Page 136 of Sins of Arrogance

But Mick’s hand only shifts so he’s cup­ping the back of my neck in an even more pos­ses­sive hold.

“What a pretty bracelet.” Dier­dre’s voice sur­pris­ingly close grates against my ears.

I didn’t no­tice her get up from the ta­ble she’s sit­ting at with guests who are not fam­ily.

My shoul­ders go rigid, but I don’t let the smile slip off my face. “Isn’t it? My son has ex­cel­lent taste.”

“So does your hus­band.” Dier­dre taps the medal for St. Michael she hasn’t taken off since Mick gave it to her.

“I have to agree,” my fa­ther’s voice booms. “He had the good taste to marry my daugh­ter.”

The look he gives Dier­dre makes the gloat­ing smile slip right off her face.

“Aye, there’s no deny­ing Kara is the per­fect wife for me and I’m lucky to have her.”

My stupid heart skips a beat.

Even know­ing nei­ther man means any­thing real by his words, for just a sec­ond I let my­self wal­low in the fan­tasy of be­ing ap­pre­ci­ated.

Trea­sured.

But re­al­ity’s spot­light dis­si­pates the glow of fan­tasy. Nei­ther Mick, nor my fa­ther said what they did be­cause they care about me, or how Dier­dre’s words af­fect me.

They care how her words im­pact the peo­ple around us. They’re do­ing what they al­ways do: pro­tect­ing the im­age of the Shaugh­nessy Mob and our fam­ily.

It wouldn’t do for it to look like my hus­band was open to Dier­dre’s bla­tant fas­ci­na­tion with him.

Re­gard­less of whether he is, or not.

His words say one thing and that pen­dant around her neck says an­other.

Chap­ter 34: Anger Man­age­ment Mob Style

MICK

The mats in the train­ing room reek of sweat and in­dus­trial cleaner. Brice’s crew just fin­ished their morn­ing train­ing ses­sion.

Rory’s guys are fil­ter­ing in be­cause their time on the mats starts soon.

It will have to wait.

I need to burn off some anger be­fore I start killing peo­ple. Dier­dre is at the top of my list, but we need her for in­tel on Darakov.

Besnik and his peo­ple are get­ting on my nerves too.

Be­cause they’re still breath­ing.

Bleedin’ pol­i­tics.

“Wraith!” Train­ing my new re­cruit is the per­fect way to chan­nel some of that ag­gres­sion.

Kieran stops and turns to­ward me. He’s sweaty, but he doesn’t look tired.

Good.

“You up for some one-on-one?” It’s a ques­tion, but we both know there’s only one right an­swer.

He nods, giv­ing it.