Page 26 of Velvet Betrayal (The Dark Prince of Boston #3)

Ruby

I didn’t give Kieran a choice about the car.

He tried to brush off my help—something about pride, or dignity, or the Irish—but I’d seen enough blood for one night, and he was barely vertical.

We staggered up the basement stairs, out into the dead gray city, and for a second, the cold air felt like a slap.

The city didn’t care that we’d survived. It never did.

I got him home. His place, not mine. I wasn’t about to drag a bruised, bleeding man through my own front door for the neighbors to see. Kieran, on the other hand, probably made a habit of it.

He crashed on the couch before I’d even finished locking up. Slumped sideways, one leg dangling, looking more like a battered animal than a man. The gauze on his temple was already slipping, the edge soaked through with something dark and ugly. I thought about fixing it. Didn’t.

For a while, I just watched him. There was something weirdly soft about his face when he slept—lashes sticky with dried blood, mouth refusing to settle, even in unconsciousness.

I watched the rise and fall of his chest, the slow drag of his breath, and let the rest of the world dull down to two frequencies: the static in my own head, and the low, wounded rumble of Kieran’s snoring.

I wondered how many nights he’d done this—stumbled home alone, slept it off, woken up with a splitting headache and gone back out to get his ass kicked again. I didn’t like the idea of him alone and bleeding. I didn’t like the idea of him alone at all.

My chest ached. I rubbed at it, annoyed at my stubborn desire to take care of this walking disaster.

The city was quieter with every window locked and deadbolt thrown.

I put the kettle on, sorted junk mail, stacked towels, wiped the counter twice for no reason.

Anything to keep my hands busy. Every now and then, I’d tune in to the couch, just to make sure he was still breathing.

My phone buzzed a couple times from the far end of the kitchen island, but it was only legal assistants, judges… not Rosie, not Julian, not Alek..

Everyone always needed something.

Kieran needed me more.

Kieran would wake up starving. I was, too.

I wasn’t in the habit of cooking for men, but I poked around his fridge anyway.

He’d once joked that the Callahans didn’t trust anything green unless it was cash, and the fridge proved his point by offering only two shrink-wrapped pizzas and a carton of orange juice that looked like a biohazard.

I tore the plastic off a pizza, shoved it into the oven, and stood there with my hands over the coils, letting the heat burn the edge off my nerves. The whole day had left a weird, crawling dread under my skin. Not fear for myself, exactly—just a sense that nothing was going to get easier.

Like the city was a frozen lake, and all it would take was one crack to send us plunging into the dark.

Halfway through the bake, I heard him move. Couch springs, a grunt, the slap of his palm as he tried to lever himself up. “Smells like actual food,” he croaked, voice raw and jagged.

“Don’t sit up,” I said, which of course meant he did.

He squinted at the kitchen lights, face hollowed out and bruised, but his hands worked fine. He peeled the bandage off, winced at the pull, then held his hands up like a magician after a trick. “You gonna feed me?” he asked, that grin already in place.

I’d mangled the pizza, cheese sliding off the crust, but he didn’t care.

He tore into it like he hadn’t eaten in a week.

I waited for the comment—something about maternal instincts, or fate, or how we’d ended up here, orbiting each other in this slow-motion disaster.

But he just ate, fast and silent, and then sat back, breathing hard.

I cut a slice for myself. The silence stretched, then coiled tight. This was always the worst part for me—not the chaos, but the aftermath. The waiting, the not knowing, the moment where you realized safe was just a rumor.

He finished and set his plate down, tilting it so the oil pooled at the edge. “They’re going to try again,” he said.

I didn’t look at him. “I know.”

“I can keep them off, for a while. But it’s exponential now, Rubes. Too many buys, too much spillover. It’s not just you. Your office, anybody close to the Crew—they’re picking targets in waves. Click-and-collect.”

I watched the oil snake down the crust. “You want to run?”

“Not yet.” He wiped his mouth, jaw clenched like he was holding back something bigger.

“I don’t know where you’d be safer than here.

Tristan’s planning something, but he won’t say what.

He’s got no plans for you or the kid except to hunker down and let the city set itself on fire.

” He stared at his plate. “You could still turn me in, you know. If you timed it right, you’d get some political capital.

