This could be the chance he’d been looking for to finally strike out on his own. To step out of his sister’s shadow and get the recognition that Daniel knew he deserved. His sister may have always been the golden child in their father’s eyes, the one that could do no wrong and would succeed no matter what, but their father wasn’t here any more.
Daniel Byrne was more than capable of running his own empire, and one day he would.
Fuck his father’s wishes. He’d cut Nancy out.
That would be payback then, for all the times that his father had put him down, and belittled him.
Everyone had underestimated Daniel, but not any more.
‘So what do you say, Daniel, do we have a deal?’ Gem said, smiling expectantly as he waited for Daniel to come around to his way of thinking.
‘Okay, I’m in.’ Daniel nodded. Picking up his glass and holding it out to Gem’s so that they could seal their deal with a toast. He quite fancied working alongside the Turks, those fuckers were just as fucking mental as he was. They would make the perfect team.
Daniel Byrne was a force to be reckoned with and it was high time that his sister Nancy – and the rest of London for that matter – started to take note of that fact.
‘To us, my friend! New business partners.’
Chapter Thirteen
Sitting on the bed, looking down at her hands, Joanie Byrne stared intently at the sore red welts that had formed from where she’d just pounded them against her husband’s skull.
She couldn’t remember any of the attack she’d inflicted on him. Not a thing. Though the shocked looks on Colleen and Michael’s faces when she’d come round from her little episode had told her all she’d needed to know. The scariest part of all was that it wasn’t until Joanie had heard Colleen’s voice that she’d even realised she was lashing out at Michael. It was as if she had slipped out of her body into another realm.
As if she’d been in some kind of trance.
Knowing her useless excuse of a husband, Michael probably deserved a smack or two, of course. The way he’d been parading around the place, acting as if he didn’t give two shits about their son’s death, Joanie felt no remorse for giving him a good old clout around the head. Her husband was the epitome of everything she despised in a man. A self-centred coward. That’s all he was. But what could she do about it? She was married to the man. Tied to him for all of her days.
And now, when she needed him the most, he was doing what he always did so well: taking advantage of the fact she was suffering. Well, she may not be able to cope with the bastard right now, but she would remember all of this. His constant drinking, all those snide little digs that he made. When she was feeling more herself again, Joanie would make that bastard pay for his insincerity.
But now she needed to concentrate on herself. On the pain inside her, which crippled her every minute of her waking hour. What was happening to her?
She felt as if she was slowly losing her mind with grief. Trying her hardest not to cry then, as she listened to her daughter-in-law busying herself in her en suite, running her a bath, Joanie sighed to herself. Who’d have thought it? The only person that she could depend on these days was the one woman that Joanie had spent the last twenty years despising.
She felt truly awful, especially now that Colleen was doing nothing but run around after her, and staying at her side constantly, making sure she was okay. Joanie could barely think about all the spiteful, nasty things she’d said and done to the woman over the years.
Fighting and scoring points against each other.
It all seemed so pathetic now. How Joanie had somehow convinced herself that Colleen was some kind of threat to her and Jimmy’s relationship. That the girl had come along and tried to snatch her son away from her.
Now they’d both found out the truth about her Jimmy, about his hidden sexuality, the irony was that Colleen could never have done such a thing, even if she’d wanted to. It felt like such a waste. All those years that Joanie had spent bullying and manipulating the woman, she felt wrecked with guilt about it now.
‘Okay, Joanie, I’ve ran you a nice bath, and I’ve put some fresh towels on the radiator for you to keep them warm. Do you want me to give you a hand getting in?’ Colleen asked politely, hoping to God that Joanie would say no and spare her the sight of seeing the mother-in-law naked.
‘I’m sure that I’ll be fine. Thank you,’ Joanie said, her words clipped, embarrassed to be such a burden on the woman.
Colleen nodded.
‘Well I’ll leave you to it then. Tell you what, I’ll go and fix you some tea. I’ll have it ready for when you get out.’
Colleen’s kindness was too much for her. Joanie started sobbing.
‘Joanie?’
‘Why are you being nice to me?’ she said through her tears, unable to catch her breath as she tried to talk. ‘I treated you appallingly. All these years. All the things I’ve said to you.’ Joanie meant every word of it too. She might not be in the best state of mind at the moment, but she could clearly see what was going on all around her. The grandkids were preoccupied trying to help out with all of Jimmy’s business dealings, Michael had been his usual typical unhelpful self, which only left Colleen.
By rights, Colleen should have left Joanie alone to suffer. She should be the one revelling in Joanie’s misery and heartbreak. Just like her own husband bloody was. Instead, Colleen had become her rock.
Who else would Joanie have if it wasn’t for her?
‘The past is the past, Joanie. Let’s just leave it there, yeah?’ Colleen said then, not wanting to distress the woman any further than she already was. ‘We can’t change what happened now; we just have to move on.’
Joanie nodded. Though a small part of her wondered how Colleen could so easily just forgive and forget. The woman’s life had been made a living hell. Joanie had done that. She owed the woman so much, at least some sort of an explanation. But the words sounded pathetic even to her own ears.
