Page 2 of Velvet Betrayal
“Aren’t we all,” I said under my breath.
Kieran laughed.
Rosie looked at me like I’d just spoken in tongues.
Kieran unlocked the door. It swung open smooth—surprisingly so for an old country house. The air smelled faintly of disinfectant, with a cinnamon-vanilla candle trying to cover it. A blast of dry heat hit us. For a second, I imagined crackling hearths and cozy comfort, but the inside was bare. Spartan, but not neglected.
“Whose house is this?”
“Mine. And my brother’s.”
I swallowed. “Which one?”
“Tristan,” he said. “Don’t worry. It’s off the grid. For emergencies.”
“You brought me to Tristan Callahan’s house?”
Kieran tutted. “Well, no. It’s also my house.”
“Jesus Christ, Kieran.”
The house, in fairness, didn’t look like it belonged to anyone.
This looked like safety, rented by the week. Deep leather couches, the kind that absorb sound, a huge TV, a kitchen island decorated with fake fruit. Every horizontal surface was wiped to sainthood and the windows had thick, dark curtains drawn shut.
Rosie slipped out of my grip and launched into the living room. “I call main bed!” she declared, boots scattering ice everywhere.
I almost snapped at her not to track ice everywhere but checked myself, because wasn’t this technically not my house? What did you do for discipline when the parent was also sort of kidnapped?
Kieran followed, hauling a duffel. I watched his hands: scarred, steady, never uncertain. He scanned the room, not even pretending to be a guest. I realized—hard and fast—I’d never seen him look at a place without measuring its risks. Every glance at me felt like a calculation. What might save my life, or end it.
I forced a smile.
“The fridge is stocked,” he offered, as if that was what I cared about—like offering me food would repair what he’d done when he fucking kidnapped me. I trailed into the kitchen, peered inside. Milk, juice, deli ham, three kinds of yogurt, eight different sodas and mineral waters, a butter dish bulging in glossy gold foil. A six-pack of Sam Adams. I almost laughed.
I went to check my phone, and once again, it wasn’t in my pocket. Fuck.
“Are you hungry, peanut?” I asked Rosie.
“No, I’m good,” Kieran replied.
“I wasn’t talking to you. Where is my daughter?”
“Upstairs,” he said. “She just claimed the master bedroom, remember? Hey, Rosie, your mum is calling for you.”
From the distant echo of a hallway, she hollered back: “I’m doing a snow angel with the blankets!” Thump, thump, closet doors rattling.
Kieran’s arm, braced against the island, flexed.
“For what it’s worth, she’s safer here than anywhere else.”
I opened the fridge again, this time like it had wronged me. My fingers found the apple out of instinct, not hunger. I needed something firm in my hand. I needed the sound of something cracking. I pulled a paring knife from the knife block, gripping it tighter than necessary.
“You keep saying that,” I said, coring the apple so hard the blade briefly stuck in the cutting board. “Why does it sound more like a threat every time?”
He snorted. “It’s not meant to. But things change. You know that better than anyone.”
The blood was up in my hands, prickling my wrists. I stopped, pointing the knife at him. “You could have told me first. About anything. You could have—”