Get yourself off the board for a while. Maybe even keep your job. ”

I spun the pizza cutter in my hand. “You always figured I’d flip on you?”

“In my experience, everyone’s one Hail Mary away. If you can’t lie to the world, you lie to yourself. Better odds that way.” He picked at the crust, tearing it into shreds. “But I never thought you’d actually do it. Not to me. But…Alek’s right. You need to protect yourself.”

Shit. I needed to call Alek. I’d seen him at work today, but he’d made me promise I would call to give him more details about what the hell was going on, and I’d done a pretty bad job keeping him in the loop so far.

“I don’t need to turn you in when you seem hellbent on doing it yourself. You told the FBI you killed Mickey Russell.”

“I did,” he said. “And I would again.”

“Kill him or tell them?”

He looked up, eyes too clear for someone that battered. “Anything,” he said. “Anything to protect you, Ruby.”

He let it hang, waiting for me to shoot it down. Instead, I reached out and touched the cut above his eyebrow, tracing it with my thumb.

“Did you?” I said. “Protect me, I mean.” The words tasted old, like something I’d said before. “The more you try, the more it just comes back around.” I pressed gently, felt his eyelid twitch.

“Better me than you, Marquez.” He said it like a fact, not a plea. “You could take Rosie. Get on the next flight south. Start over somewhere else.”

“What makes you think I ever wanted to leave?”

He looked away, staring at the wall like he could punch a hole through it.

In the window, the city’s blue light flickered, and his reflection doubled against the glass—blood and bruises mapped onto the skyline.

For a second, it was almost beautiful. The kind of beautiful you never let yourself admit.

“You don’t quit,” he said finally. “Even when you want to. Even when it’s poison.”

“Stop acting like you’re the only one who knows how this ends.” I gathered the plates, rinsed them, and left him at the table. “If you’re eating, you’re not dying. That’s house rules.”

He stood, wavering in the doorway, like there was something else he wanted to say. I dried my hands, turned, and he caught my wrist—so sudden I almost dropped the plate.

“You know my mother never once told me she loved me?” He said it into the quiet, not sad—just matter-of-fact. “She did what mothers do—kept us alive, got us to school, but love wasn’t a word for people like her. Like us.”

“That’s fucked up.”

He shrugged. “I had Catherine. Tristan’s mum. My stepmother. She was lovely.” He smiled, then winced. “Still can’t figure out if it hurt more when my dad killed Tristan’s mum or mine.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, half-laughing, then stopped. “You’re not. You’re efficient. That’s what I always liked.” He let go of my wrist, turned the tap on full blast. “You know what the upshot of being raised that way is?”

I shrugged.

“It means every time I tell you I love you, it’s a choice.

Not instinct, not hormones, not my parents’ mess.

I mean it.” He flicked water off his fingers, eyes catching mine just as city light slashed across his face and made him look younger, more dangerous, more like the Kieran who’d ruined me and haunted every rebound since.

I swallowed hard. “Why do you think I never made it work with anyone else?” I said. “You ruined me. There wasn’t anything left for anyone else.”

“I ruined you?” He laughed, disbelieving. “You ruined me.”

For a second, I almost said it—the whole dark joke of us, how every man since had to measure up to the Kieran-shaped hole in my life. But no. I wasn’t about to give him that.

Instead, I pressed my palm to his chest, like I could stop his heart if I wanted. “Maybe we just broke each other,” I said, and even though I meant it as a joke, it sounded a lot like truth.

He touched the new stitches above his eye. “Or maybe,” he said, slow, “we’re just the only ones stubborn enough to keep patching the breaks.”

That was always Kieran—hopeful, reckless, impossible. I wanted to laugh, to cut him down, but instead, I just let my head fall against his chest. He wrapped his arms around me, gentle, and for a minute, we stood there, counting down the seconds before the world tried to take it away again.

“Go to bed,” I said, voice muffled.

“You’re bossy.”

“Only way to keep you alive, Callahan.”

He spread his hand over the back of my head, covering half my doubts. “You’re the only one who ever could,” he said, and for once I didn’t argue. “I’ll go to bed if you come with me.”

I should have said no. Should have told him this couldn’t happen, not again.

Instead, I nodded.