Page 116 of Ruthless Savior
"I'll be fine. These are the rules of my world. And my father has overstepped too far." I kiss her knuckles again. "I'll be back before you know it, and then we're going home. When your mother is ready, back to Boston.”
Leila nods. She squeezes my hand, her eyes meeting mine. “I love you, Ronan O’Malley.”
I lean in and kiss her gently, once more, before I leave to break ties with my father. To make what he did right, one way or another.
“I love you too, Leila O’Malley.”
—
The Irish councilmeets in a nineteenth-century mansion in an old Dublin neighborhood, a place that's seen generations of business among the Irish families who held power here and overseas. The mahogany-paneled room is decorated with oil portraits of long-dead patriarchs, a dark wooden table at one end, lined with seats for the council elders. This room has seen deals and death sentences, and today, I have a feeling it will be the latter.
I take my place at the head of the table, a position that should belong to my father but that I'm staking my claim to today. The five council members watch me, concerned and wary.
My father sits at the far end of the table, flanked by council security. He’s no longer restrained, but he's outnumbered and outgunned. More importantly, he's outranked. I’ve brought my grievance before the council, and unless they find him justified in his actions, he won’t leave this room. I’m no longer the only one who will see to that.
Connor McBride, the eldest of the council members, leans forward. "This is highly irregular, Ronan. Your father is the?—"
"My father," I interrupt, "conspired with our enemy to use my pregnant wife as bait in a trap that nearly killed her and my unborn child."
A heavy silence falls across the table. The men in this room have seen violence and blood and done both personally, but my father has crossed a line that can’t be tolerated.
"That's a serious accusation.” Liam Fitzgerald’s face is grave as he looks at me, then at Padraigh. “And it carries serious consequences.”
"It's the truth." I look directly at my father as I speak. "Padraigh O'Malley fed intelligence to Rocco De Luca, ensuring that De Luca would know where to find my wife. He sacrificed her safety— and the safety of the next generation of O'Malleys—to enact a plan that I neither knew about nor agreed to. Nor would I have," I add.
"Is this true, Padraigh?" McBride's voice is carefully neutral.
I’ve wondered if he would deny it. If my father will try to take me down, claim I’m a liar, blame this all on me. But instead, he meets the elders’ gazes coldly.
"I made a strategic decision to end a conflict that was being dragged out by my son’s poor choices. Sometimes leadership requires sacrifices." Padraigh sits stonily still. “I wanted to teach my son a lesson and end De Luca in one move. My son required a firm hand to bring him back into line, worthy of the position he inherited.”
"Sacrifices," I repeat, standing slowly. "My wife is lying in a hospital bed because of your 'strategic decision.' The mother of your grandchild nearly died because you decided she was acceptable collateral damage."
"She's not one of us—" Padraigh begins, but I cut him off.
"She's my wife!" The words explode from me with enough force to make every man in the room flinch. "She carries my child—your heir—and you used her as bait!"
"Ronan." My father's voice is cold, dismissive. "You're thinking with your heart instead of your head. It's made you weak."
"Has it?" I walk around the table toward him, my footsteps echoing in the heavy silence. "I killed Rocco De Luca while you were kept under guard in my manor. I found him and put an end to him while you used a pregnant woman as a lure. Which one of us is weak?"
For the first time, uncertainty flickers in his eyes.
"You taught me that family comes first," I continue. "That we protect our own above everything else. But you don't see Leila as family, do you? You see her as an outsider, a temporary inconvenience." My voice sounds tight, laced with pain as I look at the man I once respected above all else in this world. "You couldn't stand that I found something more important than your approval. Couldn't stand that I might choose my wife and child over your plans for revenge."
"I've served this family all my life," Padraigh snarls, his voice tight with fury. "I've made sacrifices you can't imagine, built an empire you're not worthy to inherit?—"
"Then you should have thought of that before you put my family at risk." I step back, addressing the council directly. "Padraigh O'Malley violated the most sacred rule of our organization—he put his personal desires above the protectionof this family. He endangered the life of my wife and my unborn child for his own ends."
"And what are you asking of us?" Fitzgerald's voice is low and calm, but I can hear the weight behind the question.
"I'm asking you to recognize that I am now the head of this family. That my father's actions have forfeited his right to leadership." I pause, letting the implications sink in. "And I'm asking you to judge him by the same standards we'd judge any other member who betrayed us."
The silence stretches for what feels like an eternity. These men have known my father longer than I've been alive, have followed his leadership and profited from his vision and business savvy. But he’s violated our laws, our traditions. And I know he would do the same to me if I were in his place.
McBride speaks first. "It’s clear that Padraigh O’Malley acted in his own self-interest. And endangering his own family breaks our laws beyond repair."
Fitzgerald nods. "Using a pregnant woman as bait is unconscionable."
