4. Chapter Four Kieran
Chapter Four: Kieran
T ristan had summoned me.
It was so weird to think that, years ago, before he got married to Adriana, before the Callahans finally took over Boston, before everything that had happened, it would have been my father.
And we would have met at the pub, not his home office.
Tristan preferred to run things from home; closer to his wife, the twins, the baby.
We were doing dinner later anyway, so this was the perfect excuse.
I stepped into Tristan’s study just as Boston’s waning light fought through the harbor mist, casting a pale glow over his fortress of paperwork and leather-bound books. He didn’t look up, but I felt his awareness of me as tangible as the tension coiling in my gut.
“Sit,” he said, not a request but a command.
Tristan leaned back in his chair, an admiral at the helm of a steel and mahogany ship, his suit crisp, his fingers steepled together. The sun did nothing to soften the hard lines of his face; if anything, it etched them deeper. He’d let his beard grow, and his hair was turning white at his temples.
I took the offered seat across from him, straightening my tie out of habit. My mind raced, considering angles and exits. It was stupid; my brother wasn’t dangerous, and his office was so tastefully decorated and airy that it looked like it belonged in a fancy AirBnB. But old habits die hard.
“Where’s Liam?” I asked.
He smiled. “Playing tag outside with the twins,” he said. “You can go join them in a minute.”
I waved him off. “No, no. I’d rather have a stupid business meeting with my dumb brother than hang out with my two favorite people.”
He smirked.
“Yeah, I’d rather be playing tag with them too. Unfortunately, we have a problem, and I want to get ahead of it before it gets worse.”
I groaned. “Hopefully an easy problem to solve?”
Tristan tapped his fingers on a ledger in front of him, his computer closed under it. “I don’t know yet,” he replied. “Let me just get into it?”
“You got it, boss.”
“Hey, fuck you,” he said, smiling. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m just putting off the inevitable. Talk to me.”
He sighed, sinking into his chair. “Your work with distribution…it’s been solid. The Family’s never run smoother on that front.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “So why do I sense a ‘but’ coming…?”
“However,” he continued, opening his computer after moving the ledger aside. “There’s something that’s come up now, and I think it might become an issue.”
Tristan swiveled the monitor toward me, and there she was: Ruby Marquez.
I froze.
Not visibly, not enough for him to notice.
But inside, something twisted tight. She looked different now—dark hair straightened to sharp angles, lips pressed into a hard line, eyes like they could slice through steel.
She wore a tailored black suit and the kind of stare that dared anyone to try her.
I studied her like it was any other dossier. Like I hadn’t once known the exact sound she made when she came. Like I hadn’t memorized the constellation of freckles along her ribs. Like her name didn’t still land in my chest like a goddamn bullet.
She looked powerful. Controlled. Unreachable.
Ambition burned in her eyes, and something in me flinched…not because she didn’t look like the girl I used to know, but because she did.
I cleared my throat, kept my expression flat. This was a threat assessment, not a trip down memory lane.
Even if it felt like the past had just walked back into the room and slapped me in the face.
“Ruby Marquez,” Tristan said, like he was telling me something I didn’t already know, “is running for District Attorney.”
My heart sank. “Okay…”
“She’s running on being tough on crime in Boston. Apparently, the city has turned into a real shithole.”
I couldn’t help but let out a short, humorless laugh.
“Since when has Boston not been a shithole?” I said, though my thoughts were far from the joke.
Ruby running for DA? The last I’d heard, she was still grinding away in some public defender’s office, fighting for every lost cause that walked through the door.
That was two years ago, but it might as well have been a lifetime.
Tristan didn’t bite at my attempted levity. He never did.
“She’s using us as her pivot point,” he said. “The Callahan Family. She’s painting us as the root cause of every problem in this city.”
My stomach twisted, but I leaned back like those words didn’t hurt…when in fact, it felt really fucking personal. “And here I was thinking we were pillars of the community.”
“Don’t be glib, Kieran,” he said. “She’s going to win and it’s going to be an issue.”
“Tristan, it’s been decades since anyone could touch us. A bunch of grandstanding isn’t going to change that.”
Tristan raked his hand through his hair. “When DA Lenta was in office, we paid him a considerable amount to…well, he wouldn’t exactly stop investigations, but if we pointed our finger at someone, he would play along. She won’t do that.”
“Wait—he’s not running for reelection?”
Tristan blinked. Slowly. Like he was trying to decide whether I was messing with him or just naturally this dense.
“He died, Kieran.”
“Oh.” I paused, trying to catch up. “Shit. When?”
