Mob Justice
Chapter forty-three
WRAITH
The Bunker gym doesn't look like a gym anymore.
The equipment is gone, pushed back or removed entirely. Folding chairs fill the floor in rows, every one of them occupied. Lieutenants in the first row, captains in the next two and foot soldiers fill the rest.
The stage at the front is elevated so the whole room can see its occupants, with a screen behind it large enough that even the guys in the back will be able to read the fine print on the evidence that will be presented.
I've been in this room hundreds of times, sparring, working out, training with my brethren. It's the place we all come several times a week, the one place lieutenant and foot soldier run into each other on the regular.
It has never felt more like the core of Bunker.
Stern and commanding, Brogan sits behind a sturdy wooden table in the center of the stage. Nicked and scarred from decades of use, it looks its age. Mick told me that it's the table where the original Shaughnessy Mob Boss met with his inner circle around, here in the Bunker, back in the 1920s.
Mick's to Brogan's right and Kara is to his left.
I take my position to the side. Standing.
I am not the authority in this room. I am the instrument of it. But because of the people on this stage, I do have power in our organization. Power I will respect and honor as the man whose place I took never did.
Men shuffle in their chairs, but no one speaks. We all know why we are here.
To watch the sentencing and punishment of a traitor.
A rat.
A low murmur starts up when Kenneth is brought in, his hands zip-tied in front of him, a soldier on either side of him.
He's been worked over. Courtesy of me and Mick.
Neither of us was interested in sparing him during interrogation and while we used our designer compounds to loosen his tongue, we didn't rely on them to get the answers we wanted.
Kenneth tries to walk with dignity but there's a pronounced limp from a strike from Mick's flapjack to his knee. He got the vivid bruise on his left cheek from my bare knuckles.
He glares at Mick and then his eyes land on me.
Whatever he sees makes his gaze drop before he is forced into a chair on the left of the stage.
Brogan lifts his hand for silence.
The murmurs and shuffling stops until the gym is silent but for the sound of nearly two hundred people breathing.
"It has been six years since we had to pass sentence on a traitor. Which shows that while we are not a perfect organization, we are loyal to one another. Except when we aren't." He gives Kenneth a look of pure disgust, shakes his head and says, "Mick."
"What you're about to hear is Kenneth Shaughnessy in his own words," Mick tells the room in flat tones, no preamble.
The recording plays through the speakers, Kenneth's voice filling the gym. Familiar to dozens of men in this room, the voice of a man they've sat across from at dinner and stood beside at funerals. The voice of a man who smiled at Brogan's face while he made calls like this one behind his back.
Kenneth: Don't worry. I'll get you the evidence you need to get a conviction.
Agent Fisk: That's what you said six years ago, but áine Gallagher didn't know anything.
Kenneth: áine is a tool. She'll be useful now.
Agent Fisk: You told me she could implicate Mick in her husband's murder.
Kenneth: I was wrong.
I wonder if everyone else can hear the lie in Kenneth's voice, the fact he'd never intended áine to become a federal witness?
Agent Fisk: You better not be wrong now. I've done a lot for you, Ken. You owe me.
Kenneth: Don't worry. Once I'm boss, your career is going to rise right along with your bank account.
The recording cuts off there. There was a lot more incriminating shit, but that's all the mob needs to hear.
Kenneth was in the process of ratting on Mick Fitgerald and his plans included becoming boss, not underboss like he'd been telling his cronies.
When it ends, Mick taps something on his laptop and the lighting in the room dims. Then the giant screen behind the stage comes on, a picture of Kenneth meeting with Agent Fisk.
Mick lists Kenneth's traitorous actions, revealing the evidence for each as he goes along.
When he plays the recording of a call he had with the leader of the Swedish mafia that reveals Kenneth's plans to have Brogan killed in exchange for access to the Whisper gun technology, hostility rolls in a wave throughout the room.
Mick lets the room settle itself. "Vanta technology has remained secure for six years. Kenneth planned to hand it over in exchange for murdering our boss."
Kenneth laughs, but it comes out wrong. Too high. "Listen to him. Listen to how proud he is. He thinks that weapon belongs to him."
"It belongs to the mob and currently accounts for 42% of our income from weapons dealing," Mick says. "You were willing to give that up to hire a hitter."
Kenneth's face goes red.
Mick taps the laptop.
