Page 34 of Velvet Chains (The Dark Prince of Boston #2)

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Ruby

T here were seven people in my house. Eight if you counted Rosie twice, which you probably should.

We celebrated the American way and the Colombian way; we went to Church on Christmas Eve and she stayed up as long as she could, but there were more presents for her under the tree when she woke up on Christmas day.

It was late, but she was vibrating with excitement, a blur in fuzzy socks and a red dress she’d picked herself, hair half up in a clip shaped like holly. I’d tried to make her wear tights.

She’d argued that tights were an oppression of the people.

We compromised on a long cardigan and glitter lotion.

In the living room, Julian poured mimosas with the grim precision of someone who had definitely googled “best holiday behavior during divorce.” His girlfriend Valerie laughed too hard at something Natalia said and adjusted her off-the- shoulder sweater like it was a nervous tic.

She had perfect teeth and a voice like a podcast ad.

She seemed perfect for Julian. I was happy for him, I guessed.

Dinner was a blend of too many traditions.

Tamales and roast chicken. Arepas and mashed potatoes.

Nat had brought a pie from the Italian bakery near her office, and Alek had made two enormous trays of spanakopita for reasons no one questioned.

There was store-bought flan and a bowl of green beans no one touched.

Rosie made a point of adding whipped cream to every single item on her plate, including the chicken. Julian had frowned. I let it go.

“God bless us, every one,” she said, dramatically flopping into her chair and knocking her paper crown sideways. Her plate rattled.

“Are you Tiny Tim now?” Alek asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m Big Tim. Tiny Tim’s cousin.”

“I’ve read A Christmas Carol,” Julian muttered, like he wasn’t entirely sure this wasn’t a bit.

“You’re not the boss of the Christmas canon,” I reminded him.

“Obviously,” he said, as Rosie started singing her version of Feliz Navidad—replacing the chorus with police gotta stop me now. No one corrected her.

Mass was in two hours, and she already looked ready to pass out—but she was determined. It was her first year staying up for the whole thing, and she was going to prove she could do it.

“You’re definitely going to fall asleep in the pew,” I told her, smoothing down the back of her dress as she wriggled on my lap.

“Nope. I'm gonna stay awake for baby Jesus.”

“Oh yeah?” Natalia grinned. “What are you going to say to him?”

“Don’t be scared,” Rosie said solemnly. “Everyone looks weird when they’re born.”

Everyone laughed, even Valerie, even Julian, even me.

And for a moment, it felt easy. It felt normal.

“So Martin,” Alek said. “How long have you been living in New York City?”

“My family is from Long Island,” Martin replied, squeezing Natalia’s hand. He was shorter than I expected and far more shy, but handsome, too; in that way where all his features were slightly off but they seemed to marry together to make a very decent-looking man.

Martin didn’t flinch. “I work in admissions at CUNY. The medical school.”

Natalia squeezed his hand again. “He’s being modest. He runs the whole first-year pipeline.”

“Only the early access programs,” Martin said.

Julian nodded like he’d already reviewed Martin’s resume.

I caught Alek’s eye across the table. He looked smug. It was annoying.

Mass started at ten, but Natalia insisted we get there early—“People turn out for Christmas like it’s a wedding,” she said—and she was right.

St. Aidan’s was already glowing, heavy with poinsettias and candlelight.

The smell of wax and incense clung to the wooden beams, and the pews were filling fast with winter coats, gold earrings, and little girls in red velvet.

Rosie walked between Alek and Julian, holding their hands like a tiny peace treaty. She sparkled, literally—her shoes had glitter, and she insisted on wearing the tiara from last year’s Three Kings pageant. She looked like hope.

We were almost to our pew when Julian stopped.

I followed his gaze—and froze.

The Callahans were here.

Front left side. Their whole cursed dynasty occupying a full row like they owned the place. Men in black suits. Women in fur. Kids dressed like Christmas cards. Tristan closest to the aisle, Liam beside him.

And one seat in: Kieran.

He wasn’t looking at me. He didn’t need to. I felt him like gravity. A pulse in the earth.

Julian’s spine straightened, slow and stiff. I saw the shift in him before he said a word. Valerie clocked it too, leaned in, and whispered something that made his jaw twitch.

“This isn’t their church,” I said under my breath, too quiet for anyone but Alek to hear.

He nodded, eyes still forward. “It is tonight.”

We took a pew halfway back on the opposite side. Not because we were scared. But because I refused to give them the satisfaction of confrontation.

I made myself look straight ahead. Not left. Not toward him.

But Rosie didn’t get the memo.

The moment we sat down, she twisted in place, scanning the crowd like she was looking for someone.

“Key!” she whisper-shouted, pointing before I could stop her.

My stomach flipped.

Alek put a hand on her shoulder, gentle but firm. “Inside voice, Ro.”

She didn’t hear him. Or if she did, she didn’t care. Her arm shot into the air like she was trying to flag down a cab. “Hi, Key!”

Across the church, Kieran looked up.

So did the rest of the Callahans.

Tristan’s expression didn’t change, not really—but something in the stillness of it made my blood go cold.

Adriana Callahan, with a toddler on her lap, watched me before leaning in and whispering something to him.

Liam glanced at Kieran, brows rising just a fraction.

A child seated between them—Tristan’s daughter, I thought—looked curious.

Another kid, a boy her age, grinned at Rosie and gave her a little wave.

She waved back, delighted.

Julian turned to me, brows furrowed. “You know the Callahans?”

