Page 12 of Velvet Chains (The Dark Prince of Boston #2)

Chapter Twelve: Ruby

T he room surged with light.

Not a nice, morning light creeping in through the curtains light. No…this was studio light—light that felt like it was buzzing your brain, harsh as hell, professional-grade. The light bounced off the polished floor, the slick wood of the podium, the nervous sweat on my palms.

My first press conference as District Attorney. Newly elected. Newly swore in. Newly in way the fuck over my head.

It had been three weeks since the attack, and it felt like I was drowning. Not because of the exhaustion that gnawed at me from the inside or the scar on my ribs that was a pulsing reminder of what I had to hide. Because the past had a way of creeping in no matter how far away I pushed it.

I kept my voice steady as I talked about transparency and rooting out corruption…

all while Kieran’s voice was playing on repeat in my head, telling me to touch myself, telling me to lie, telling me how to properly dispose of a body.

The reporters were nice enough. This was just a formality.

Another interview I had to give to make everything seem like it was going exactly the way it was supposed to.

The blazer fit perfectly, but I felt like I was wearing a costume.

Turned out that impostor syndrome didn’t go away just because you were legally elected to office.

It just came back worse. It felt like I’d put a spell on all these people, and part of me wanted to ask them if they were sure they had voted for me.

I told myself it was just nerves. A shaky start before finding my footing.

It felt wrong. But it wasn’t any different than standing in front of a classroom, or at the head of a seminar, or on stage at graduation.

My entire life, I’d been preparing for this.

Every step leading me to where I was. To where everyone expected me to be.

“DA Marquez, how are you finding your first few weeks in office? Are you on track to fulfill the promises you made during your campaign?” Jason asked. Oh, he was around still. That was nice, I guessed.

I tried to refocus my attention on him. “We’re working on it. This office is committed to openness,” I continued. “To prosecuting crime. To ensuring the people of Boston feel protected.”

Protected. I almost laughed at the hypocrisy.

Instead, I stood straighter, letting the words roll off my tongue with confidence I didn’t feel.

The last three weeks had been a blur of decisions, of preparations, of filling in shoes too big and ambitions too small.

And I would have been ready, if Mickey Russell hadn’t broken into my house to try to kill me.

At least that was what I told myself.

My head spun as I moved to the next question, trying not to focus on how surreal it felt to be there. It was a game of survival, and I had to pretend I was winning. Because if I didn’t, they would see the weakness. The vulnerability. The hesitation that threatened to undo it all. To undo me.

It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life, but I pushed through the exhaustion. I pushed through the pain. I pushed through the fear. The tension stretched between who I was and who I had to be, between what I was saying and what I was doing, between the truth and everything else.

Finally, the lights faded. The cameras lowered. I stepped away from the podium and felt my legs threatening to give out. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I wasn’t going to let them win.

Alek walked behind me, down the long hallway to my new office. We greeted a few people as we walked back to my new office. It was nice; since I’d worked here so long before getting elected, I already knew almost everyone.

Alek had been in charge of hiring an interior design firm before my appointment into office, so it didn’t look anything like DA Lenta’s, even though he’d spent the majority of his career in these four walls.

My new office was bright and shiny, like a car fresh off the lot. If, you know…that car had once carried a dead body. The kind that would look great until it fell apart. I closed the door, leaned against it, and tried to catch my breath after the chaos of the press conference.

It wasn’t enough. It never was.

Alek walked in, sat down, undid a button on his suit jacket. “That’ll get easier,” he said.

“When?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. When you don’t have to do it anymore.”

I didn’t even have the energy to laugh. He swiveled the chair to look back at me. “You did good.”

“You’re too nice to me.”

“I am, but you did do well,” he said. “However, we have more pressing things to worry about.”

“My job?”

He shook his head. “I wish,” he said. “No. The feds.”

I sighed. “What happened?”

“Nothing has happened yet,” he said. “The feds took Kieran in for an informal questioning and I don’t think he said anything. But he’s going to go to his fixer and his lawyer will advise him to try and pin things on you.”

I bit the bottom of my lip. “I don’t think he’ll do that.”

“He will do it, if that’s what it takes to protect his family.”

I cocked my head, piecing what he said together.

“Not you. Not Rosie. The Callahans,” Alek helpfully clarified.

I opened my mouth to argue, but I thought better of it–even if, on some level, I truly thought Alek was wrong. Kieran…he’d had every chance to hurt me, and he hadn’t taken it. Still, that didn’t change the fact that Kieran was dangerous. Chaotic. Loyal to a fault , and often to the wrong people.

Still, I wasn’t ready to let go of the version of him I’d seen just a few weeks ago…holding me in the shower, washing blood out of my hair, whispering that he’d missed me.

