Page 131 of Sins of Arrogance

“You know I can’t do that. The Nor­thies are our al­lies. Your fa­ther promised Dier­dre pro­tec­tion.”

There’s the ad­di­tional ben­e­fit of pump­ing Dier­dre for in­for­ma­tion. We’ve al­ready got her phone cloned and have combed through her phone logs and texts.

She’s been tex­ting with Ilya. Or more ac­cu­rately, he’s been tex­ting her.

She en­gages. Flir­ta­tiously. But non­com­mit­tally.

But like any smart mob princess, she has her lo­ca­tions ser­vices dis­abled on it. So, he’s not find­ing her that way.

So far, she hasn’t shared any­thing about us she shouldn’t.

But I won­der if the same is true for her fa­ther or mine. Just be­cause I didn’t know about the Bunker be­fore I came to New York, doesn’t mean they didn’t. Mak­ing them the most likely source of Ilya’s in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing it.

I don’t think my fa­ther would know­ingly give that in­for­ma­tion to Ilya, but we’re not the only ones with ef­fec­tive drugs for in­ter­ro­ga­tion.

And af­ter dis­cov­er­ing Bro­gan told my da about Kara’s jeal­ousy af­ter Fitz’s birth, I’m not sure that gen­er­a­tion is nearly as cir­cum­spect as they need to be.

“Then send her to one of our safe­houses. That would ful­fill the terms of the al­liance.”

“If she wasn’t the daugh­ter of one of the mob’s lead­ers, it would. But she’s is and it won’t.” Kara knows this.

But her ir­ra­tional­ity is un­der­stand­able given the provo­ca­tion.

“I’ll speak to Dier­dre and tell her not to bring it up to you again.”

“Don’t you dare!” Kara glares at me, fire and brim­stone in her eyes. “You’re not go­ing to let her know she got to me. Not af­ter I man­aged to keep my cool and not toss her in the bay by her hair.”

The im­age of my sweet wife do­ing some­thing so un­proper and vi­o­lent makes me chuckle.

She’s not amused though.

Swal­low­ing the urge to keep laugh­ing, I kiss the cor­ner of her mouth, then her tem­ple, and fi­nally her cheek. “I don’t want a di­vorce. I told you, I will never let you go.”

“She said she gets what she wants.”

“Not me,” I as­sure my wife. “I be­long to you as surely as you be­long to me.”

“Do you mean that?” Kara asks, like there can be any doubt.

“Aye.”

“What would you do if an­other man told you he in­tended to take me away from you?”

I don’t even have to pause to think. “Kill him. Slowly.”

“So, you won’t mind if I kill your ex-girl­friend.”

“I’ll help you hide the body,” I tease.

As if my gen­tle wife would ever kill any­one.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“As long as you let me hold you.”

She re­laxes against me and my body takes that as the sig­nal to prove my claim of mu­tual own­er­ship.

My mouth cov­ers hers and the kiss goes in­cen­di­ary from one heart­beat to the next.