Page 12 of Sins of Arrogance

Other kids learned man­ners. I learned to mask the mon­ster who felt no re­morse about break­ing the arm of a boy who knocked my sis­ter off the mon­key bars and made her cry.

Brigid was five. I was eight. The boy who knocked her off so he could play on them was ten.

While he writhed on the ground cry­ing and scream­ing for the teacher, I told him I would kill him if he ever touched her again.

Da took me out of school and got me pri­vate tu­tors af­ter that.

My broth­ers were all made be­tween the ages of nine­teen and twenty-one. I had my first kill at the age of eleven.

It wasn’t for the mob. It was for my dog. An­i­mals made more sense to me than peo­ple. They still do. Toby was my friend and con­fi­dant. He loved me un­con­di­tion­ally and with­out judg­ment.

He was the only liv­ing be­ing that could.

I sliced the throat of the man who hit him while driv­ing three sheets to the wind. Da never al­lowed me to get an­other pet.

Now, Fitz has a cat. A bun­dle of chaos my son lets sleep in his bed. If some­one hurts Gobby, I’ll kill them my­self.

“It took a long time for me to get past los­ing you,” Dier­dre adds.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I’m not.

I don’t feel any­thing at all in re­sponse to her words, but those are the words to say in this sit­u­a­tion.

I’ve per­fected the art of know­ing the cor­rect re­sponse whether, or not, I think it’s a valid one.

Ex­cept when it comes to my wife. At first, Kara was as easy to pre­dict and ap­pease as any­one else. Eas­ier even. But not any­more.

She used to fol­low me around like Toby and I didn’t mind that she was al­ways there. I liked it.

It felt right.

But things changed af­ter Fitz was born and tak­ing care of him took prece­dence. She still dropped in to see me when I was work­ing from my of­fice on the es­tate, but not as of­ten.

And af­ter she got back from The Mar­lowe Cen­ter, she stopped com­ing to my of­fice at all. That’s when I started stalk­ing my own wife on the CCTV in the man­sion.

Un­be­knownst to my wife, I in­stalled cam­eras in the main liv­ing area and bed­room in our apart­ment.

Be­ing able to check on her through­out the day set­tled some­thing in­side me that had been feral since her brush with death and trip to The Mar­lowe Cen­ter.

Then Kara’s sev­en­teen-year-old cousin stood up to Bro­gan and in­sisted on go­ing to col­lege like her de­ceased fa­ther had promised her that she could. Kara stood up for Róise, but some­thing changed in her when her cousin got ac­cepted to the fine arts uni­ver­sity.

She pulled away from both me and Bro­gan emo­tion­ally.

Emo­tions aren’t my thing, so at first, I didn’t think it mat­tered.

When I re­al­ized how much I didn’t like the dis­tance she’d cre­ated be­tween us, I as­sumed it would change back af­ter she started se­cret on­line cour­ses for uni­ver­sity. That her re­sent­ment about hav­ing to marry at eigh­teen, when most women had their whole lives ahead of them, would dis­si­pate.

She’ll get her de­gree next spring, just like Róise, but noth­ing has changed be­tween us.

Kara never vis­its my of­fice any­more un­less Fitz is ask­ing to see me. Of­ten as not, she’ll send our son to me with one of his guards. Al­ways with in­struc­tions to send Fitz back to her when I need to.

Al­ways.

Like she needs me to know she’s not shirk­ing her du­ties.

Feck if I know how to change that ei­ther.

Dier­dre moves a few inches closer. “How are things be­tween you and your child bride?”