His Mafia Prince
Chapter 282: It Is All Slander

Chapter 282: It Is All Slander

{SASHA}

I can see Tyler’s reflection in the large antique mirror hanging on the opposite wall, and I feel like I’m sitting in the audience of a play as I watch him silently lift his arm and point.

Gloria follows his finger, turning her head to stare at the man next to her, disbelieving. Bryne blinks. Laughs. "Are you for real?"

"Bullshit," O’Hara growls in a low voice.

Gloria looks back at Tyler with a wordless question. He nods.

"No," O’Hara says roughly. "There’s no way—"

"You motherfucker," Murphy says, turning to sean in astonishment. "But I should’ve known." His face darkens.

He looks at Gloria. "I never felt right about him, right from the start."

"I did all I could for that asshole Angelo," Byrne says indignantly. "You and I both know he was the rightful heir. We all knew he was stronger and more heady. What did you do, Murphy?" Byrne spreads his hands in appeal to O’Hara. "Conor, come on. You’re going to believe these Italian fuckers over me?"

Conor’s lips tremble, but before he can speak, Gloria stands up from her seat and glares at Byrne. "Would you like to rephrase that?" she asks, and even I get a little quiver down my backbone at the tone in her voice.

"I’ll apologize for my language, Ms. Gloria," Byrne backtracks, "but I won’t let anyone slander me like this, because that’s what this is, it’s slander. Accusing me of being a rat when they have their own problems in back home—yeah, that’s right," he laughs when I give him a closer look. "Everyone’s heard that Capo of yours running his mouth, trying to take you down. You want to find a leak?"

Tyler and I exchange glances, and Tyler slides a hand into his back pocket. "The thing is," he says, "we brought a copy of the intel with us, Gloria. You can check it yourself if you don’t believe us. So can you, Conor." His voice on that last addition is gentle, too gentle perhaps, because Conor’s jaw clenches like he’s trying to keep himself in check.

Tyler holds up a USB, and all attention in the room swivels to him—except mine.

And except for Rory Byrne’s.

I don’t have my weapon with me, thanks to O’Hara. Byrne has seized his opportunity and jumped forward to grab Gloria, turning her around and holding a knife to her throat.

"Rory!" Gloria gasps as O’Hara immediately goes into a shooting stance, his handgun trained unerringly at Byrne’s head. O’Hara says nothing, but the fury in his face says more than words ever could.

Murph holds out his hands, placating. "Calm down, now, Rory. Don’t do anything stupid."

"Sure, I’ll leave the stupid stuff to you, Murph. You’ve never been all that bright. You know what, fuck it, you were right—I was on Angelo’s side. My loyalty has always been with him and the Irish. At least they all knew what a true leader was, not just a weak somebody who wanted a birthright he didn’t deserve. But you were too dumb to notice, eh?"

His eyes are bright, almost feverish, the delight of a man who’s been playing a part and finally gets to drop the mask.

"What do you want?" I ask, before Murphy gets out of hand. Gloria will only get caught in the crossfire if he tries to jump Byrne.

"Me?" Byrne spits. "I just want out of here alive. Whether or not Ms. Gloria stays alive as well...that’s up to the rest of you." He sends a cocky smile O’Hara’s way. "I really am sorry, Conor. We had a good time, though, didn’t we? But put the gun down, now. You know you don’t want to shoot me. And you definitely don’t want to shoot Ms. Gloria, here." Byrne pulls her even closer, making sure O’Hara doesn’t have a clean shot.

But O’Hara doesn’t move, keeping his sights fixed. "Drop it, Conor," Byrne warns. "I fucking mean it."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see O’Hara’s gun waver, just slightly. Gloria mouths a furious, Do it, at him, but Byrne is keeping her so close that it’s a tricky shot. I have no idea how good O’Hara’s aim is. If it were Miles, Angelo, Luigi, I’d tell them to drop the asshole and be confident they’d get it done.

But I don’t know O’Hara’s skills.

"Let her go," O’Hara says at last. "I will shoot you, Rory."

Byrne gives a humorless laugh.

I clear my throat, drawing Byrne’s attention, and ask, "How exactly do you plan to get out of here? The entire block is full of men who are loyal to the woman you’re holding hostage. You’ll catch a bullet as soon as you step out of this house. Probably when you step out of this room, if we’re being realistic."

There is desperation behind Byrne’s feral smile. Despite his desire to seem calm and controlled, he’ll panic any second. That’s not good. I don’t want him panicking with a knife to Gloria’s neck. "I plan to phone a friend, since you ask. If the crews out there let him through, and you let me walk out of here, we can all live. And I’ll take that USB with me, too."

"Conor," Gloria says softly, and gives a very slight nod.

"Okay, so the thing is," Tyler says loudly, before Byrne can turn his attention back to Gloria. My husband looks as relaxed as I’ve ever seen him, and if it weren’t for the slight shake in the hand holding the USB, I’d believe he wasn’t affected at all by the scene in front of him. But I know how much he loves Gloria, and I know how scared he must be. And how determined, despite it all.

