Page 13 of Sins of Arrogance

“Kara will be twenty-five next month. She’s not a child.”

“She was only eigh­teen when you got mar­ried.”

“Still not a child.” If I’d had my way, the mar­riage would have taken place a cou­ple of years later.

I was no keener to get mar­ried at twenty-six than Kara was at eigh­teen.

But that wasn’t an op­tion. Fer­gal Shaugh­nessy would have of­fered the deal to an­other mob­ster if I’d re­fused to marry his grand­daugh­ter two weeks af­ter she grad­u­ated high school.

Too bad he didn’t die un­til a year later. A lot of things would have gone dif­fer­ently in the be­gin­ning if Bro­gan had been the boss al­ready.

Dier­dre’s mouth twists with dis­taste. “Not tech­ni­cally, but I’m sur­prised you were okay with mar­ry­ing a teenager.”

“My mar­riage gave me the path for­ward I wanted.” And once I set my eyes on Kara, she was never go­ing to marry any­one else.

Eigh­teen years old, or twenty-eight. As long as she was an adult, she was go­ing to be mine.

“With­out me.”

What is the point of this con­ver­sa­tion? “Yes.”

Dier­dre flinches, like my words hurt her. Again, I’m not con­vinced. She’s al­ways been a lit­tle dra­matic.

“Ye didn’t tell me you were com­ing to New York.” Dier­dre and I stay in touch with texts and the oc­ca­sional phone call.

She’s a good source of in­for­ma­tion on what’s hap­pen­ing in Dublin. Dier­dre tells me things my da and broth­ers wouldn’t.

“There was no time.” She grabs my fore­arm. “I’m in dan­ger and da wanted me to get a move on.”

“Why are you in dan­ger?” And why is she in New York and not a safe house?

And why the feck is she touch­ing me? I pull my arm from her grip and step back, putting some dis­tance be­tween us.

She frowns, but stays where she is. “The Odessa Mafia tried to have me kid­napped. They want lever­age on a deal that has stalled be­tween them and da.”

Her da is the leader of the Kelly crew. My da leads the Fitzger­ald crew. Be­tween them they make up the North­side Dublin Syn­di­cate. The Nor­thies.

“The Nor­thies are do­ing busi­ness with the Odessa Mafia now?”

She shrugs. “War makes op­por­tu­ni­ties for or­ga­ni­za­tions that can keep their sup­ply chains sta­ble.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about the at­tempted kid­nap­ping?” Why didn’t my fa­ther?

There’s too much busi­ness hap­pen­ing in Dublin I don’t know about. I’m go­ing to have to fix that.

Dier­dre is no longer an ad­e­quate source.

“It only hap­pened yes­ter­day. Da thinks I’ll be safer here, with the Shaugh­nessy Mob.”

“Does Bro­gan know about the dan­ger you brought with ya?” I de­mand.

“I didn’t bring it with me. No one knows I came to the States. Da laid a false trail to a safe house. One of my sec­ond cousins who looks like me is stay­ing there to keep the fic­tion go­ing.”

There’s not an ounce of re­morse in Dier­dre’s tone to in­di­cate it both­ers her that the other woman could be taken in her place.

That’s one of the rea­sons she and I have al­ways got­ten along. Self­ish and ruth­less, she’s en­tirely pre­dictable.

Kara is the only per­son I have trou­ble read­ing and pre­dict­ing be­hav­ior for.