Page 8 of Velvet Chains (The Dark Prince of Boston #2)

Chapter Eight: Kieran

T elling Liam would change everything.

I knew that. Had known it all day while I paced my house like an animal, the weight of what I’d done sinking deeper with every hour.

Every time I closed my eyes, I felt her again—her skin under my hands, the heat of her breath on my throat, the echo of her voice in my bones.

And over all of it, the sick knowledge that I had killed a man to keep her alive. That I’d do it again.

By the time I got to Liam’s building, I wasn’t even sure what I planned to say.

His apartment didn’t smell like anything. No cologne, no stale coffee, no old takeout containers shoved in the sink. Just sterile, scentless quiet. The kind that crawled up your spine and settled under your skin.

I stepped inside and shut the door behind me, automatic. The floors gleamed. The leather couch looked like it had never been sat on. Everything was sharp, angular, expensive.

It looked like a catalog spread. Or a tomb.

And yet—it felt like Liam. Stripped down, hard-edged, all surface. A place where nothing could touch him.

Until now.

He had driven back from the city as soon as I had called him and he was waiting for me in his apartment, which was right by the bay area.

I had every code to get into the place, but I rarely visited him here.

I saw him a lot; at dinner parties with Adriana and Tristan, whenever we hung out with the kids, at church sometimes.

We worked together all the time—on books, clubs, contracts, the kind of things that didn’t leave a paper trail. Tristan trusted us both. Separately.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust us together.

It was just that, after the marriage with Adriana and the Orsini-Callahan union, he had more pressing things to worry about.

It was busy, being a mafia kingpin and a family man, expanding and defending an empire that always seemed as fruitful as it did fragile.

Over the years, Liam had slowly become more guarded.

I couldn’t blame him—this life didn’t exactly leave a lot of space for emotional intimacy and seeing your girlfriend get killed in front of you would probably fuck anyone up.

But the core of him, the things that had made him our snarky kid brother, hadn’t really changed.

He was still all dry wit peppered with being just annoying enough to either get on our nerves or make us laugh, and as I’d gotten older, I’d only learned to appreciate him more.

Tristan always had to take everything so seriously. It was nice to share some DNA with someone who got that all this mafia shit was, at the end of the day, absolute fucking bullshit.

"You look like you're about to stage an intervention," came his voice from somewhere inside, smooth and amused. He padded out from the hallway in socks and a half-buttoned shirt, tousled hair like he’d just rolled out of bed and decided he looked good enough to greet death.

Which, honestly, was pretty on-brand. He gave me that stupid little grin of his, the one that said he’d already sized me up and was now watching for entertainment. "Drink? Or is this one of those drop-in-to-cry-about-Tristan visits? Because if so, I’m gonna need tequila."

I didn’t smile. I didn’t move.

The grin faltered—just slightly. He caught the shift in the air.

"Okay," he said slowly, heading to the bar. "Definitely tequila."

“I told you I was coming.”

“Yeah, but I thought you might’ve been playing it up a bit,” he said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, lad, but you can be a bit dramatic sometimes.”

I grunted, at a rare loss for words. Sometimes I felt like maybe I wasn’t dramatic; maybe I was the only one who was sane in our family, who had actual, reasonable reactions.

I mean…our uncle had slit Liam’s girlfriend’s throat in front of all of us years ago and he had barely been nineteen.

If he didn’t think that was dramatic enough to elicit a reaction, how big of a deal was me having a secret daughter?

“You’re quiet,” Liam said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you quiet.”

“I think I might’ve used up all my clever insults about your face.”

He smiled. “I’m offended,” he said. “I’m handsome, and as you know, I’ve never done anything wrong. You gonna make me drink alone?”

“After the last few days, I might drink all your tequila.”

“Perfect,” he said. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to get rid of it.”

I pushed away from the wall, crossed the room, and took a seat. It was too comfortable, the leather soft and perfect, nothing like the kind of places we were used to. Nothing like what we deserved.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” I said, the sarcasm thick enough to taste.

Liam laughed, setting two shot glasses on the table in front of us, the tall bottle of tequila sitting between them. “You mean the part where it’s not condemned?”

“You should be an industrial cleaner. I hear there’s a lot of money in that.”

“What a coincidence,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes. “I already am.”

He flopped down next to me as I kicked off my shoes, shrugged out of my coat.

“Thanks for considering my carpet,” he deadpanned, looking down at where I’d tracked mud in.

“Mm,” I muttered. “You’re so welcome.”

Then I put my feet up on the coffee table.

Liam didn’t even try stopping me.

“You didn’t make me come back from the city for a work chat over shots, did you?” he asked.

I shook my head, my mouth dry. “No,” I said. “There’s a good reason. I’m just too sober for it.”

“Drink,” he said.

I tipped the glass into my mouth and let the drink burn the back of my throat. “Slàinte.”

“Slàinte mhath,” he said, taking a sip of his drink.

“Why were you in Manhattan?”

“Business, then pleasure,” he said. “The waitress just happened to be free. She was a maid at a fancy Manhattan house and the people she worked for happened to be away.”

“Sounds fun.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t bad. She didn’t love that I had to leave before it got dark, but such is life,” Liam replied. “Anyway…maybe that’s why you seem so stressed. Maybe you just need to get laid. When’s the last time you had sex, anyway?”

I rolled my eyes. “Last night.”

“I don’t know if paying for it counts.”

I wished I could’ve laughed, but…I mean, where did I even start with telling him how this had all gone down? “I’m just going to say this one time, and I’m not going to clarify anything because I’m still wrapping my head around it.”

Liam watched me, not saying anything yet.

“Okay, so…I used to go out with this woman years ago. We broke up. Well, honestly, I dumped her. I, uh, stopped answering her calls. Anyway, it turned out she wasn’t calling me to get back together with me. She was pregnant.”

His eyes widened. “Wait. Really?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Really. And…”

“She found you and is asking you for backdated child support?”

I laughed, a little bitterly. “No,” I said, pouring myself another shot. “Kind of wish that were the case, to be honest, but no. She, uh, doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

“Can’t blame her for that. Who’d want anything to do with you?”

“You’re not funny.”

“I’m a little funny.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s not the point. And, well, now Tristan might want to kill her.”

Liam considered this information for a few seconds. “Because she kept this from you.”

I swallowed, looking at the image of his distorted TV through the liquid swirling in the tiny shot glass. “Well, no,” I said. “Because she’s the newly elected DA of Boston.”

His head snapped back. “Fuck me. You’re serious.”

“Dead serious.”

“Does Tristan know?”

“He knows about the break-in. Knows I killed the guy who did it.”

“And he’s… okay with that?”

I exhaled hard. “He saw it as a missed opportunity to let someone else do our dirty work. But yeah. He knows. What he doesn’t know is the rest.”

Liam narrowed his eyes. “You’re stalling.”

“Because what comes next is worse.”

“This gets worse?”

I stared down into the glass. “The FBI showed up at the hospital asking questions. About the body.”

Liam didn’t speak. Just waited. He already knew.

I cleared my throat. “I confessed.”

He blinked. “To Ruby?”

“No,” I said. “To the Feds.”

Liam dragged a hand down his face. “Jesus fucking Christ, Kieran.”

“I know.”

“Does Tristan know about that?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. And he sure as hell doesn’t know Rosie’s mine.”

Liam reached for the bottle. “Well,” he muttered, “that’s gonna be a fun family dinner.”