Page 111 of Sins of Arrogance

I keep the dis­taste that washes through me off my face.

The drug low­ers in­hi­bi­tions, mak­ing peo­ple a lot more sus­cep­ti­ble to sug­ges­tion and will­ing to speak freely. It can also re­sult in a woman from my past try­ing to se­duce me at the ta­ble.

I’m not even a lit­tle turned on right now. Nor am I em­bar­rassed. I don’t get em­bar­rassed. But it’s a good thing Dier­dre’s mem­ory of tonight will be hazy.

Be­cause if she re­mem­bers this, she will be em­bar­rassed. And prob­a­bly pissed. Re­jec­tion doesn’t sit well with a woman like her.

Spoiled. Used to get­ting what she wants.

And that could make her dan­ger­ous, even if she’s not here to spy on us for the Nor­thies.

Ig­nor­ing her bla­tant at­tempt at se­duc­tion, I ask, “Why are you here Dier­dre?”

“I’m hav­ing din­ner with my very good friend.” Her voice is low and flirty.

I man­age not to roll my eyes. “In New York. What are you do­ing in New York?”

Her eyes widen. “I told you. I’m here to stay safe from the Odessa Mafia un­til my fa­ther fin­ishes ne­go­ti­a­tions with them.”

I mea­sure the amount of wine left in her glass. Barely a swal­low or two, which means she’s al­ready drunk two sub­stan­tial pours.

We’ve been here for nearly thirty min­utes and the drug is al­ready af­fect­ing her, but it will be an­other fif­teen be­fore I’m con­fi­dent her in­hi­bi­tions are low­ered enough to trust her an­swers.

Un­like Wraith, Dier­dre has no train­ing in with­stand­ing drug in­duced in­ter­ro­ga­tion, soft or oth­er­wise.

We eat in si­lence as I wait for the drug to take full ef­fect.

Dier­dre tries to stab a prawn on her plate and misses twice. She or­dered Dublin Lawyer, but prefers prawns over lob­ster and in­sisted the chef pre­pare it with them.

She hasn’t touched the crusty bread it was served with, but she’s made in­roads in the shrimp tossed in a rich whiskey-cream sauce.

She tries to stab an­other one again, but when she misses, she drops her fork as if she for­got what she was do­ing with it.

Per­fect.

“I’m cu­ri­ous,” I say, voice mild, “why the Odessa boys would want you bad enough to risk tak­ing you on the Nor­thie’s turf.”

She reaches for her glass, misses and waves her hand. “I wasn’t in Dublin. I was shop­ping in Lon­don.”

That makes more sense, but doesn’t ex­plain why they felt the need to kid­nap her at all.

“Why take you?”

“It’s mob busi­ness. Some­thing to do with ship­ments or ac­counts, I don’t know. You know how it is. Your da and mine think women are mush­rooms and do their best to keep us in the dark.”

“But you don’t stay in the dark, do you?” It’s the rea­son I con­tin­ued to cul­ti­vate her as an in­for­ma­tion as­set af­ter my mar­riage.

She al­ways knows the de­tails.

She used to whis­per them in my ear at night, be­tween moans and mur­murs. Dier­dre Kelly col­lects in­for­ma­tion the way other women col­lect hand­bags. And she al­ways, al­ways knows more than she should.

She winks. “You know me well.”

“So?”

“Our das are re­fus­ing to budge on the price of a ship­ment of weapons and have threat­ened to go else­where.” Her hazy eyes widen, like the words com­ing out of her mouth sur­prise her.

Speak­ing un­var­nished truth prob­a­bly does. It’s not her norm.