Using Conor’s chair as a step, I hopped back onto the table, sitting myself between Dylan and Samuel. Dylan had yet to look up as he stared at the table like a scared puppy. I sighed. “Oh, Dylan.” His cowardice further cemented my belief that he wasn’t the mastermind behind this betrayal. I felt bad for him. Sure, growing up he'd pissed me off by teasing the hell out of me, but he was my blood. My uncle was the one who had led him astray. As much as I wished I could put all the blame on Samuel, Dylan had sealed his fate by choosing to follow him.
This is our way of life.
“Let’s play a game,” I said, opening the cylinder on my revolver, and dumped the remaining bullets in the palm of my hand. I started tossing one bullet after another down onto the table where Dylan was staring. The first bullet loudly hitting the table startled him, the third finally drew his eyes up to mine. I continued tossing bullets, each obnoxiously loud as they bounced on the table until I was down to one, which I pointedly showed to Dylan as I reloaded it into my gun, spun the cylinder, then clicked it back into place.
I pointed the gun at Dylan before turning my head to face my uncle. Samuel’s eyes were narrowed and filled with murderous rage as he looked from the gun pointed at his son to me. “This is how we play,” I said cheerfully with a smile full of mirth. “I’m going to ask you a question and you’re going to answer. If I feel like you’re lying, I pull the trigger. If you don’t answer in a timely manner, I pull the trigger. I’m not looking. I don’t know if the gun is going to click or if your son is going to eat a bullet. It’s your gamble.”
Samuel turned back to Stefan, whose eyes finally met his brother’s, completely void of all emotion as he regarded him. “Are you seriously going to just sit there and let this shit show continue? She is threatening to execute my son and is accusing two leaders of this family without providing a scrap of proof. This is not how things are done, Stefan. Your daughter is about to start a war.”
Revealing nothing as to what he was thinking, my father’s eyes shifted to me. “Maybe you should tell the room why you’re accusing your uncle and cousin before you continue your game?”
“Of course. How silly of me to forget that not everyone is privy to Samuel and Dylan’s betrayal,” I said as I continued to point my gun at Dylan. Samuel stared with disbelief like a fool. “Twelve million dollars. That’s what’s missing from the last eight hundred kilos you moved over the past two years.”
“That’s the drug business. Not everyone can afford asking price.”
“Well, according to Nicoli De Luca, the don of the Italian Mafia, we’ve been his pipeline for the past two years and he’s been paying asking price at forty thousand a kilo. I followed Mark, Dylan’s head enforcer, to Show 'n Tail down in Bridgeport, where he had a meeting with the don. I was in the same room while Mark ran his fucking mouth, telling me everything you and Dylan have been up to.”
Samuel went quiet, his mind clearly scheming. Trying to think of any excuse or lie he could use to save him.
“So, Uncle, here’s my first question…was it your idea to sell to the De Lucas?” I asked, cocking the gun.
Samuel glanced at his son. He was trying to hide what he was feeling by steeling his expression. The void facade made him look just like Stefan, but his eyes always gave him away. They were permanently full of anger, resentment, and jealousy. He’d always hated having to follow Stefan’s rule. He wanted the keys to the kingdom, but like his son, his emotions controlled him.
“No,” he answered.
I pulled the trigger and the gun clicked.
“Fuck!” Dylan roared, voice shaken with fear. He closed his eyes as he released a trembling breath. “Maura, please. You need to listen to me. I—”
I whooped and laughed. “Talk about a rush!” I peered over my shoulder. “Anyone want to place some bets? I have a feeling it’ll fire next time.” They just blinked at me. They seriously need to lighten up. I looked back at Samuel. “Let’s try this again. Uncle…same question?”
Samuel’s void facade faltered back to murderous rage. His eyes filled with the promise of everything he’d do to me if he got his hands on me. The pain he would inflict played out like a fire dance in his depthless pupils.
“You think this is funny?” he seethed. “You think just because you hold the gun you hold the power? You’re just a sniveling little girl desperate for Daddy’s love.”
My finger pulled the trigger and the gun clicked again. In my peripheral, Dylan jerked in his seat, but neither Samuel nor I looked away from each other.
“If Stefan had married you off to De Luca like I suggested years ago, I wouldn’t have had to send Dylan to make a deal with him. His hate for the Italians and his love for you clouds his judgment. We needed peace between our two families. We’ve been fighting for too long and have lost too many of our own.”
“If you did this for the good of the family, why are you lining your own pockets?”
Samuel’s hand slammed down on the table in a fit. “Who do you think your father is going to name as his successor, hmm?” he asked caustically, then looked to Stefan. “You think I’ve been fucking blind all these years? You’ve been grooming her,” he sneered, and his eyes traveled around the room until they circled back to me. “He’s going to put a bitch in charge. A woman cannot rule over this family. You will ruin our entire empire and I’ll be damned if I sit back and let that happen.”
Without removing my eyes from Samuel’s, I pulled the trigger over and over and over. The click after click of the gun sliced through the silence in the room to the same effect as a loud drum. Boom. Boom. Boom. Panic and fear took root in Samuel’s eyes with each click of the gun until it was clear the gun was never going to fire. I pulled the bullet I'd pretended to load into the gun from my sleeve. “Sleight of hand,” I said, wiggling my fingers at my uncle. “I swear you can learn anything on the Internet these days.” I placed the bullet upright on the table in front of Dylan. Both him and Samuel held mirror shocked expressions with their jaws slightly ajar. I set the revolver next to the bullet.
“I never intended to shoot you, Dylan.” My poor cousin’s brow was drenched with sweat and his face was white as a sheet. “However, there is one more matter we must go over and that’s where your loyalties lie.” Dylan’s head jerked up, eyes pleading. He opened his mouth to speak, but I stopped him with the shake of my head. “Put the bullet in the gun and line it up with the barrel,” I ordered him. His eyes dropped to the gun and bullet in front of him.
The sound of a chair scraping the floor was followed by Jamie growling, “Maura!”
I ignored him as I watched Dylan’s hand hover over the gun, apprehensively. “I won’t ask again, Dylan,” I said firmly and that seemed to be the push he needed. He scooped up the gun and bullet and once the cylinder was clicked back in place, I grabbed the barrel of the gun while Dylan still held the grip. When I pointed it to my chest, more chairs scraped across the floor as the men around me got to their feet.
“Maura, what are you doing?” Stefan demanded.
I could hear movement around me, but I kept my focus solely on Dylan. He tried to pull the gun away from my chest, but my hold was firm. I cupped his chin, making his eyes lock with mine. “Dylan, I know you were just following your father’s lead. I know you wouldn’t have betrayed the family if it wasn’t for him.”