Page 88 of Velvet Betrayal
But the longer I watched him, the more I felt it in my bones.
I didn’t feel safe in my own campaign anymore.
Kieran
Iwasn’t supposed to be here.
That was the rule—stay away, don’t draw fire, let Ruby handle it. Let her burn it all down without dragging me into the flames.
But rules and I never got along.
I hung back in the marble atrium, just another suit in the crowd, hiding in plain sight. The actual swearing in ceremony had been by the numbers and was perfectly calm; Ruby said her vows, the crowd cheered. Now, the press conference was already rolling. Ruby stood at the podium, lit up like a headline, prepared to torch every lie that had kept her safe until now.
There were other men watching her. Not just the press. My brother’s men, scattered through the crowd, hands resting on belts, in pockets, on the black cases of their notebook computers. Real help, not for show. Tristan had told me to keep my distance, but I kept moving, ghosting the perimeter, never more than forty feet from her, never making it easy to pick the angle of approach.
She looked good. More than good—jaw sharp, hair smoothed, lips painted blood red. Her hands didn’t shake, not even a little, on the cheap municipal wood of the lectern.
She was steady. Perfectly steady…performing.
“I wanted to thank you all for being here,” she started, and her voice made everyone pay attention. It was amazing to watch her like this—to see how she could command a room. Tristan was right; she could run for higher office, it was only a matter of time. “It is my absolute honor to have been chosen as your next District Attorney…and I am so very proud to take on the role of breaking a new glass ceiling as your first Latina D.A.”
Applause sounded and she smiled, even though I knew she hated that angle. Alek insisted it sold.
“I know you’re here for a standard press conference,” she said. “Honestly, I would have preferred that myself—to celebrate our achievements so far and all the things we still have to do. But something has happened, and it’s my duty to inform the public of it.”
She let the silence build. The journalists leaned in, phones held up, not wanting to miss a syllable.
“Several weeks ago—the night I was elected by the people of Suffolk County—an individual broke into my house. He was armed. He intended to harm me and my child.”
No one said anything, but pens scratched on paper. One person raised their hand for a question and got a sharp look from Alek.
“I did not call the police,” Ruby said, “because Iamthe police. I am the process. I am the system you all depend on, for better or worse. The man was a convicted abuser. He was released early by the Department of Justice to serve as a confidential informant on organized crime in Boston.”
Silence again.
Nobody breathed.
It was for dramatic effect—and it wasworking—but the press was getting antsy.
“Who was it?” a guy in the press pit finally called out.
“Please hold off on questions until the DA is done speaking,” Alek said.
Ruby drew a breath, and I could hear the trouble in it. “His name was Mickey Russell,” she said. “He had previously been prosecuted by my office for a series of violent domestic assaults. In my view, he should never have been released.” She steadied herself on the podium, letting the words hang, giving herself a second to line up the next shot. “Full disclosure: I shot him. In my own home, defending myself and my daughter. I wish I could tell you I did everything perfectly. I didn’t. But this is the truth.”
The room went nuclear. Every reporter scrambled for the kill-shot quote. Erica Fields, the only one who could keep her head, cut through the noise.
“Are you saying the Department of Justice knowingly put you and your family at risk by deploying Russell as a CI?”
“No,” Ruby said, cool and even. “I’m not assigning intent. Special Counsel Lucy Darnell and the FBI are doing their jobs. But the pattern is clear: the DOJ has repeatedly leveraged violent offenders as confidential informants, with insufficient oversight. Their calculus assumes that women and children will not become collateral damage. That calculus is broken.”
She let that hang.
“Going forward, my office will not participate in any joint investigations involving confidential informants who haven’t been fully vetted for violent history. If the federal government wants to use dangerous men as tools, that’s their decision—but Suffolk County will not be complicit.”
My stomach turned. I’d told the Bureau I killed Mickey Russell. We had an agreement. She was blowing past it like it didn’t matter—and maybe it didn’t anymore. The press had latched on now, jaws open.
“What happened to Russell’s body?” someone from the Globe asked. “There’s an active missing-persons investigation in Cambridge.”