“Just…she must have seen him at the courthouse,” I said quickly, even though we both knew that wasn’t the case. “She liked his name.”

Julian’s eyes didn’t leave mine.

But the priest was talking and, eventually, he let it go.

Meanwhile…I was in a tailspin. I didn’t know why Kieran was here, why the whole family was here. He said he’d been trying to protect me from Tristan…but Tristan was here. A man who’d put a death threat on my name was here, and he’d brought his family, and maybe…

…what if he recognized Rosie? What if he saw the resemblance between my daughter and his?

What if he already knew?

We made it through the whole service. Rosie didn’t fall asleep.

She yawned hard during communion and leaned against my side with alarming weight, but she didn’t conk out.

Natalia whispered the liturgy in Russian.

Valerie cried during “Silent Night.” Alek rubbed his temple when someone tried to hand him a candle and he accidentally dropped the matchbook.

When it was over, we lingered near the nativity scene in the front alcove.

Rosie insisted on taking a picture next to the donkey.

Natalia and Martin obliged, crouching beside her in front of the plastic hay.

I held my phone like a shield, hoping this ordeal would result in nothing… knowing there was no chance of that.

And that’s when I saw Kieran. Standing near one of the side exits, hands in his coat pockets, his expression unreadable. He didn’t approach. He didn’t even look at me directly. But his gaze swept the group—lingering on Rosie, softening just a hair. And then it slid to Julian. To Valerie.

His jaw twitched.

I felt Alek move to my side like a shadow.

“He wouldn’t,” I said under my breath.

“He already has,” Alek said. “He’s watching the people who could take her. Let’s go.”

We filtered out of the church slowly, bundled in coats and scarves and holiday exhaustion. Rosie was still bouncing on adrenaline, gripping the edges of my coat while she chattered about the candles and the choir and the one very old lady who fell asleep mid-Hail Mary.

Outside, the air was bitingly cold, but the snow had stopped.

A soft dusting coated the cars in the lot, and Rosie took the opportunity to draw a heart on Julian’s windshield while he unlocked the doors.

Alek and Natalia were deep in conversation behind us, Valerie fiddling with her gloves.

Martin offered to walk Rosie to the sidewalk to see the “big snow piles,” but as we both turned to look at her response, we realized she’d wandered a little head, already halfway to a snowbank.

My heart went ice cold.

She was standing in front of two children—the twins.

Tristan Callahan’s twins. The girl had the same thick lashes and serious eyes as her father.

The boy had dark hair and blue eyes. Almost exactly like Liam Callahan had when he was a kid…

according to the single photo Kieran had hanging on the wall of his apartment when we first met.

“Rosie, come here,” I said, but she didn’t respond.

Rosie smiled, oblivious. “I saw you inside. I liked your sparkly shoes.”

The girl blinked, then smiled back. “Thanks. I liked your singing.”

“I was practicing,” Rosie said, completely sincere. “For baby Jesus.”

The boy snorted. “Did you say ‘police gotta stop me now’?”

“That’s how the song goes in our house,” she replied, like that was the most normal thing in the world.

Behind them, a voice called out. “Catherine! Mateo! Let’s go.”

Tristan. Still distant, but closer than I wanted him to be.

Catherine turned her head. “One second, Dad!”

Rosie tilted her head. “That’s your dad?”

“Yeah,” the girl said. “He’s bossy, but my mom really rules the house. What are your parents like?”

Rosie nodded. “I get it. My mom says grown-ups are bossy because their brains are tired.”

Mateo grinned. “Mine definitely is.”

The three of them stood there in a perfect, accidental triangle—cousins, and not one of them knew it. Julian hadn’t noticed yet. He was focused on brushing off the windshield, muttering something to Valerie.

But I noticed.

I noticed everything.

My daughter was so innocent, hands stretched out…a bridge between bloodlines she didn’t understand. She had no idea—no idea that the people she gravitated toward were built from the same brutal stock. That what lived in them lived in her, too.

I opened my mouth, ready to step forward, to gently steer Rosie away—but then Kieran appeared.

He stepped out from behind his brother’s SUV like the fucking ghost of Christmas past, hands shoved in his coat pockets, jaw clenched tight. Snow dusted his hair and shoulders, but he didn’t shake it off. He just…stood there. Watching .

Rosie’s face lit up. “Key!”

Kieran’s expression didn’t change—but his eyes did.

They softened. He looked at her like she was the only thing worth watching.

Like nothing else in the parking lot, in the whole goddamn world, mattered.

And as I watched him watching her, I felt so fucking cruel…

because I was going to take her away from him.

I was going to do it because I had no other choice.

Then Julian turned around and reminded me that this couldn’t be our life.

“Rosie,” Julian said sharply. “Over here. Now.”

Her face fell.

“I was just talking—”

“Now.”

Rosie blinked, startled, and walked back toward us slowly. Alek stepped in front of her, intercepting, crouching low to dust the snow off her boots as a distraction. Natalia reached for her hand. Julian didn’t say anything else, but I saw the fury in his posture. Valerie put a hand on his arm.

Kieran stayed where he was.

Tristan looked between all of us. His eyes narrowed, calculating.

Then Catherine and Mateo ran back to him, and just like that, the moment dissolved.

But it wouldn’t be forgotten.

Not by me.

Not by Kieran.

Not by Rosie, either, who looked back over her shoulder one last time and whispered, “Merry Christmas, Key,” like it was a secret just for him.

And worst of all…I didn’t think I would be forgotten by Tristan fucking Callahan.