26. Chapter Twenty-Six Kieran
Chapter Twenty-Six: Kieran
F or a long few seconds, we stayed like that.
I could hear her breathing quickening, I could feel the heat rolling off her skin. And then something happened—she looked away and the spell broke as her gaze found her phone, which had been left next to the uncorked bottle of wine she’d started before a man broke into her house to kill her.
“Okay,” she said, turning around to face me. I tried hard not to stare at the bruises on her face. “You’re welcome. I need to make a phone call. You’re right. I need to handle this.”
“Who are you calling?” I asked, though I had a feeling I knew the answer.
“Aleksey,” she replied. “He’s my…he’ll know what to do. He’s my campaign manager. My lawyer.”
“He can’t fix this, Ruby.”
“You don’t know that,” she said, taking a step closer to me and reaching for her phone.
I stepped in and caught her wrist before she could press the call button, my fingers just firm enough to stop her.
“Don’t,” I said.
She tried to wrench her hand away, but I didn’t let go. She stared into my eyes as she tried to fight me.
“Kieran—”
“Think, Ruby,” I said, voice lower now, steadier. “You call him, and now he’s part of it.”
She shook her head, her pulse hammering beneath my grip. “I told you. He’s my lawyer.”
“He’s a liability,” I cut in. “You call him, and now he’s involved. You want that for him? Because I guarantee you, Ruby, the second he picks up, the second you put this in his hands, you make him an accessory.”
Her breath caught. Her gaze flicked to the body, to the blood drying on the tile. She didn’t have to say it—I could feel the panic starting to take hold, creeping in around the edges.
“This?” I said, voice low. “This is a career-ender. A scandal. You’ll be crucified in the press. You’ll lose everything you just fought for.”
Her chin tipped up, defiant, but I could see the calculation flickering behind her eyes. “Alek can help—”
“No,” I said, cutting her off again, sharper this time. “He’s your best friend, right? Spare him. He can’t fix this—not the way I can. If you care about him at all, don’t drag him into this. Don’t put this on him.”
She hesitated. It was subtle, just the briefest flicker of doubt across her face. But I saw it. I felt it. And I knew what it meant.
She realized she was trapped.
She realized I had her.
And fuck, I should’ve taken a sick kind of pleasure in that. Tristan would have. He’d be grinning ear to ear, already drafting the press release. This was what he wanted. For her to owe me. For her to be compromised. For me to ruin her in the most efficient, bloodless way possible.
And now I could. One word from me, and she’d be neck-deep in something she couldn’t crawl out of.
My lips curled.
“So what’s your plan, huh?” she snapped, arms crossed tight over her chest like armor. “Let me guess. Call in your guys? Make the body disappear? Erase everything like it never happened?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s exactly the plan.”
Her mouth opened, then snapped shut. I could see the wheels turning in her head. She hated this. She hated that I was right.
“I can’t—” she started, then exhaled sharply, pacing toward the counter. She pressed the heels of her hands against the edge, shoulders rising and falling with each breath. She was unraveling, trying to hold it together.
“Ruby,” I said, softer this time.
She didn’t turn around. I could feel the anger in her spine, the way her body tensed at the sound of my voice. I stepped closer, carefully, until I was right behind her. Close enough that I could have reached out, touched her. I didn’t.
“You don’t have to like this,” I said, my voice low, deliberate. “You don’t have to be okay with it. But you do have to let me handle it.”
Her knuckles were white where she gripped the counter. “This is my house,” she muttered. “My life.”
I stepped in closer, not touching her—but close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off me. “And I’m trying to keep it from blowing up in your fucking face.”
“You killed Russell,” she said, jaw tight. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I did,” I said flatly. “And I’d do it again. Slower, if I had the time.”
Her lips parted, a sharp breath escaping. I could see the outrage bubbling under her skin, but I didn’t back down.
“I understand it’s a complicating factor—”
“It’s a huge clusterfuck, not a complicating factor—”
I held up my hand, silencing her instantly. “Hey. You’re good at what you do, right? You put this bastard away. And he came back for you. He wanted to kill you. I’m also good at what I do.”
She looked away, like she was trying to find some way out of this that didn’t involve me…trying to interpret my words in some way that didn’t mean my job was to kill for her.
That was cute.
“This is my life,” she repeated, quieter now. Like she didn’t quite believe it anymore.
I leaned in, letting my voice drop to a rasp. “Not tonight, it’s not.”
She froze.
“This isn’t up to you anymore. This isn’t a debate. You’re alive because I was here. You’re safe because I made a decision you couldn’t. So no, Ruby, this isn’t your mess to handle. It’s mine.”
My hand closed around her wrist—not rough, not tender. Possessive.
“I intend to clean it up. Completely. Permanently.”
