The Mafia Wife's Revenge novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Boy

The gun did not shake in Vernon's hand.

His son stood very still with the flashlight still on in his fist.

"Daddy," he said. "You said we don't point."

"Shut up, boy," Vernon said. "Tell her you were dreaming. Tell her you don't know any car."

Two of Damian's men had stepped out behind him.

They looked at the gun, and they looked at the boy, and neither of them lifted a weapon.

"Vernon," one of them said. "The job was the car."

"The job is whatever I say it is."

"Not that," the other said, and he took one step back.

I understood then that even the men who laughed in the hotel had a line, and Vernon had just walked past it.

I moved before Cillian could stop me.

I walked between the gun and the boy and turned my back on Vernon.

"Look at me," I told the brother. "Don't look at him."

His eyes were huge and wet.

"Daddy is mad."

"I know. Your daddy is scared, and scared people say loud things."

"You are not in trouble. You told me the truth, and the truth is never trouble."

"Move, you blind bitch," Vernon said behind me.

I did not move.

"Tell me what you want," I said to the boy. "Anything you want. Not what he wants."

The boy swallowed.

"I want Daddy to stop," he said. "I want to tell the old man. I want to say it where everybody hears."

"Then you will," I said. "I'll stand next to you the whole time."

"Boy," Vernon said, and his voice cracked in the middle.

It was not anger.

It was the sound of a man watching the only thing he had never managed to bully slip out of his hand.

"Vernon," Cillian said, quiet and level. "Put it down. The Table already knows where you are."

"You," Vernon said.

He swung the gun off his son and onto Cillian's chest.

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