Page 90 of Velvet Chains

I sighed heavily, resisting the urge to put my face in my hands. “Yeah, my secretary has been doing the same thing.”

“Are you in trouble, Ruby?”

“Not…exactly,” I said. “Not yet. But there’s a chance some legal shit goes down and I want Rosie to be protected. Above anything else, I need her to be protected.”

“From what?”

God…it was so much worse than the DOJ. Julian was still living in a world where people threatened you with legal filings. Meanwhile, I’d seen a man die, authorized his dismemberment…and now Tristan Callahan had decided I would be dead by the end of the week if I didn’t act to stop him.

Rosie needed her father.

She needed Julian, if…if I was gone.

“You were right,” I said, and the words tasted bitter in my mouth. “There is inherent risk in being a DA. I should’ve relied more heavily on you to start with. So this is me, eating my words. I need your help. I need to keep our daughter safe.”

He adjusted his gloves, exhaled hard. “Okay. You’re not wrong. The Uniform Parentage Act makes this clean. But I’ll need to update my will.”

“I assumed you already had.”

“I have. Just not with the assumption that I’d be…a parent.” He shook his head once, like he couldn’t believe we were having this conversation at a playground. He was, in every way, Rosie’s dad. We had never gotten this squared away because it hadn’t mattered. “So, you’re filing?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet. But soon.”

He gave me a sidelong glance. “You always said we’d do this when the time was right. And now you’re saying it like there’s a clock running.”

“There is,” I said.

He studied me. I could feel it without looking. “You think someone’s coming after you.”

“I think it’s possible,” I replied. “And if something happens, I want it to be easy. For her. For you. No blood tests. No custody disputes. No questions.”

Julian nodded slowly. “You’ll stay in the condo?”

“Yes. It’s what she’s used to.”

He looked out over the park, watching Rosie climb. “She won’t like it.”

“No,” I said. “But she’ll understand. Eventually.”

“And you’ll file for sole physical custody before the adoption, then relinquish afterward?”

I smiled faintly. “I knew you’d catch that.”

He looked over at me again. “You’re scared.”

I didn’t deny it.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll have my lawyer draw up the paperwork. Quietly. No filings until you say go.”

“Who do you have?”

“Sugar,” he replied, a smile on his face. “She owed me a favor.”

“You got Sugar? Fuck!” I said, quietly. Sugar’s real name was Susan O’Malley, and she’d gotten her nickname from how polite she was…all while being extremely fucking ruthless. “Oh, no. I’m screwed.”

“You snooze you lose, Marquez. Who do you have?”

“Albert Kotak,” I said.