Page 24 of Velvet Betrayal (The Dark Prince of Boston #3)

Ruby

K ieran was bleeding all over my passenger seat, but I’d seen him worse. Once, a lifetime ago, he’d shown up for a hookup with a knife wound in his shoulder, and I’d patched him up with Walgreens gauze and half a bottle of whiskey before he fucked me until I couldn’t see straight.

This was different.

He wasn’t talking, wasn’t filling the space with that smart-ass bravado he used to keep the world at arm’s length. He just stared out the window, eyes glassy and unfocused, like he was watching the city from underwater.

The napkin he’d been using was soaked through, rusty and limp in his hand. Every time we hit a pothole, his whole body jerked, like his brain was running a system check and coming up short.

“Don’t you dare pass out,” I said, white-knuckling the wheel. “If you bleed out in my car, I’m sending your family the dry cleaning bill.”

He tried for a smirk, but it was more of a grimace. “I’m fine. Just need a nap.”

“You’ve lost enough blood to stock a Red Cross drive. That’s not tired, that’s trauma.”

He pawed at the window switch, missed, then just let his hand flop onto the dash, fingers splayed like he was bracing for impact.

“I’m taking you to the hospital,” I said. “Or at least a minute clinic. Or, hell, a mob doctor.”

He made a sound that was half laugh, half cough. “Don’t need stitches. I’ve had worse from my niece. She’s a maniac with silverware.”

“Kieran, this isn’t a joke.”

He turned, finally looking at me. One of his pupils was huge, the other barely there. There was a tar-black smear of dried blood under his ear. “Not joking. I just don’t want to go in.”

“Because the Crew will find you?”

He nodded, slow. “Because they’ll log it. Too many eyes. Every ER in Boston is crawling with badge-chasers and bored interns.”

I risked a glance at him. “If you’re about to die—”

He peeled another strip of napkin, voice thin. “I’m not. Just let me sleep it off.”

I slammed the brakes at the next red light. He jerked forward, caught himself on the door handle, and winced. “If you go under, I’m calling the DOJ and telling them you’re a terrorist. They’ll have you sedated before you can blink.”

He let out a low, shaky laugh. “How about you take me to Tristan instead?”

I shot him a look. “Your brother is not a hospital.”

“Better than an ER. If you bring me in, I’m dead before triage. At least Tristan will keep me vertical long enough to buy us some time.” He slouched down, voice trailing off. “Also, his couch is better than yours.”

“You’re concussed. You’re probably bleeding into your brain.”

He managed a lopsided smile. “Always been like that around you, babe.”

I gripped the wheel harder and did the math—hospital meant paperwork, meant records, meant another set of eyes on us. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was just too tired to argue.

“Fine,” I said, taking the next exit toward the North End. “Is he home, or do you want to bleed out on the curb?”

“Club. End of Endicott. Just follow the neon,” he slurred.

“You are not bar-hopping with your skull split open,” I snapped, but the adrenaline was already kicking in, the weird high you get from dragging a half-dead man through city traffic. “If you stain my seats, I’ll make sure your next of kin gets the bill.”

He blinked, slow. “You can leave me on the sidewalk. Just text Tristan. He’ll roll a guy out.”

“I’m not leaving you anywhere,” I said, and meant it.

I kept checking his breathing, which went shallow, then weirdly ragged, but he clung to consciousness. By the time I pulled up to the club, he pushed himself off the dash and gave me a shaky thumbs-up.

“Nice parking,” he muttered.

“Can you walk?”

He snorted, but it sounded painful. “I can kill a man for you, but walking’s a challenge.”

He shoved open the door, feet hitting the curb on the third try. For all his tough talk, he looked like he might fold in half if I so much as poked him.

So maybe it was a mistake…but I got out and rounded the front of the car.

Then I–the District Attorney of Suffolk County–walked into a Callahan business without meaning to prosecute them.

The place had valet, but the real staff was the muscle on the steps. The bouncer took one look at Kieran’s face and recoiled.

“Jesus, Callahan. You get hit by a truck?”

Kieran bared his teeth, bloody and bright. “You should see the truck.”

The bouncer just shook his head and held the door—though his eyes flicked to me with something between disbelief and suspicion.

Inside, it was too warm, too dark, the air thick with wine and old secrets. A dishwasher rolled silverware at the bar, and a table of suits clustered in the back. One of them paused mid-laugh when he saw me.

We didn’t stop. Kieran led us down a side hallway, the kind you only see in crime shows—cold, echoing, meant for business that didn’t want daylight.

At the end, a guy in a Red Sox shirt blocked the door with one arm. His eyes landed on Kieran first, then slid to me and didn’t move.