She stared at me, chest heaving, like she was trying to come up with an argument I couldn’t tear apart.
I pulled my phone out, ready to dial. “I can fix it,” I said. “But only if you let me. And that means doing exactly what I tell you. Okay?”
“Alek has to know, Kieran. He’s going to see the bruises. He’s going to know Russell died. I can’t—I don’t keep secrets from him. Other than my daughter, he’s the closest thing I have to family.”
I thought for a second, trying to fight back the headache creeping in, trying to ignore the pain at my side.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re going to text him that you need to speak to him in the morning, that it’s urgent.
Then you’re going to retain him as your counsel.
You’re going to pay him, I don’t know, put a deposit down.
That way he can’t tell anyone what you said, right? ”
“You’re just trying to control me. You’re trying to control this.”
“Yes! That’s how we get out of this. You understand that, right?”
She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, then her hand went to the dark bruises that had formed around her neck. “Fuck. Yeah.”
Her gaze darted down to her phone and I watched as she typed a message.
Hey, something urgent came up. I need to see you in the morning, as early as you can.
“Okay,” I said. “Send that. Then give me your phone.”
She sent it, but glared at me. “Why should I give you my phone?”
“You’re going to second guess this choice all night. If you give me your phone, you can’t do anything about it. You give it to me, you protect your friend. That’s what you want, yes?”
She nodded, her eyes wide. But she hesitated before giving it to me, barely able to bring herself to put the device in my outstretched hand.
I put it in my back pocket and put my hands on her shoulder.
“Good girl,” I said. “Now I need to take care of some logistics. I’m giving you a choice here.
You either stay downstairs with me or you go to your room and lock yourself in there.
Take a sleeping aid if you need to. I recommend the second option, but I know you well enough to know you might stay here. So which one will it be?”
Her gaze darted between my face and the stairs. “I can’t…I can’t walk past the body.”
“That’s totally fair. Wash your hands, then put your first aid kit away. Tidy your kitchen, like you would any other night before bed. I’ll handle this.”
“So just…clean? As if nothing happened?”
“People die every day. You can’t stop cleaning just because someone’s died. In fact, that’s probably when you have to clean the most.”
Her brow furrowed as she stared at me. She let out a deep breath, sharp and ragged, her fingers curling into fists at her sides.
This was insane. I wanted to tell her she should be upstairs, pretending this was a nightmare after she locked her door.
But I knew Ruby.
The body was an obstacle to getting to her room—both real and metaphorical—but I knew her. She wanted to know what the fuck was happening.
And who could blame her for that?
“What, like it’s just another fucking night? This is so fucked up, Kieran.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, grabbing my phone out of my pocket.
She didn’t say anything. Just looked at me, fire in her eyes and something raw, something exposed beneath it all. She wasn’t going to stop me. Not this time.
I pressed the number, watching her as it rang.
“Kieran,” Lorenzo said on the other end. “You good?”
“Need a clean-up,” I said. “The new DA’s house. No questions. Bring Mac with you…and don’t tell anyone. Not even Tristan and Adriana.”
A pause. Then, “On it.”
I hung up. Ruby swallowed, her throat working around something she wasn’t saying. I could practically hear the war in her head, the fight between what she should do and what she just allowed to happen.
“It’s done,” I told her.
I watched the truth settle into her bones, the realization that this wasn’t something she could undo.
It sat heavy on her, but she didn’t move.
Didn’t call me a liar.
Didn’t reach for her phone, which now sat in my back pocket, next to my phone.
Ruby looked defeated. She was angry, sure, but the bruises were bad and there was blood on her hands and her face. This wasn’t going to be easy to spin…but at least that wasn’t my job.
Cleaning up her house was going to be a lot easier than cleaning up her political career. I should’ve thought about that earlier.
This would be enough…this would destroy her. I would do what Tristan had set out to do from the beginning, I would get her out of the way and the Callahan family could get a DA elected ourselves. Someone who would play ball with us.
I should’ve been taking pictures, not helping her clean up. But my testimony would be enough…right? I could clean this up and then I could destroy her.
That was the plan. That had always been the plan.
So why wasn’t I doing exactly that?
I told myself I’d handle that later. First, the clean up. First, what I could control.
That was all this was.
Right?
Ruby spoke, her voice shaking. “This is so messed up.”
“It really is.”
She just swallowed hard and exhaled through her nose, her hands flexing at her sides.
Her hands curled into fists. “And it’s never just done with you.”
I smirked. “You’re learning.”
She glared at me. “Fuck you.”
“Would love to, sweetheart, but I’m a little busy right now. So can we raincheck that?” I asked, just to see the way her lips parted, the way that rage burned hot in her eyes.
She turned away. She didn’t have a response for that.
I bit back a grin. “Wash your hands, Ruby. Start cleaning. It’s going to be a long night.”