"The thing is," he repeats, "we’re living in the future, buddy. This is not the only copy of the information. Plus, how do you know we haven’t already done the Irish some damage with it? Dropped it off to police headquarters, maybe? You’d be better off running instead of haggling."

"Still, I suppose if they have it," I say conversationally, as Gloria gives an encouraging stare at O’Hara, "they can check how bad the damage will be, pull out the men they need to before the Feds come down on them—not to mention, well, all those other organizations who must be looking forward to catching up for a chat."

"Stop talking," Byrne says, between his teeth. "I told you what I want. And if I don’t get it, I will kill this bitch."

I can see Tyler’s face morph into outrage at the idea that anyone would dare to speak about Gloria that way, and unfortunately for Byrne, it’s the last thing that ever comes out of his mouth.

O’Hara fires two shots, deafening in the small room. Byrne takes one of them to the forehead, the other to the cheek. He collapses immediately, and Gloria dives away toward Murph, who gathers her up and shields her with his own body in the best tradition of all the bodyguards I’ve ever seen working for the Morellis.

Conor O’Hara stays rooted to the spot, staring.

I take the initiative and go over and kneel next to the body, make absolutely sure he’s dead. I kick his gun away with my foot, then take an absent pulse.

I almost want to compliment O’Hara on his marksmanship, but I don’t think it would go down well.

Tyler has already rushed over to Gloria, making sure she’s unharmed. He and Murph are trying to pull her out of the room, but she resists them, tugging her arms out of their grasp. "I’m fine," she insists. "I’m fine, let me go." She brushes off their concerns and steps quickly to O’Hara instead. "Conor, are you okay?"

Her voice pulls him out of his reverie.

"I should’ve seen it," he says blankly. "I should’ve..."

Gloria looks across to Murph and flicks her head at him. "Make sure everyone knows what’s happened. But keep them out of this room until I give the word." She looks at Tyler and me, her face creased with regret. "Please," she says softly, while putting an arm around O’Hara’s shoulders, "give us a moment."

Tyler takes my hand and leads me out of the room, following Murph as we go, then heading toward the library. But when I glance back over my shoulder, I see Gloria pulling her second-in-command into a warm embrace.

It’s never easy being betrayed. God knows I’ve discovered that myself over the years.

***

We have quite a wait before Gloria comes to speak to us again in the library. And when she does, it’s clear she’s been crying.

She turns her face aside when she sees Tyler sympathetically looking at her red eyes and says, "I really was...you know. I really thought..." She shakes her head. "The way Rory spoke about the Irish, the absolute hatred he showed...But I suppose who he really hated was me."

She takes a breath and pulls herself up to her full height, which is still several inches shorter than Tyler. "Don Sasha," she says formally, looking me straight in the eye, "I want to thank you for what you’ve done. You have proved once again that you’re a great ally—a great friend. But I think it’s best for now if you—if you leave. A-and you, Tyler," she adds, her voice breaking a little. "I mean, I hope you understand I’m grateful, but—"

"We get it," Tyler says gravely. "We really do. And Gloria, if there had been another way, we would have taken it. But you can understand why we didn’t want to send any communications about this. Rory was in charge of comms here, so..." He spreads his hands. Gloria nods, and Tyler goes on tentatively, "Is Conor okay?"

"No," Gloria says. "I think he’ll blame himself about this for some time to come."

"Love is blind, as they say," I tell her with a shrug. "But O’Hara’s actions today demonstrated without a doubt where his loyalties lie. He has no reason to blame himself."

I’m not sure I fully believe it, that he shouldn’t blame himself, but it seems like the right thing to say. Besides, that’s Gloria’s problem, not mine. God knows I have enough trouble without borrowing more. I’ll have to manage this situation as soon as we’re back in the city. It’s become much too volatile if even our enemies have heard about it.

Gloria turns to Tyler. "The USB—may I have it?" Tyler hands it over, and she turns it around a few times in her fingers. "Have you done anything with the information so far?"

"I’ve used a couple of names as collateral," I say. I made sure Detective Burgess got a few crumbs to keep her interested. Not through the Adonises, of course, but through the new backchannel of Giovanni. "But I wanted to discuss it with you, since the Irish is a problem for both of us. We could hold onto it, use it as blackmail material to keep them in check. Or..." I shrug.

"Or we can turn it over in its entirety to the authorities and destroy those bastards for once and for all," Gloria finishes, her eyes flashing.

"Maybe," I say. "There are benefits to both avenues. We can discuss it in more depth at a later date."

"We don’t need to discuss it later," Gloria says, and I can see in her face which avenue she intends to take. I’m glad, because it’s my preference as well. Blackmail’s an ugly business, and it only causes more bad blood.

Much better to lance the boil and let the infection drain away completely.