“Have they been back to my house?” I asked instead. “Have you heard anything since they showed up at the ER?”

“The agents haven’t, but someone has,” Alek said. “It’s hard to tell who’s behind it. It might be them scaring you into cooperation, but this kind of harassment doesn’t feel like their style.”

I took a sharp breath. “What do you mean?”

“Phone taps, maybe. They’re not obligated to tell us, obviously.” Alek replied, his brow furrowing. “I didn’t want to worry you, not with everything else that’s happening, but you’re going to find out anyway.”

I buried my face in my hands. “You think they tapped my phone?”

“Nah, that would look bad since you’re DA,” he said. “But I don’t think they wouldn’t do it.”

“It’s not admissible, is it?” I asked, worried they’d heard Kieran and I when he had called me at one in the morning and he’d have to go to prison for phone sex.

Which was ridiculous. He would go to prison for a lot of other things.

..the phone sex was incidental. Obviously, it drew a connection between us, but that wasn’t illegal. Everything else was.

“No, but they’ll know if Kieran contacts you. It paints a connection and makes it easier for them to go after you if you don’t look careful,” Alek replied, as if he could read my mind. “It’s exactly what they want.”

I rubbed my temple, trying to ignore the headache. “I, uh, had phone sex with him the other day.”

Alek stared at me. “Sorry, what?”

“I had phone sex with him the other day. Well, the other night.”

“Goddamn it, Ruby.”

“I shouldn’t have,” I said. “It had just been such an intense day. I wanted relief. I called him and I…look, it spiraled, obviously.”

“I really don’t need to hear this,” Alek said, his voice dry.

“I’m not going to tell you the details,” I replied.

“Phone sex was the detail.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “I should’ve stopped myself.”

“Ruby, you should’ve stopped him from coming into your life again as soon as you saw him. But you didn’t. And now you’re in deep. I’m not judging you, and even if I was, you definitely could deal with it, but this isn’t about anything other than keeping you safe. Emotionally and otherwise.”

I nodded. Was it really already too late? I wouldn’t let that be true. I wouldn’t let Alek be right about everything, not this time.

He wanted what was best for me. He had always wanted what was best for me.

This time, I was sure—well, almost sure—he didn’t know what that really was.

But there was one thing he did know. We both knew it.

The best way to protect Rosie was to keep me safe.

So what I wanted—how I felt—that mattered very little comparatively.

“I know a guy,” Alek said.

“I don’t want to go on a blind date.”

“It’s not a blind date,” Alek said. “He’s a pro. You would get your itch scratched.”

“You want me to use a…sex worker?” I asked when I had finally processed what he said.

“What’s wrong with that? He would be a consenting adult. You wouldn’t pay him outright, I would do it. There’s nothing illegal here. I feel like it would get you out of your own head.”

I looked at him, trying to process what he meant. Instead, I said the very first thing that came to my head. “Prostitution is illegal in Massachusetts.”

Alek flashed me a sardonic smile. “Thank you, DA Marquez. I didn’t know that.”

“Alek…”

He waved me off. “Lucky for us, I’m not sleeping with him. You are.”

“You’d still be committing a crime. If anyone found out, imagine the scandal.”

“That’s why no one is going to find out.”

The idea of being touched by anyone other than Kieran made my stomach roil…plus, I wasn’t sure if the guy would survive it should Kieran find out. “Have you used their services before?”

“I haven’t,” Alek said. “But I’ve read about them. And I’m not judging.”

“That makes one of us.” I flashed him a wry smile. “Call it my Catholic guilt, okay?”

“Boston’s first female Latina DA,” he said with a dramatic sigh. “Not progressive enough to fuck the guy I lined up for her.”

“Sorry,” I replied. “I know how hard you tried.”

“This is going to get bad,” he said instead of responding to my joke. “I hope you know that.”

I swallowed. “You think I should cut Kieran off.”

“I think you’d be smarter if you did. Then I wouldn’t have to listen to you tell me about your extracurricular activities,” he said. “I’d be grateful for that.”

I cocked my head. “How grateful?”

“Grateful enough to get you through this,” he said. “You’re tough. You’ll do the work. You’ll survive it. I just don’t know if you’ll be DA by the end of it and that scares the shit out of me.”

“But at least we’ll still be alive,” I said, which felt like absolutely poor consolation.

“Yeah,” Alek said. “I mean, I would certainly hope so.”

But right then, I knew hope wasn’t enough. And that…that scared the shit out of me . And even though I didn’t want to admit it, death felt a lot more likely as an outcome than just not being the DA.

I wanted to be the DA.

But more than that, I needed to protect my daughter.

And if it cost me this job, well, fuck it. That was just the price I was going to have to pay. No matter how much it hurt.