Page 114 of Sins of Arrogance

Darakov wants the al­liance with the Nor­thies as a way to get to me. As a com­peti­tor in the arms mar­ket, he has to know any at­tempt to do busi­ness with us would be sus­pect.

“Why does he want the al­liance with the North­side Dublin Syn­di­cate?” I ask.

“I told you. He wants me to have ba­bies for him.” Dier­dre shud­ders. “I don’t want to get preg­nant.”

“Did you tell your da that?”

“No! He’d dis­own me.”

Life in the mob isn’t easy for women, but it’s not easy for men ei­ther.

Cer­tain as­pects of our lives are dic­tated by our births. But this isn’t the dark ages.

“Your da wouldn’t dis­own you.”

Dier­dre shrugs. “As long as I’m an as­set for him, he gives me the al­lowance I need to keep up ap­pear­ances to at­tract a suit­able hus­band.”

In other words, she pre­tends to be open to an al­liance mar­riage to keep her sub­stan­tial al­lowance com­ing in.

“It’s sur­pris­ing you aren’t al­ready mar­ried.”

“You know da ex­pected you to marry me. Both our das felt guilty when they saw how heart­bro­ken I was af­ter you left. They un­der­stood that I couldn’t con­sider mar­ry­ing any­one else.” The way she says it makes it clear there was no heartache in­volved.

Just a woman who wanted to keep her lav­ish life­style with­out be­ing ham­pered by a mob mar­riage on the hori­zon.

“They be­lieve you’ve had enough time to grieve.”

She scowls again. “Aye. And now they want me to marry a geri­atric.”

“Fifty-two is not a geri­atric.”

“I don’t want an old man in my bed. I want you Mick.”

I don’t have to an­swer that claim be­cause Dier­dre’s body suc­cumbs to the drug. Pass­ing out, she falls for­ward, her face land­ing in the Dublin Lawyer she pushed away.

Now that I know why she’s re­ally here and who wants to marry her, keep­ing her on Long Is­land might be strate­gic.

I just hope she’s not too big a pain in the ass to Kara. My wife is strong though. She’s not go­ing to be in­tim­i­dated by some­one as fake as Dier­dre.

Dier­dre wants me, but I don’t want her.

Prob­lem solved.

Chap­ter 29: Shad­ows Be­tween Us

MICK

The apart­ment is quiet when I come in, but there’s a light from the door­way in our bed­room.

Kara’s still up.

I hoped, but it’s af­ter ten and she’s usu­ally asleep by now.

Check­ing in on Fitz, I find him out cold, sprawled side­ways across his bed with his cov­ers kicked off. I shift him so his head is back on the pil­low be­fore pulling up the cov­ers.

Gobby jumps onto the bed and set­tles her­self be­side him like the cat has been wait­ing for some­one to sort out her hu­man.

Af­ter press­ing a kiss to his tem­ple, I head to mine and Kara’s bed­room.