“You’re kidding,” he said.

“Here to see the boss,” Kieran said, not quite slurring.

Red Sox guy didn’t look away from me. “You know who she is, right?”

“I know,” Kieran said.

“Does he?”

“She’s not here to make a case,” I said. “Let him see his brother.”

He gave a tight nod, ducked through a battered gray door, and came back in ten seconds. “Down the hall. First left. If you bleed on the floor, you mop it up.”

He led us partway, then left us to the dark.

I’d always pictured Tristan’s setup as cold and high-tech, but the office was just…

sad. Cigarettes and lavender plug-ins. Off-brand carpet.

A desk that belonged in a tax office. Tristan Callahan himself in a button-down, sleeves rolled, juggling two phones and a wall-sized Excel spreadsheet.

He looked up, took in Kieran’s state, and sighed like he’d just been asked to fix the plumbing.

“Jesus, Kieran. Are you trying to win a Darwin Award?”

Kieran didn’t flinch. “You said you were handling it.”

Tristan frowned…then his lips parted in surprise as he realized what Kieran meant.

“They came after Ruby?”

I shook my head. “They tailed me. He intercepted.”

Tristan’s gaze flicked over his brother. “Looks like the intercept went both ways.”

“He passed out in the car. Can you help him?”

For the first time, Tristan actually looked worried.

He came around the desk, ignored Kieran’s muttered sarcasm, and dropped him into a rolling chair.

Kieran’s bloody palm left a streak on the armrest. Tristan didn’t hesitate—he yanked open a drawer, grabbed a military-grade first-aid kit, and slammed it down.

“Shirt off,” he said, pure command.

Kieran looked at me, shrugged like a kid in trouble, and peeled off his shirt. The real damage was his head—hair matted black with blood, a raw gash above his ear. The rest was bruises and an old scar on his ribs, one I remembered patching up years ago.

Tristan didn’t waste time. He uncapped a bottle of something that burned my nose from three feet away. “This’ll sting,” he warned, then dumped it straight over the wound.

Kieran’s groan was more bark than scream. “You gonna put me down, Doc?”

“I’d sedate you if you wouldn’t kill me for it,” Tristan said, already cutting gauze with surgical scissors. He wiped the blood away with alcohol, didn’t warn him. Kieran didn’t flinch.

“You follow the guy?” Tristan asked, never looking up.

“Not local Crew. Said the jobs are open posts now, gig work for psychos.”

Tristan made a noise, pinched the split until more blood oozed out. “Which means someone’s mass-ordering hits through the platform. Too many contracts for one crew, so it gets distributed. Uber for murder. Fucking adorable.”

He taped the gauze down, tossed the mess in the trash. Kieran’s face was white under the blood, but the bleeding had stopped.

“Better?” Tristan asked.

Kieran rotated his neck, satisfied. “Feels like my head is on a spin cycle, but I’m wet-brained by nature.”

Tristan sighed. “I’m calling the doctor.” He was already texting, screen alive with a thread I’d kill to read. “You wait here. Ruby, water’s in the fridge. Sheets are clean in the guest suite. Nothing to do but let me work.”

Kieran grunted, didn’t move. He let his head roll back, eyes on the ceiling. For a second, it looked like he might pass out for good.

“Stay with him,” Tristan said, and vanished.

I dragged a chair next to Kieran and sat. “Hey,” I said.

He opened one eye.

“I think I’m supposed to keep you talking. So you don’t pass out again.”

He made a noise. “Okay. Where do you want to start?”

Good question. I probably should have been thinking about smalltalk, jokes, stories, anything to keep him occupied…

but all I could think about was Rosie. Rosie with Julian, safe.

Rosie eating an orange Kieran had peeled for her this morning.

Rosie making Kieran wear a glitter sticker on his forehead.

Rosie getting to know her biological father for the first time, only for him to be sitting here now with a head wound.

It wasn’t the first time…but any time could be the last. It was why he couldn’t be her father–not legally, not safely, not in this world where death was waiting around every dark corner.

“You’re not getting a monologue,” I muttered, resisting the urge to grab him and shake him and tell him to be more careful. “If you want to stay awake, you’re helping.”

“Dealer’s choice,” he mumbled. “I could tell you about my childhood. Or you could tell me the first time you regretted losing track of me.”

“Childhood.”

“How dark?”

“Kieran.”

He thumped his head back—grimaced—eyes closed but voice steady.

“Okay. So my dad used to take us crabbing down in Quincy. Early mornings, just us and the junkies, tying raw chicken wings to string. Never caught anything worth eating. Never saw anyone else do it, either. But Dad kept coming back, week after week. When Liam got old enough, he joined in.”

“You liked it?”