Page 20 of Velvet Chains

I was about to hang up when he picked up. “Go for Callahan!” he said cheerfully.

“Liam,” I said. “Where are you?”

I was sure I sounded rough, tired.

“Manhattan,” he said, the bright tone gone from his voice. “What’s up?”

“I—I need to talk to you in person.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “Oh, no. I know that tone. Kieran, what did youdo?”

Chapter Six: Kieran

Ididn’t have time to answer him.

Because it turned out when the feds said they’d be in touch “officially,” what they meant was wait until the lawyer walks off and then pounce.

Agent Hayes materialized in front of me like a bad penny, that smug little smile tugging at his mouth.

“Thought we’d take advantage of the moment,” he said. “Have ourselves a quick, unofficial chat.”

I didn’t blink. “Not without counsel.”

Fitzgerald sighed. “We’re not the municipal police, Callahan. You might have a reputation for lying, but you know how this works. You need to come with us now. We can make it hard or we can make it easy. Do you want people to know you’re being detained?”

I pressed my lips together. I wasn’t afraid of the feds and I had been detained countless time, but if they made this into a spectacle, my brothers would find out well before I managed to put a story together that Tristan would buy.

So I sighed. “Okay,” I said. “Where are we going? I’ll take my own car.”

They looked at each other and smiled. “You’re cute. Come on,” Fitzgerald said, tilting his head to the side.

I didn’t like the way Fitzgerald smiled. It was the kind of smile that said we already know how this ends for you. But I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me sweat. I straightened my jacket, kept my face impassive, and followed them down the hall.

We didn’t go through the main lobby; they took me out a side door near the ambulance intake, which felt weirdly kind. A black SUV was waiting at the curb, engine running, doors unlocked.

“Back seat,” Hayes said. “Don’t worry—we’re not cuffing you. Yet.”

“Chivalry’s not dead,” I muttered, ducking into the vehicle.

The interior smelled like leather and tobacco, making me yearn even more for a damn cigarette. I leaned back against the headrest and stared at the ceiling again. Seemed to be a theme today.

No one spoke for a while. We drove in silence, the city passing us by in blurs of gray and red. I kept thinking about Ruby. AboutRosie. About the way I said I’d rather die if anything happened to Rosie, but I meant for Ruby, too.

We turned off the freeway and started heading toward the federal building. Of course. They weren’t stupid. They weren’t taking me to some anonymous safe house or underground bunker. They wanted me on record.

Fitzgerald turned around in his seat to look at me. “You sure you want to stick with that story?”

I didn’t answer.

“Because once we bring you into that building, it becomes official. The minute we log the time, this turns into a real thing. You’ll be on record. Statements. Lawyers. Warrants. You ready for that?”

Hayes didn’t even glance at me. He just drove.

“I’m not scared of paperwork,” I said, voice low. “But I hope you’ve got yours in order, too. Because if you screw this up—if you come after me without a case—you won’t just have the Callahans on your back. You’ll have every dirty little favor this city owes us hanging over your head like a sword.”

Fitzgerald smirked. “So noted.”

The SUV rolled to a smooth stop in front of the Federal Building, the kind of place where ambition came to die and careers went to get slowly bled out by red tape and sealed files.