Page 16 of Velvet Chains
Hayes blinked. Fitzgerald’s pen stilled on the pad.
“What?” I asked, my voice too loud in the quiet room.
“I killed him,” Kieran repeated, gaze steady. “Ruby was the target. I intervened. He’s dead. That’s on me.”
Alek looked like he might actually explode. “Are you out of your mind?”
I knew he wanted to say that he told him to stay the fuck away from me, but that would only be incriminating me further, so he wouldn’t do it.
Kieran didn’t look at him. He was too busy watching the agents.
Hayes raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. And where is the body now?”
Kieran smiled, slow and dangerous. “You think I’d be dumb enough to tell you that part?”
Alek put a hand on his forehead. “Christ.”
I swallowed hard, the bile rising in my throat, my heart beating so hard I thought I might faint. “Get out,” I said. “All of you. Now.”
And they didn’t move—not right away. But they would.
Because I was the District Attorney.
And I was done letting men speak for me.
…Even when it was clear, at least, that Kieran would take the fall for me.
Chapter Five: Kieran
Iprobably shouldn’t have confessed to the murder of Mickey Russell.
Okay, I definitely shouldn’t have confessed to the murder of Mickey Russell.
But when I heard the feds badgering Ruby—even though I was definitely not supposed to be there, but it wasn’t like I was going to let her go to the ER without me—I had to step in and do something.
The feds looked at me like I had grown a third head. We were outside of Ruby’s room, in the hallway of a sterile hospital, with Ruby’s best friend—and definitely not my lawyer, apparently—looking like he wanted to kill me.
But also, maybe like he wanted to laugh first.
“Why are the feds investigating a nobody like Mickey Russell, anyway?” Alek asked, the first person to break the silence between us.
Hayes hadn’t left yet. He lingered just inside the threshold of the hallway, eyes locked on me like he was trying to decide whether to pull out a pair of cuffs or call backup.
I wasn’t a lawyer, but there were things I knew for a fact: this wasn’t in the FBI’s purview, and the only person who could bring charges against me, at least right now, was the woman who had just kicked all of us out of her room.
Fitzgerald answered for him, stashing his notepad in his breast pocket. “We weren’t. Not until someone dumped what appears to be his femur in the Charles River.”
That got Alek’s attention. “You found a body?”
“A piece of one,” Hayes said. “And a burner phone we’re still tracing. Russell’s prints were on both. So either your client is lying”—he nodded at me—“or he’s about to be very popular with our forensic team.”
“I’m not his lawyer,” Alek said. Then sighed. “But I guess I am right now. So you can stop talking to him.”
Hayes tilted his head. “You’re going to represent both parties in a potential homicide cover-up?”
“No,” Alek said flatly. “I’m going to represent the woman who didn’t chop someone up and dump him in a river. I’m just trying to stop the guy who claims he did from saying more stupid shit while standing in a hospital hallway.”
I raised an eyebrow, surprised by the sudden legal defense. “You’re doing great so far.”