‘I used to think you were a threat, Colleen. That was my problem. I was so scared of Jimmy finding a happiness with you that I could never give him, of him needing you more than he needed me.’ Joanie had the good grace to look ashamed of herself, remembering the depths she’d gone to drive a wedge between Jimmy and his new wife all those years ago. ‘I’m sorry for the way I treated you. Really I am.’
Colleen sat down on the bed then, too, beside Joanie, genuinely taken aback by the woman’s admission. Joanie had never once in twenty years shown her an ounce of remorse for the way she’d treated her, and never in her wildest dreams did she ever imagine she would get an apology from Joanie.
Jimmy’s death had changed Joanie into someone that Colleen didn’t recognise any more.
‘Look, Joanie, none of us are perfect. I know I haven’t been the best mother in the world to Nancy and Daniel. I spent most of their lives walking around this house in a drunken haze. In fact, if it wasn’t for you stepping in and doing such a great job bringing those kids up, God knows what state they’d both be in now. I have my own guilt to deal with. None of us are perfect. I was an awful mother, but a mother all the same, and I can only imagine the pain that you’re in right now, losing your one and only child.’ She placed her hand on Joanie’s. A small gesture that let Joanie know that the dynamics between them had changed.
They were calling it a truce. Both of them. Starting again.
And Joanie was glad about that. Seeing the genuine tears that glistened in Colleen’s eyes, she knew that Colleen meant every word that she said. Though Colleen’s pain cut Joanie deeply. The reason she’d never been a mother to those two children of hers was because of Joanie. She’d made sure of that, sabotaging Colleen’s every chance at her relationship with Nancy and Daniel. Placing a wedge firmly between them.
She’d wanted Nancy and Daniel to only ever need her. Jimmy, too. That was how spiteful and vindictive she could be.
What sort of a woman did that? Denied a mother her own childr
en?
‘Will you ever forgive me? Or at least forget?’
Colleen patted Joanie’s hand, unable to find her voice, and Joanie couldn’t blame her. Not normally good with her emotions, she felt awkward now, her apology leaving her feeling somewhat vulnerable.
‘I’ll go and get that bath,’ she said then, leaving Colleen alone with her thoughts.
She owed Colleen so much now, she realised that.
Joanie just hoped that one day her daughter-in-law would forgive her.
Chapter Fourteen
Standing next to her brother’s bed, the narrow stream of light beamed in from the hallway, illuminating Daniel’s face just enough so that Nancy could see him breathing. Enough so she could see his chest rise and fall as he slept so soundly. So deeply.
How could he sleep so soundly after what he’d done? she thought, as she wrapped her finger tightly around the trigger of her father’s Smith and Wesson that she’d taken from his safe. Aiming it at Daniel’s head.
The house was completely silent now.
Everyone fast asleep in their beds.
Nancy was enjoying the stillness. She’d needed some time on her own to think things over tonight, to try to work out what she was going to do, especially after the day she’d had. Finding herself in her father’s office at the front of the house, she’d sat in his chair for what had felt like hours. Just staring at his photographs on the wall.
The Byrne family.
Her mother, her grandparents, Daniel. Even Alex.
All of them staring back at the camera happily, smiling. Blissfully unaware that the Byrne family was nothing more than a rickety house of cards, a sham, ready to topple at any given moment.
Jimmy’s facade.
She wondered how much of their lives had been real.
Her father had loved her, she was certain of that. Despite all the lies and deceit, she knew that deep down in her soul. Though about the other things – about him and Alex, about the other men – for years she had no idea at all. Her father had hidden his secrets well. Buried them, in fact, so deeply that no one would ever find out the truth.
But the truth always came out in the end, one way or another. As it would with the other secrets that now tainted this house.
Steadying her arm, she pointed the gun at Daniel’s head. Right in the middle, between his eyes. Her brother had been behind her attack the other night too, Nancy was certain of it. One of his vain attempts at trying to warn her off from finding out too much. In typical Daniel style, he’d sent someone else to do his dirty work for him.
But Nancy knew everything. She’d had it all confirmed by her father’s reliable sources at the Cyber Crime Unit that Daniel was involved.
Her brother, the blackmailer and murderer.
She’d found out more than even Jack Taylor had been capable of. She was the only one who knew. The only one really aware of how low her brother Daniel was prepared to stoop to get what he wanted. The extremes he would go to protect himself. The man had since shown no sorrow or remorse for what he had done. No regret for ripping their family apart. For murdering, in cold blood, the only man that Nancy Byrne had ever loved.
Now he was going to die.
Trying to control the shake of her hand, she willed herself to do it. To fire her father’s ‘old faithful’, as he used to call it. The gun that he kept in the house for their own protection.
The irony, Nancy thought as she aimed it at Daniel’s head. The very person he’d needed protection from had been sleeping under their roof all along.
Her finger twitched.
One squeeze of the trigger was all it would take, and his brains would explode all over the pillow and headboard behind him. Or slam a bullet into his chest, just as he had done to their father.
One press and it would all be over.
