Blinded by her tears, Nancy wiped them away and focused. Keeping her gaze fixed on the mahogany casket as it was lowered into the ground.
The casket that her grandmother Joanie had painstakingly designed, with a beautiful hand-crafted dark veneer, six shiny brass handles. Her nan had obsessed over it in fact, clung to every last detail, as if her son’s coffin was of some great significance.
Which of course it wasn’t. It was just another distraction, Nancy thought as she stared down into the gaping dark hole in the earth in front of her. The casket was nothing more than an overpriced wooden box; it’s only purpose to sit in the ground and rot for all eternity.
Just as her father would.
Sobbing now as her sudden grief hit her with force, Nancy’s body shook. She could feel the tightening inside her chest, her ribcage constricting her lungs as she struggled for breath.
She felt Daniel then, standing tall beside her. The warmth of her brother as he lovingly pulled her in close, wrapping his arms around her in a bid to offer her comfort.
Her brother, who was just like her in so many ways. Closed off to his emotions. Private. Today though, he had come into his own, offering her and her mother his unwavering support. Embracing his new role as the man of the family as he tried to hold them all together.
Nothing could fix this family now though, Nancy thought as she took a slow deep breath.
Determined to pull herself together, she tuned into the priest’s final words, as she looked around at each family member standing at her father’s graveside. Staring at each and every one of them.
Michael, Joanie, Colleen and Daniel. Jack and Alex too.
The Byrne family. In mourning… only a murderer was stood amongst them all.
Nancy’s gaze stopped at her grandmother, dressed in her expensive fur shawl, her face plastered with a thick mask of make-up. Even in her seventies, even on the day of her one and only son’s funeral, Joanie Byrne was always one for keeping up appearances.
The finery couldn’t disguise the hurt she was feeling, though. The pain was written clearly across the older woman’s face; etched into her skin with deep, burrowed lines. Jimmy’s death had extinguished Joanie Byrne’s fire, Nancy knew it. She recognised the feeling inside herself. Her grandmother was the only other person as truly grief-stricken as she was.
‘Until we meet again, my beautiful Jimmy. Please God, until we meet again my boy.’
Holding his wife’s hand tightly, Michael Byrne had been taking every detail of today’s ceremony in.
Michael had never in all his days seen St John’s so full, as Jimmy’s friends and acquaintances lined the aisle and the back of the church, pouring out into the courtyard outside.
This was a gangster’s funeral if ever he saw one. Every face in London was here today.
Another show – just how Jimmy would have wanted it. Even in his death, his son had to make a point of being better than everyone else.
Unlike his grieving wife and grandchildren, today was a very happy day for Michael.
He’d spent a lifetime loathing Jimmy, watching his every word and action in case he stepped out of line and upset Joanie, knowing that his son would retaliate on her behalf. Now suddenly, his tormenter was finally gone from this world forever. He could live out his last years in peace, without fear of being terrorised by his own flesh and blood.
I hope you rot in Hell, Jimmy, you bastard.
Nancy looked at her mother then, staring down at the ground with that same vacant look on her face as always. Though she could now see a subtle shift in Colleen, as if a weight had been lifted from the woman’s shoulders. Her mother looked different somehow.
* * *
Colleen stared down into the grave. Two burials inside of one month.
First her dearly missed mother and now Jimmy, her husband. She hadn’t even been able to look when her mother’s coffin had been lowered down into the ground. Just the idea of it had given her a panic attack, only magnifying the gaping void inside her heart. Today though, Colleen wanted to remember everything.
Throwing a handful of earth on top of the casket along with the other mourners, a symbol of acknowledging that all bodies were returned to the ground, she bid her husband one final goodbye. To be certain that the man she’d been tied to for all these years, the man she’d loathed and hated and feared all at once was buried deep down under the dirt, where he belonged.
In Jimmy’s death, Colleen was finally free.
She hadn’t drunk for four weeks now. That was a record for Colleen and today, standing between her two children, Colleen knew that she wouldn’t ever again.
She’d changed – and other people had noticed it too. She felt lighter, unburdened.
Unlike Joanie, who in the past few weeks had withered away with grief, Colleen had found her strength in Jimmy’s death. It was as if her husband’s murder had suddenly given her life.
The weirdest thing of all was that she and Joanie had somehow called a truce now that Jimmy had gone. Colleen wondered if perhaps Joanie no longer blamed Colleen for trying to take away her son, or maybe the woman was simply all out of fight.
Whatever’s Joanie’s reasons for thawing her hate towards her, Colleen was glad. She’d spent a lifetime fighting. With Joanie and Jimmy, and with herself. Battling with her conscience. Her mind.
All those years wasted. She’d lost herself, she knew that, but now that Jimmy was finally gone from her life, Colleen was determined to take control of her own destiny.
It was time to make a change for the better. To somehow try and build bridges with her children, Nancy and Daniel. She owed them both that much. And for the first time in her life, Colleen really believed that she could do it too.
She was going to get her family back.
I may have been a Byrne by name, Jimmy, but I will always be a Walsh by blood. I hate you, Jimmy, with every part of my being. I hope you rot.
* * *
Nancy stood and looked over to Jack Taylor and Alex Costa. The two men, though not related to her father, were probably closer to him than all of them.
Even her, she thought bitterly.
Jack had done all he could for her father since his death. He hadn’t been able to uncover much regarding their father’s killer, but he’d handed them Marlon Jackson on a platter so that she and Daniel could avenge their father’s death.
Only, it wasn’t Marlon who killed her father. His death was unnecessary.
Marlon had served his purpose. He’d covered up for someone and paid for the privilege with his life.
Nancy eyed Alex Costa then, catching the small, subtle nod of his head as he offered his condolences across the gravesite.
