or how safety was never a real thing.

A hunger for explanation gnawed at me, but there was Rosie—high-pitched shrieking cackles from upstairs, the sound of pure childhood—a sound so at odds with this abduction.

If it was an abduction. Could one still be 'abducted,' technically, when the kidnapper was your daughter’s father and the safehouse was essentially a vacation rental in Otis?

I mean, yes. Legally, you definitely could. I knew that.

But emotionally—who could argue this one in court?

I pressed the heel of my hand to my eye until the black spots faded. Kieran was already digging through the cabinets—needing to do something, as always.

That was what I admired and feared about him: how effort and ease looked the same on him. How every choice came from that tight coil of certainty.

I left the kitchen, boots squeaking on the laminate, counting the stairs to hold off the tears. We were both faking normal for Rosie.

Both trying.

The stairs opened onto a plain carpeted hallway, everything too neat, too symmetrical.

To the left, the master. To the right, two other doors—one closed, one cracked.

Dusk glowed through the east window. I found Rosie in the middle of a king bed, limbs sprawled like she’d dropped there.

Blankets everywhere. She spotted me and, without missing a beat, rolled over and started pelting me with pillows.

“Hey! Ambush!” she shrieked.

One struck me square in the chest, knocking a grunt from me. “What kind of greeting is that, soldier?” I scolded, but I let a grin edge out.

She giggled, cheeks flushed. Her jacket was already off, hanging from the bedpost. I grabbed a pillow, held it up, considered my odds: brute force or psychological warfare, but either way, it would end in shrieking.

Rosie, for once, sensed my mood and went quiet. She just lay there, arms wide, breathing hard. I set the pillow aside and sat on the edge of the bed. “They’ve got the heat on full blast. Bet you can’t outlast me.”

She reached across my lap for my hand, her grip strong and sticky. “Are we really staying here?” she whispered.

I smoothed her hair, which was already generating its own static field. “For a little while. We’ll go home soon.”

“Okay. Because I told Daddy we’d go to the city together. I want to see the tree at Madison Square Garden.”

“They don’t take it down the first of January, mi amor.”

She was unconvinced. “What if Daddy doesn’t take us?”

I could lie, or I could tell her something that would stick for years. I opened my mouth, and something else came out—soft, unfiltered. “Then I’ll steal you away myself. We’ll have our own adventure. Just us.”

She grinned and, for a moment, the snow outside seemed like old news, the world resolvable. Her little hand clutched mine, so small and pale it hurt to look at.

I knew then—I couldn’t protect her from this. From any of it. But I could show her, and myself, that we still had choices. Even if it was only in the words we used.

I stayed with her until her breathing evened out, until the static in her hair went quiet and the house settled around us.

Downstairs, muffled, the clatter of Kieran in the kitchen. That was familiar, a muscle memory from a different life. When I tried to get up, Rosie pulled me down, curling into my side, all warmth and need.

“Valerie is so nice,” she said. “I like that Dad has a friend.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Is Key your friend like Valerie is Daddy’s friend?”

Her question was a scalpel—clean, precise. “Key and I are…old friends,” I said. I tried to sound casual, but even I heard the gap between the words and the truth. “From before you were born.”

She thought about that, mouth wobbling. She was either going to fall asleep or ask a thousand more questions. “Do you miss when I wasn’t born?”

“I don’t remember it,” I said, which was not entirely untrue. “My brain is all Rosie, all the time. Origin story.”

She rolled over, and for a second, I saw myself in her: the way she scanned the room, the corners, the closet shadow. “What if something bad happens to you?” she whispered, so soft I almost missed it.

I hesitated. There was the right answer, and there was the answer she’d remember.

I tucked her hair behind her ear, smoothed her cheek, wishing I could give her strength by touch.

“If something ever happens to me, you think about all the things we did. Pancakes, subway, the time we fell ice-skating. You remember I loved you so much it could break the world.” My voice dipped. “But I swear, I’m not going anywhere.”

Her eyelids fluttered. “Except maybe to New York.”

I laughed, the sound wet and shaky. “Except maybe to New York. But you’re coming too.”

“Okay,” she said, and tucked her hands under her cheek, and with a tiny sigh, was out.

I waited. For a phone to buzz, for Kieran’s voice at the bottom of the stairs, for the unspeakable to finally show its teeth. But nothing followed except the hush of snow on glass, slow and continuous.

The quiet reminded me of another night, another door that wouldn’t open.

A memory I wasn’t ready to name.

I let myself lie there, curled next to this small human I had made, and buried my nose in the space where scalp met neck, and breathed in and counted.

Not sheep—not tonight.

Just the number of minutes until someone would figure out we were gone.