Page 124 of Velvet Corruption

I turned away from the sink and forced my body to move. The kitchen was spotless. I had no reason to keep standing here, staring at nothing, feeling like a stranger in my own house. I didn’t even know where Kieran was, even though it felt likehewas the master of this house. Maybe in the living room, maybe making another call.

My feet moved before I could stop them.

Not upstairs. Not past the body.

To him.

He was sitting on my couch, one arm slung over the back, watching me like he’d known I’d come looking for him. He was still shirtless, the ugly wound stitched up and crusted over with blood, and somehow it made him sexier than ever.

I was so weak.

“I finished cleaning,” I said. My voice sounded distant.

He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at me with those green eyes that seemed to see everything.

Even the things I didn’t want him to.

Kieran was hurt, but he didn’t look hurt. Didn’t act like someone who’d just killed a man. He acted like someone who’d just finished a long day at the office.

“Good,” he said finally. “You’ll be fine.”

I should have snapped at him. I should have let my anger fly, but it got tangled up in my exhaustion, stuck in my throat until it was just a hollow lump of frustration and something dangerously close to admiration.

He was too damn calm.

And I couldn’t stand it.

I took a step closer, my hands fisting at my sides. “I don’t even know what fine is supposed to look like right now,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “What the hell happens next?”

He stretched, unbothered. “What happens next is that you go on with your life.”

I barked out a laugh. “My life? Do you even know what my life was before this? How do I meet my daughter’s eyes? How do I prosecute criminals?I am a criminal, Kieran.”

My eyes met his, and the raw honesty in his gaze almost undid me. Of course he knew.

“Look, I’m not the lawyer here. You are,” he said, then pointed at the stairs. “That was self-defense. Someone attacked you. I killed him because you couldn’t. Because he was about to kill you.”

“You’re the second-in-command for Boston’s biggest crime family,” I said. “What do you think that does to my reputation as anti-corruption? What do you think it does for me at all?”

He shrugged. “Keeps you alive,” he said. “And everything will be the same after this. I know it doesn’t feel like that right now, but you get used to this.”

I tried to swallow down the knot in my throat. “You…what? You getused to this?”

Kieran shifted, adjusting himself on the couch like he didn’t have a care in the world. “It’s not the end, Ruby. You just haveto let me handle it. Now, do you have any NSAIDs? Aleve? Ibuprofen?”

I stared at him.

“I have a dead man in my house,” I said. “I just sewed you up with a goddamn sewing kit, and you’re asking me if I have Advil?”

Kieran lifted a brow. “You got something stronger? Because that’d be preferable.”

I wanted to throw something at him. I wanted to scream, to shake him, to make him react to this like a normal person. Like a person who should feel something about killing someone. But he wasn’t normal. And he didn’t feel things the way he was supposed to.

And the worst part?

I wasn’t sure if I did anymore either.

I exhaled, turning away from him, pressing my fingers against my temples. My head was pounding. It wasn’t just the adrenaline crash. It wasn’t just the fact that my body still hadn’t caught up to what my mind knew.