Page 89 of Velvet Betrayal
Ruby didn’t blink. “Mr. Russell left the premises. He subsequently disappeared. For the safety of our law enforcement partners currently pursuing active leads, I can’t share details about an ongoing investigation. But you are correct, Ms. Petrovic—he is missing. And I encourage anyone with information to come forward.”
Alek, off to the side, looked calm, but I saw the tick in his jaw. He was tracking every raised hand like a sniper.
“Is it true the Attorney General’s office is investigating you for obstruction?”
“I’m aware of the rumors,” Ruby said. “And I welcome a formal inquiry if it comes. My office has been transparent and fully compliant. If someone wants to make headlines by launching a political investigation, I suggest they take a number.”
A few scattered laughs. She had them again—for the moment.
Then a harder voice came from the back: “And your family? You said your daughter was targeted, but what about your husband?”
She could have dodged. Could have lied. Instead:
“Julian Garcia and I are, as of this morning, beginning the process of divorce. This has no bearing on my office or its operations. Thank you for respecting the privacy of my family, especially my daughter. Neither my daughter nor her father were in the house when Russell broke in. We have been separated for some time.”
More shouting, a dozen voices trying to climb over each other, but Ruby just gave them a tight, professional smile. “Next question.”
“What do you say about the rumors that you’ve been seen speaking with operatives from the Callahan syndicate?” Erica Fields again.
Ruby let the question hang. She scanned the crowd slowly—measured, confident.
“What I say is this: the Callahan investigation has been active for seventeen years, under five different DAs. It remains open, and it remains a priority. Anyone suggesting otherwise is trying to distract you—from the real story.”
Murmurs rippled across the room.
Erica pressed. “You’re denying any personal relationship with Kieran or Tristan Callahan?”
Ruby didn’t flinch. “I’m not here to manage gossip. I’m here to prosecute crime. That means speaking to people involved in it, around it, or willing to give evidence about it. And frankly, I find it interesting that no one asked those same questions when a man broke into my house and tried to kill me.”
Silence again—but this time, uneasy. Shifted.
She looked directly at Erica. “If there’s discomfort in certain agencies about how I run my office, maybe it’s because I’ve refused to play along. Maybe it’s because I’ve pulled files they thought would stay buried. I’ve said from day one: I’ll work with any agency that puts public safety first. I won’t work with ones that use violent men to do their dirty work and call it justice.”
And then, clean as a knife: “If the Department of Justice wants to investigate me, they should be very sure they want their own methods on the record.”
The breath went out of the room like someone had cracked the glass. Even the interpreter’s hands stilled for a beat.
In the back, by the janitor’s closet, I felt the pressure leave my chest. She wasn’t just surviving this. She waswinning it.
“Now, I really need to get to work—there’s plenty of things to do in Suffolk County, and we’re just getting started,” Ruby said. “Thank you all for being here.”
The press pool erupted. Alek raised a hand, sharp and practiced. “That’s all for today,” he snapped, already moving to block the first wave of reporters.
Ruby stepped back from the podium and vanished behind the flag before the lights could catch her face. She didn’t need them to. The moment was already hers.
And just for a moment, she was safe. It wasover.
That’s when I heard the gunshot.
One shot. A pop—louder than a starting pistol, sharper than any fire alarm, unmistakable if you’d ever lived a certain kind of life. I was moving before I knew it, every cell in my body calculating lines of sight, angles, probabilities, even as the concrete floor rippled with the stampede of panic.
Ruby hit the ground in a crouch behind the podium, arms over her head, the only part of her showing the lines of her calves and the thin, ridiculous slingbacks she’d worn for the photo. People screamed, bodies dropping. Alek reached her first, dragging her into the lee of the flag, his own body braced for the next shot. But there wasn’t one. Just the echo, raw and ringing.
Security poured in—building, city, private detail, all tripping over each other’s radio traffic—and I used the chaos, the clotting presence of a hundred human shields, to work my way along the wall. Nobody noticed me. Just another suit with cold eyes, logging the scene for a war that would never make the papers. Except this war had a front row in the press pit and a kill order on my favorite target.
I reached the curtain at the same instant as Ruby, her hand already stained with a shallow graze above her ear—nothing fatal, but the blood streaked her cheek, and I thought fuck, fuck, fuck. I wanted to grab her face and check for second holes, butAlek was already there, voice tight even when it didn’t shake. “Where are you hit? Any vision changes? Ruby, look at me.”
She batted him away, eyes sharp, the wound more insult than injury. “I’m fine. Get the crowd out first.” She’d never take a rescue.
