Page 95 of Honorable Sins

But he cannot meet his wife’s eyes now that she knows he used her.

Allison climbs the two steps to the stage and faces the room.

She tells them Kenneth convinced her that talking to Kara and Áine would help her get Kenny Jr. back. Instead, he used her movements to time an attempt on Áine’s life.

Then she tells them the part Kenneth hoped she would never discover. He knew she would be driving the same route where the accident was arranged.

He did not warn her.

She nearly died because her husband considered her expendable.

"You don’t understand," Kenneth says.

Allison does not turn toward him.

"I understand Kenneth was willing to bury me for a chance at a chair he was never worthy to sit in."

Kenneth goes pale beneath the bruising.

Allison addresses Brogan, tells him she has nothing more to say and leaves the stage with the soldier’s help.

She will move to live near her son. Brogan ordered her exile, but the order is no punishment to her. Allison has no desire to remain in New York as the wife of a traitor.

Áine Veseli nee Gallagher knows what that title costs.

Once the door closes behind Allison, I wait until the last whisper fades.

"To summarize, Kenneth Shaughnessy is a rat. Worse than a rat, he’s a piece of shite human-trafficking scum."

Kenneth laughs. It comes out high and strained.

"You expect them to believe this?" He jerks his chin toward me. "He’s been waiting years to get rid of me."

No one answers.

He keeps going in his last desperate attempt to save his own skin. He tells them I am a sociopath. If any of them don't already know that, they're muppets and don't deserve their place in our mob.

He tells them I made my first kill at eleven and that my family sent me away from Dublin. He claims I have no humanity and no sense of tempered justice.

All true. Except the last.

Kara and our chislers are my tether to humanity and my wife will always be the weight on the other side of the balance for justice.

"He exiled my son and the other boys for being a little rough with a traitor’s daughter."

"Not a traitor’s daughter," Wraith barks. "My daughter."

Kenneth turns that into an accusation against me. Outsiders elevated over Shaughnessy blood. Men without the right name taking positions that should belong to men born into them.

His gaze swings to Brogan. "You let him do this."

Brogan does not answer.

Kenneth continues. Fake recordings. Artificially generated images. Tortured men saying whatever we wanted so the pain would stop.

A few men shift in their seats.

Not support. Discomfort.