Her father’s so-called best friend. Though Nancy knew now that Alex was so much more than that.
Jimmy’s death had hit him the hardest. He’d lost weight. His skin looked grey, his eyes like slits, full of raw pain as he attended today’s funeral. He was the shadow of the man he’d been just a few weeks ago.
Nancy knew that Alex was barely leaving his flat, instead spending his days drinking heavily, consumed with his grief.
Or his guilt?
Nancy knew all his secrets now.
How he and her father had conducted their sordid affair for the past twenty years. How Alex had been in love with her father and her father, it seemed, had reciprocated the feelings. Only her father had been too ashamed to admit that he was gay, choosing to live a lie all his life instead. He’d hidden behind his marriage and children as if his family were just some kind of mystical shield that would protect him, and everyone around him, from the truth.
The truth was out now though.
Nancy had learned more about her father in his death than she ever would have while he had been alive.
Shrewd, just like her father would have wanted her to be, she’d done her own digging.
She’d uncovered other secrets too. Like finding out about the boy in the video that Jack Taylor had told her all about.
A rent boy from Kings Cross. Gavin Hurst. Just a kid by all accounts really, a little younger than her. The revelation of what her father had been doing had sickened Nancy to her core. He’d murdered him too.
When he realised that Gavin Hurst had set him up in order to blackmail him, the boy had unwittingly ended up filming his own murder.
Of course, Alex had helped her father to cover up the boy’s death. What else would Alex do? After all, he loved her father, didn’t he?
Poor, scorned Alex. Devastated by Jimmy’s betrayal, Alex must have been fit to kill.
As the rain began to fall around them all, the other mourners moved away, pulling their jackets up around them to shelter themselves from the cold splatter of rain. Nancy stood and stared at her family.
It was true what her father used to say about loyalty and trust. That just because people were close to you, it didn’t mean that they wouldn’t stab you in the back. In fact, they were the most likely suspects.
He’d been right, too.
Nancy had used her own source to do some digging since her father had been killed. An old contact of her father’s, from the Met’s Cyber Crime Unit, who had owed Jimmy a few favours. She’d been waiting for days for this call. It was bitter irony that she’d received it just minutes after the church service had finished.
She’d been so convinced that Alex Costa had done it. Only it hadn’t been him at all.
Her contact had apologised for the delay in getting back to her, explaining that he’d had trouble getting through all the red tape to finally get a warrant to access the data from Gavin Hurst’s internet provider.
But now, Nancy’s contact had struck gold. He’d said that the blackmailer had made one crucial error; they hadn’t used an anonymizer to mask their internet activity. He’d managed to trace the IP address back to the ISP – which meant they had an address.
The trace had led straight back to the Byrnes’ house.
There was a betrayer amongst them. A murderer.
Nancy stood watching, the priest’s words still echoing in her ears.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
She felt a hand slip into hers. ‘Come on, Sis, let’s get you home, yeah?’ Her brother held her upright again as he guided her towards the awaiting car.
Nancy nodded, smiling back at her brother with a tight smile.
Her brother, who’d spent a lifetime living inside her shadow. Who had never quite measured up to her standards, nor their father’s expectations.
Nancy couldn’t even begin to imagine how that must have felt for Daniel. To see his sister placed on a pedestal, while Daniel never received so much as the time of day from their dad.
Nancy had always wondered if her dad sometimes picked at Daniel because he was so like their mother. That same vacant stare, the same sickly look.
She wondered if that’s why Daniel had done it.
Why he’d blackmailed their father – so he could humiliate the man, just as Jimmy had humiliated him. So that he could publicly shame him. So that he could teach him a lesson.
If that was the reason why he’d pulled the trigger and murdered their father.
Her dad had been right all along. Daniel couldn’t be trusted, and he certainly wasn’t clever.
Even today of all days, making out that he was the person that could help put them all back together again – when the truth was, it was Daniel that had pulled them all apart.
Her brother. The dutiful son, the attentive brother.
A murderer and a coward.
While Nancy was truly Jimmy Byrne’s daughter. She was her father’s legacy.
As she slipped into the funeral car and sat alongside the rest of her family, Nancy Byrne stared out of the window, watching as the car made its way slowly out through the black wrought-iron gates.
She looked at the sea of headstones sweeping out across the cemetery either side, the rain lashing violently down on the windows.
Staring up at the darkening skies, she made herself a silent promise that she would personally avenge her father’s death.
Daniel had committed the ultimate betrayal and for that, he was going to pay.
Nancy Byrne would make sure of that.
* * *
Did you enjoy The Betrayed? Then you’ll love The Promise by Casey Kelleher!
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Available now!
A Letter from Casey
Thank You for taking the time to read The Betrayed. If you fancy leaving me a review, I’d really appreciate it. Not only is it great to have your feedback, (I love reading each and every one of the reviews left.) but adding a review can really help to gain the attention of new readers too.
So, if you would kind enough to leave a short, honest review, it would be very much appreciated!
I really enjoyed writing The Betrayed. Jimmy Byrne was an interesting character to write. A family man, a business man but at the same time a ruthless face operating in London’s murky criminal underworld. The story is ultimately about secrets and betrayal and how these elements effect the entire family unit.
I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing more of the Byrne family very soon!
I really hope you enjoyed Jimmy’s story!
I’m currently working on the next book so if you’d like to stay in touch and find out about the next release, or you just want to drop by and say “Hello” I’d love to hear from you!
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Desperate to find a place of safety, Georgie and Marnie run for their lives, but end up in the hands of Delray Anderton. A violent London gangster and notorious pimp, Delray has big plans for beautiful teenager Georgie, seeing her as a chance to make some serious money.
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The Betrayed: A shocking, gritty thriller that will hook you from the first page Page 28