The screen changes to ledgers. Paper pages photographed under bright light. Business registry filings. Bank accounts. Vendor records. Arrows and highlighted lines connect shell companies.
Seeing áine's work on that screen fills me with pride.
My wife did this. Kenneth used those books to hide money and the sale of humans. áine pulled the threads loose one number at a time.
Mick says, "When the businesses Kenneth oversaw for Shaughnessy Corp transferred to Wraith's leadership, his wife, áine Veseli began digitizing the paper financial records.
She identified irregular vendor payments, duplicate invoices and accounts tied to businesses that do not provide the services listed. "
Men shift restlessly. Shaughnessy Corp companies are the legit side of our business. We don't use them to launder money. We take already laundered money and invest it in them to make bigger profits.
Mick continues, "Those irregularities led McLaren to registry filings connected to Hollow Point Kings associates. Kenneth Shaughnessy allowed the gang to use Shaughnessy Corp company accounts to launder payments from human trafficking."
A low voice in the room says, "Holy hell."
Mick does not pause. "The Hollow Point Kings have been running women and girls through a pipeline inside Queens for two years. Kenneth Shaughnessy knew it. He profited from it."
Mick details the plan to sell my daughter through this pipeline. I can't help the growl that erupts from my throat when Sadie's name is mentioned.
The underboss flicks a look at me and dips his chin, like he understands.
Mick goes on to detail both attempts to kill áine.
Allison Shaughnessy appears in a still photo from the hospital. Bruising along one side of her face. A cut near her hairline. One arm in a sling. "Allison Shaughnessy was used as cover for the timing of the second attempt on áine's life," Mick says.
Kenneth's head snaps up. "Leave my wife out of this."
"If you'd left her out of it, she wouldn't be in that condition." Kara's eyes flash with fury.
A door opens at the side of the gym.
Allison walks in, her hand on the forearm of a soldier, who is helping her walk.
She's dressed like the socialite she is, but her hair is pulled back, one side of her face mottled with bruises turning yellow at the edges. Her sling matches her Chanel jacket, but there's no disguising the cast on her lower arm.
She moves like every step hurts but her expression when she looks at her husband says she would rather crawl across broken glass than show weakness in front of Kenneth.
The room watches her climb the two steps to the stage.
Kenneth looks away from his wife. Interesting. He had no conscience where his son was concerned. He has no issue with selling people and betraying his mob and his family, but he can't look his wife in the eye now that she knows he used her.
She doesn't look at him.
Allison turns to face the room. "Kenneth convinced me that talking to Kara and áine would help me get my son back." She shoots Kenneth a glare over her shoulder. "Instead, he was using me to set up the timing for the attempt on áine's life."
She waits until the murmuring caused by her statement dies down before adding, "He didn't warn me about the accident that was planned, but he knew I had to drive the same route back to our home.
" Her mouth flattens. "I couldn't avoid the accident and I nearly lost my life because of my husband's plans. "
Kenneth shakes his head. "You don't understand."
Allison doesn't bother to look at him, but the contempt on her face is there for everyone to see. "I understand Kenneth was willing to bury me for a chance at a chair he was never worthy to sit in."
Kenneth goes pale under the bruising.
Allison turns to Brogan. "That's all I have to say."
"Thank you," Brogan says.
The soldier helps Allison down from the stage.
She'll be moving to be near Kenny Jr. and won't be returning to New York. Brogan ordered the exile, but Allison made it clear she had no desire to remain in New York where she will be known as the wife of a traitor.
Like áine was.
Once Allison is gone, Mick lets the silence hold.
Then he stands behind the table, one hand resting near the laptop, the other loose at his side. "To summarize: Kenneth Shaughnessy is a rat. Worse than a rat, he's a piece of shite human trafficking scum."
Every man present can do the math. If his plans had succeeded, our boss would be dead, our underboss in prison and Kenneth Shaughnessy would have declared himself king.
Kenneth laughs, the sound forced and high. "You expect them to believe this?" He jerks his chin toward Mick. "He's been waiting years to get rid of me."
No one answers.
Kenneth looks from face to face, searching for sympathy and finding none.
"Mick Fitzgerald is a sociopath who made his first kill at the age of eleven.
His own family wanted to get him out of Dublin and that's how he ended up here, married to Kara.
" His voice rises with every sentence. "He has no humanity.
No sense of tempered justice. He exiled my son and the other boys for being a little rough with a traitor's daughter. "