It felt surreal to watch his face, so relaxed. The complete oblivion that his own sister was about to kill him, that she was standing over him with the power to rip his life away from him while he was lost in his dreams.
She could do it.
She had to do it.
Pull the trigger! she instructed herself.
Wincing as she recalled the past couple of weeks since her father had been murdered. How Daniel had made them all believe that Marlon Jackson had been involved. How they’d held the man in one of her father’s warehouses and how she’d watched as Daniel had executed him too.
She felt sick to her stomach at that. Knowing now that Daniel had played them all. He’d killed Marlon to silence the man. Afraid that Marlon would give his game up.
Oh, Daniel was good. She’d give him that.
He played them all.
Their father had massively underestimated Daniel, it seemed. Her brother was smarter and far more devious than any of them had given him credit for.
Nancy felt her tears, unable to hold them back as they spilled out involuntarily. Pouring down her cheeks against her wishes. Brushing them away with the back of her hand, her other hand still holding the gun.
There would be time to weep once this was over and, when she finally did allow herself to properly cry, she was saving her tears for her father. Not for her brother.
She should wake him, she thought. Let him really suffer. Make him feel the pain and torment that he had inflicted upon her, upon them all.
Pull the fucking trigger!
Only, she couldn’t do it.
Instead she stood there, frozen to the spot, her arm stretched out in front of her. Shaking violently as she realised that she couldn’t go through with his murder.
She was too weak, too pathetic to go through with it. Her conscience eating away inside of her, telling her that if she did this, if she went through with it, then she’d be sinking just as low as her brother.
She’d be a cold, callous murderer too.
Her nan Joanie would never cope with another death in the family, the woman was barely coping now, and what would happen to Nancy? With Daniel dead, she’d end up in prison. Who would look after her father’s businesses then? Who would make sure that everything was run just as her dad would have wanted?
She couldn’t go through with this.
Angry at herself for not having the guts to just shoot the fucker in the head, and wipe him off the face of the planet, she hurried from the room, feeling the bile rising up in her throat again. The red hot rage that pulsated through her veins at the injustice of it all.
That Daniel had somehow got away with everything.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Where the hell were you last night? You were supposed to be over at the flat on Bridge Street,’ Nancy asked, annoyed to find her brother sitting at the kitchen table, calmly eating his breakfast, completely oblivious to the amount of aggro he’d caused her by disappearing the night before, and how he’d driven her to the edge.
The fact that she’d almost killed him.
‘I’ve been busy!’ Daniel said, not bothering to look up from texting on his phone.
Nancy eyed the glass of Scotch next to him. Disgusted that Daniel was drinking already, so early in the day. Not that it perturbed her. It didn’t matter how lairy and volatile Daniel could be, especially when he had a drink inside him – he didn’t intimidate her in the slightest. In fact, right now, the only thing she felt towards her brother was severely pissed off.
‘Well you left that prat Lee Archer in charge and by the time me and Jack got there, the girls were tearing each other’s hair out. Literally! What the fuck are you playing at, Daniel? The one thing I asked you to do, and you couldn’t even do that right.’
Daniel had asked to be included in the businesses, and Nancy had included him, only he’d thrown it back in her face. She geared herself up for one of Daniel’s excuses, for her brother to try and dig himself out of it with some pathetic reason why he hadn’t kept an eye on the place like she’d asked him to.
But Daniel wasn’t in an apologetic mood, it seemed.
‘Oh, give it a rest will you, N
ancy. It’s a poxy brothel. It’s not exactly difficult to keep a few tarts in line, is it?! I’m sure that Lee had everything in hand.’ Daniel rolled his eyes then. ‘Besides, I ain’t stupid! The only reason you asked me to keep an eye on the place is so that you could pack me off out of your way. Well I had other plans. Some business of my own that I needed to attend to. Not everything has to be run by you!’
‘Is that so!’ Nancy said, shoving her handbag on the kitchen side, before going to the fridge and pouring herself a glass of orange juice. She couldn’t stomach any food, not with the mood she was in.
‘Well, who does it have to be run by then, Daniel? Because this is a family business. We’re carrying things on just as Dad would have. You don’t get to just start throwing your weight around and making decisions behind my back. That’s not how things work around here.’
Daniel shook his head, his mouth curled into a twisted smirk.
‘And how are things run around here, Nancy? You tell every fucker to jump and we all ask how high? Is that how you want it? You shouting the orders and I just comply, like some personal fucking lackey? Only, that’s bullshit too. This was our father’s business, you’re right. But no one’s put you in charge. I have as much right to make decisions as you do.’
Nancy took a mouthful of her orange juice, allowing herself a few seconds to breathe before she launched her glass at her brother’s head. He could be so pig-headed at times. Thinking that he had a right to do as he pleased. That he could worm his way in to a business that he knew nothing about.
‘You don’t know what you’re doing, Daniel. That’s the problem. You didn’t help out with the business when Dad was alive, and you haven’t got a clue what you’re doing now that he’s gone.’ She stared at him, the hatred that she felt towards her brother all-consuming. They wouldn’t even be here now, having this conversation, but for Daniel.
The Broken_A gripping thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat Page 11
