The Price of Protection #2
I can't help my glare any more than I can the anger laced frustration in my voice.
"Because you do. You told Kenneth to warn me not to talk.
You decreed I couldn't leave New York because I was a security risk to the mob.
Only I wasn't. Until he told me what happened I still thought my husband died in an accident.
I didn't believe the feds when they told me he'd been killed by the mob. "
"But you believed Kenneth when he said it?" Kara asks, her brows drawn together.
"Considering he was my husband's boss and that made him mob too, I didn't think he'd lie about it." Besides, it corroborated what the FBI agents had claimed to be true. "Why would he?"
"Why would he tell you that he spoke on my behalf, when he didn't?" Mick counters.
Is he trying to claim that Kenneth wasn't speaking for him?
"You want me to believe Kenneth was lying to me?" If only I could believe that.
The terror freezing my insides and making me shake might thaw a little.
"I did not send him to deliver any messages to you.
Our intel indicated you and your mother were ignorant of Troy's connection to the mob.
" The underboss isn't denying he did what he did to Troy, just that he sent Kenneth Shaughnessy to me to tell me about it and threaten the same if I stepped out of line.
"Why would he tell me that you did though?" Did Kenneth think I needed a bigger bogeyman than him to be afraid of in order to keep me in New York and under his thumb?
Maybe he did at that, because if he hadn't told me the word had come down from the underboss of the Shaughnessy Mob, I might have taken my chances and run with the girls and my mom.
Mom wouldn't have been happy about it, but she loves me and the girls too much to let us stay in danger just because she loves the city of her birth almost as much.
"That's a good question," Mick says with flat approval and zero sarcasm.
"Wouldn't it have made more sense for him to claim he spoke on my dad's behalf?" Kara asks her husband thoughtfully. "After all, he's Brogan's lieutenant, not yours."
The underboss leans back in his chair, his eyes narrowed in thought. "Not if the current problem with Kenneth's big mouth is part of a longstanding campaign to undermine my place in the mob."
Kieran grunts beside me, which I take as agreement to his boss's words.
"How did Kenneth know you were interviewed by the feds?" Kara asks me.
I think back to that first traumatizing conversation with Kenneth Shaughnessy and shrug because I don't remember. "Something about one of the agents being a friend to the mob, I think. I don't remember. It scared me to know you had federal agents in your organization."
That I do remember.
"We don't but we do have a few in our pocket," Mick says like he didn't just admit to a felony.
"I don't think you should be telling me that," I point out.
Kara sighs. "Stop trying to scare her. Can't you see she's already terrified?" She looks at me. "You have no proof he said it and your suspicion he killed your husband would carry a heavier penalty if it could be proven."
"What difference does it make if I believe that?" I don't suspect anything. "I can't even prove my husband worked for the Shaughnessys rather than their corporation."
"Did you try?" There's a still quality to the underboss now, like a snake preparing to strike.
"No!" I take a steadying breath. "I'm just trying to point out that me talking to law enforcement wouldn't go anywhere because no matter what I believe, I don't have proof of anything. I'm not a threat and letting me move away from New York isn't going to suddenly make me one."
Kieran's hand tightens around mine, like he's going to keep me here by a physical tether, if not sheer force of will.
"That was true before Kenneth talked to you, but not after," Kara informs me. "He told you too much for an outsider."
"I'm an outsider?" But I was married to Troy.
Doesn't that make me at least mob adjacent? And why would I want to be? I shake my head trying to dispel the ridiculous thoughts from my brain.
"You were. Now, you're not. You may not have proof of anything, but you have a lot of details that could be followed up on and that makes your knowledge dangerous."
"Then why did Kenneth tell me any of it?" I cry.
"Because he was setting you up as a patsy," Kieran says, his tone lethal.
"A patsy? For what?" How could me knowing the little I do make me a fall guy?
"For him getting rid of a rival without it blowing back on him," Kara says grimly. "Not that he is a rival, but in his own head, he thinks he's in competition for the position of boss with my husband."
"There is no competition." Mick's dispassionate voice sends a shiver down my spine.
Kieran grunts. "He plans to rat you out."
"And make it look like áine did it." Kara looks at me with angry pity.
I don't know what emotion shows on my face because all I feel is total and utter shock. "But then why try to force me to have sex with him? Wouldn't that point the finger toward him too?"
The feds sure acted like they thought I was as guilty of mob activity as Troy.
"He tried to rape you?" Kieran's entire body is rigid with tension when he asks.
"He tried to coerce me. Kenneth said I had to prove my loyalty to the mob.
That's why I had to work for him and his snobby family.
" I put it off as long as I could after Joy's birth, but I knew my meager savings from what was left after selling the house and paying off Troy's debts wouldn't last forever.
I had to work and according to Kenneth the only option in that regard was working for him.
"Lately, he's decided me spreading my legs for him would be stronger proof of my loyalty. "
"He's dead," Kieran says with quiet force.
I grimace. "If only." Then I realize what I just said and yank my hand, trying without success to get it away from Kieran's. "You're making me start to think like a mobster!"
"There are worse things than being a mobster," Mick says in that flat tone I'm beginning to associate with him. "You have to wait to kill him until we know who else is complicit in his plans."
That was definitely said for Kieran's benefit because I'm not going to go around killing people.
"I can't believe he thinks he could get away with turning you over to the feds," Kara says to her husband, sounding incensed. "If he succeeded in getting you locked up, I'd kill him myself and I'd ask Miceli De Luca to help me torture him first."
I don't know who Miceli De Luca is, but if he's half as proficient at torture as Mick Fitzgerald, Kenneth Shaughnessy is in for a world of hurt.
"I would have allowed you to move your family from New York before Kenneth talked to you and told you too much," Mick tells me. "But that's not a possibility now. You have two choices."
"What are they?" I try to steel myself for whatever the underboss is going to say, pretty sure I'm not going to like either one.
But especially the death option I'm sure is coming.
"Marry Wraith and accept his protection for yourself and your family. Or stay in New York without it."