Page 58 of Velvet Betrayal
Like the city was a frozen lake, and all it would take was one crack to send us plunging into the dark.
Halfway through the bake, I heard him move. Couch springs, a grunt, the slap of his palm as he tried to lever himself up. “Smells like actual food,” he croaked, voice raw and jagged.
“Don’t sit up,” I said, which of course meant he did.
He squinted at the kitchen lights, face hollowed out and bruised, but his hands worked fine. He peeled the bandage off, winced at the pull, then held his hands up like a magician after a trick. “You gonna feed me?” he asked, that grin already in place.
I’d mangled the pizza, cheese sliding off the crust, but he didn’t care. He tore into it like he hadn’t eaten in a week. I waited for the comment—something about maternal instincts, or fate, or how we’d ended up here, orbiting each other in this slow-motion disaster. But he just ate, fast and silent, and then sat back, breathing hard.
I cut a slice for myself. The silence stretched, then coiled tight. This was always the worst part for me—not the chaos, but the aftermath. The waiting, the not knowing, the moment where you realized safe was just a rumor.
He finished and set his plate down, tilting it so the oil pooled at the edge. “They’re going to try again,” he said.
I didn’t look at him. “I know.”
“I can keep them off, for a while. But it’s exponential now, Rubes. Too many buys, too much spillover. It’s not just you. Your office, anybody close to the Crew—they’re picking targets in waves. Click-and-collect.”
I watched the oil snake down the crust. “You want to run?”
“Not yet.” He wiped his mouth, jaw clenched like he was holding back something bigger. “I don’t know where you’d be safer than here. Tristan’s planning something, but he won’t say what. He’s got no plans for you or the kid except to hunker down and let the city set itself on fire.” He stared at his plate. “You could still turn me in, you know. If you timed it right, you’d get some political capital. Get yourself off the board for a while. Maybe even keep your job.”
I spun the pizza cutter in my hand. “You always figured I’d flip on you?”
“In my experience, everyone’s one Hail Mary away. If you can’t lie to the world, you lie to yourself. Better odds that way.” He picked at the crust, tearing it into shreds. “But I never thought you’d actually do it. Not to me. But…Alek’s right. You need to protect yourself.”
Shit. I needed to call Alek. I’d seen him at work today, but he’d made me promise I would call to give him more details about what the hell was going on, and I’d done a pretty bad job keeping him in the loop so far.
“I don’t need to turn you in when you seem hellbent on doing it yourself. You told the FBI you killed Mickey Russell.”
“I did,” he said. “And I would again.”
“Kill him or tell them?”
He looked up, eyes too clear for someone that battered. “Anything,” he said. “Anything to protect you, Ruby.”
He let it hang, waiting for me to shoot it down. Instead, I reached out and touched the cut above his eyebrow, tracing it with my thumb.
“Did you?” I said. “Protect me, I mean.” The words tasted old, like something I’d said before. “The more you try, the more it just comes back around.” I pressed gently, felt his eyelid twitch.
“Better me than you, Marquez.” He said it like a fact, not a plea. “You could take Rosie. Get on the next flight south. Start over somewhere else.”
“What makes you think I ever wanted to leave?”
He looked away, staring at the wall like he could punch a hole through it. In the window, the city’s blue light flickered, and his reflection doubled against the glass—blood and bruises mapped onto the skyline. For a second, it was almost beautiful. The kind of beautiful you never let yourself admit.
“You don’t quit,” he said finally. “Even when you want to. Even when it’s poison.”
“Stop acting like you’re the only one who knows how this ends.” I gathered the plates, rinsed them, and left him at the table. “If you’re eating, you’re not dying. That’s house rules.”
He stood, wavering in the doorway, like there was something else he wanted to say. I dried my hands, turned, and he caught my wrist—so sudden I almost dropped the plate.
“You know my mother never once told me she loved me?” He said it into the quiet, not sad—just matter-of-fact. “She did what mothers do—kept us alive, got us to school, but love wasn’t a word for people like her. Like us.”
“That’s fucked up.”
He shrugged. “I had Catherine. Tristan’s mum. My stepmother. She was lovely.” He smiled, then winced. “Still can’t figure out if it hurt more when my dad killed Tristan’s mum or mine.”
“I’m sorry.”