“Last week. Heart attack.” His tone was flat, like even Lenta’s arteries had inconvenienced him. “Which means the race is wide open. And she’s the frontrunner.”
I let that settle for a second. Boston politics had always shifted like quicksand, but we’d been good at keeping our footing—until now.
And Tristan didn’t even realize there was an added layer to this—where I’d been in love with this girl once upon a time.
Well, maybe love was too strong a word.
More like, I still thought about how good her pussy felt wrapped around my—
“Kieran, you still with me?” Tristan asked.
I cleared my throat.
“Yeah…so what’s the play?”
“I need you to take care of her before she becomes an issue.”
“‘Take care of her’,” I repeated, incredulous. “You…you want me to kill the future DA?”
He waved me off. “No. Killing her is not the play,” Tristan said. “It’s too messy, and she’s got the public’s eye. No, you’re going to dismantle her reputation piece by piece until there’s nothing left but doubt and scandal. Until she’s completely and totally unelectable.”
I felt the air in the room change, moving from dense with threat to thick with intrigue. A cold pragmatism laced his words as if he were discussing market fluctuations, not the deliberate ruin of a woman.
My stomach churned. This was no less destructive than a bullet, just quieter.
“Understood.” The word came out jagged, catching on a breath I fought to keep steady. Relief washed over me for a fleeting moment—relief that Ruby would live, that I wouldn’t have to carry her death on my conscience.
But dread replaced it almost instantly. Destroying her reputation? That felt even more intimate, more cruel. It was one thing to take a life in the shadows, another entirely to poison it under the scrutiny of daylight.
I tried to mask the turmoil churning inside me, but it was like trying to smooth ripples in water with your hands—futile. Tristan watched me, no doubt reading every flicker of emotion that dared to surface.
“You’re hesitating,” he said.
“What can I say? I’ve gotten real soft ever since you had kids.”
Tristan’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment, I thought he might call me out on the true source of my reluctance. How could he know? I’d never even told him her name. He had always been able to read me, though. But then he leaned back, tension easing from his shoulders.
“We’re family, Kieran. You know that means something. If you have concerns, voice them.”
“She’s not a player. Just some random politician,” I said. “Couldn’t we try to bribe her first?”
“You think I haven’t already tried?”
Of course he had. Tristan didn’t bring problems to my doorstep until he’d already burned through every backdoor, handshake, and envelope of cash in the city.
But this one stuck.
And suddenly I realized why.
Ruby.
He didn’t know about us. I’d never told him. Never told anyone. Not because I was ashamed — I mean, maybe a little — but mostly because I wanted to keep her clean. Untouched by any of this.
But now?
Now he’d gone to her like she was just another name on the ledger, offered her a deal, and watched her torch it without blinking.
Because he didn’t know about our history, but she did…
and it probably felt like a slap in the face that my brother would try to pay her off, when I wouldn’t even talk to her.
Jesus. No wonder she was pissed.
I nodded slowly, letting the weight of the task settle on me. “Alright.”
“Can I count on you?” he asked, all business.
“Yes.”
“Good,” Tristan said. “Just try not to make it too messy, yeah? Ideally, she disappears somewhere quiet outside the city and never looks back. But you can go as far as you need to.”
I stood, the leather chair groaning beneath me.
For a second, I didn’t move—just let my hand rest on the desk, right where Tristan had placed her file. Like if I stayed still long enough, this might all un-happen.
But it wouldn’t. The order was given. The path was set. And there was no room for no in this family. There never had been.
“I’ll make it happen,” I said.
Tristan put on a satisfied smile. “Good.”
My footsteps echoed as I crossed the study. Slow. Heavy. Every step felt like something closing in. I glanced back once. Tristan hadn’t moved. Still perched behind that desk like a king on a throne, face unreadable, gaze sharp.
That was the Callahan way: calm on the surface, ice in the veins. Handle the threat. Move on.
Even if the threat used to be someone I loved.
The hallway stretched out in front of me, long and quiet. Morning light spilled in through the windows, the twins’ laughter somewhere in the distance, but it didn’t reach me. Not really.
“Keep it together, Kieran,” I muttered.
I leaned against the wall, jaw clenched, eyes closed. For half a breath, I let myself see her. Ruby—that sharp mind, that fire, that way she looked at me like she saw too much.
After my father had died, our relationship had fallen to the wayside. Not because I didn’t care about her; back then, I knew I was falling for her. But she had been working for the DA…and how could I bring her into this?
How could I do that to her?
And now I had to destroy her?
I was going to. I had an assignment and I was going to do it. That didn’t mean I had to like it.
But this meant…well, fuck. It meant I had to call her again.
And I really, really didn’t want to.