Page 35 of Velvet Chains

We stared at each other for a few beats, silence gnawing at both of us. A slant of light cut the room, hitting the cross behind the door. I didn’t think too hard about the symbolism of it.

“I’ve kept my mouth shut about more than this before,” I finally said.

“And look where it got you.”

“Yeah, in your apartment. Eating breakfast.”

“Naked.”

I smirked, trying not to think about how screwed I was. “I’ll take out the sheets before I leave.”

His eyes widened in realization. “Oh, fuck you, Kieran! That’s gross!” he said. “Don’t take out the sheets. Burn them.”

I rolled my eyes, pulling the sheets off and bunching them up. “I’ll take these to the laundromat and see if they have any burning specials.”

“Please do,” Liam said. “Those were nice.”

“They were okay,” I said. “You have better sheets somewhere, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, on my bed,” he replied. “Obviously I’m going to have the better sheets, weirdo.”

I laughed. “Okay. I’m going home.”

“Do you think the feds will be there?”

I shook my head. “Nah, justice works slow. Let’s hope they’re still massively understaffed. Catch you later, baby brother.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he called after me as we walked toward the front door of his apartment. “Try not to break anything between now and then, okay?”

“Little faith,” I said as I started to walk away from him.

“Little dick,” he shot back, laughing.

I laughed too. I might’ve been going to war, and this could’ve been the last time he found it funny. But it was nice to have him on my side.

I just didn’t know how long that would last. And that…that scared the shit out of me.

Chapter Eleven: Kieran

It had only been a few days...I knew she was busy with work, but fuck, it felt like forever. I needed her.

I needed to see her.

I hadn’t.

Not in person, anyway. Not since she called me at one in the morning, breath shaking through the speaker like she wanted me to crawl through the phone and fuck her into forgetting. I almost did—almost got in the car, almost knocked on her door. Instead, I sat on the floor of Liam’s guest bathroom with my head against the cold tile and jerked off to the sound of her voice.

We both knew that couldn’t happen again.

I wasn’t supposed to be near her. She wasn’t supposed to be near me. After the FBI brought me in, after I fed them enough to just keep the sharks fed and keep Ruby’s name out of it, we’d agreed—if you could call her whispering “we can’t do this” andme not hanging up fast enough an agreement—that distance was necessary.

I knew I had to protect her. I knew I had to protect our daughter. But I didn’t believe in distance. Not when it came to her.

So I started watching again.

I kept count. I kept track. I knew where she was most days—watched from across the street when I had to, lingered in alley shadows when I didn’t. She went to work. She took Rosie to school. She ran at sunrise on Tuesdays and sometimes again on Fridays, ponytail high and breathing measured like the world hadn’t caved in around her. Like I didn’t exist. Like we hadn’t bled into each other not even a week ago through a fucking phone line.

I’d called her since. She’d blocked me.