Page 143 of Sins of Arrogance

“If that’s all…” I let my voice trail off and wave to­ward the door.

A vi­cious light en­ters Dier­dre’s eyes. “Di­vorce isn’t the only way to end a mar­riage. It’s not even the most ex­pe­di­ent.”

“Are you se­ri­ous right now?” I laugh and it’s gen­uine. “The minute I tell my fa­ther that you are threat­en­ing me, your best-case sce­nario is to be put on the first plane back to Dublin.”

“Why would he be­lieve you?” Dier­dre asks snidely. “Your past ir­ra­tional jeal­ousies make your take on any sit­u­a­tion be­tween Micky and an­other woman un­re­li­able.”

Some­thing cold shud­ders through me, but I don’t let my dread at her words show. “What­ever gos­sip you’ve heard is old news. My fa­ther has no rea­son to doubt my word.”

“If it’s such old news, why was he be­moan­ing only last fall to Mick’s da and mine about all the drama your jeal­ousy caused?”

“I don’t be­lieve you.” Only, I kind of do.

My fa­ther would sac­ri­fice me in a hot minute to fur­ther his al­liances. He al­ready did. Sac­ri­fic­ing my rep­u­ta­tion so long as it doesn’t re­flect badly on him is noth­ing.

“Why would I lie?” She taunts.

That forces an­other laugh from me, this one not quite as amused. “I could write a book – no make that a se­ries – on the lies you tell.”

The ques­tion with a much shorter an­swer would be why and when would the orig­i­nal vin­tage cling­wrap tell the truth?

She shrugs, like my in­sult doesn’t faze her. A ma­nip­u­la­tor like her is prob­a­bly proud of her abil­ity to sell a lie.

Which begs the ques­tion: would my fa­ther be­lieve me, or her about this con­ver­sa­tion?

A tiny fis­sure hap­pens in my soul when I re­al­ize that I don’t know the an­swer.

Why was he com­plain­ing about me last year? Did he tell Brian Fitzger­ald and Oisín Kelly about my stay in The Mar­lowe Cen­ter?

No. If he had, Dier­dre would have brought it up as an ar­gu­ment for me leav­ing Mick.

Not to men­tion it would make Bro­gan look bad.

“If that is all.” I wave to­ward the door. “I’m busy.”

“Do your­self a fa­vor and ask Mick for a di­vorce.” Men­ace im­bues her voice and casts her face in wicked lines.

I refuse to be in­tim­i­dated. “Not go­ing to hap­pen. Even if I wanted to di­vorce my hus­band, and I don’t, my fa­ther would have to ap­prove the dis­so­lu­tion of my mar­riage.”

That’s not about to hap­pen. It would com­pro­mise his al­liance with Mick and Dier­dre’s fam­i­lies.

“Once Fitz was born, you were no longer nec­es­sary for the al­liance be­tween the Shaugh­nessy Mob and the Nor­thies,” Dier­dre says, like she knows ex­actly what I’m think­ing. “If you die, the al­liance still stands. You are now sur­plus to re­quire­ments.”

That say­ing isn’t nearly as charm­ing com­ing from her than when my for­mer room­mate use to say it. The fact I’ve thought the same thing only makes the wound of those words more po­tent.

But you don’t show weak­ness to a preda­tor like Dier­dre.

Forc­ing my feel­ings deep be­neath my mob princess façade, I go on the of­fen­sive.

“If you have me killed my fa­ther will find out. But more im­por­tantly, so will Mick. What do you think he would do to the per­son re­spon­si­ble for the death of his beloved son’s mom?”

A flicker of un­cer­tainty passes through her gaze, but then it turns cal­cu­lat­ing. “More to the point, what would it do to your hus­band if his son be­came the ca­su­alty of your mob’s cur­rent con­flict with the bratva?”

We are hav­ing a con­flict with the bratva? I shake my head. That is not what is im­por­tant right now.

This bitch just threat­ened my son’s life.

“Have you for­got­ten, but if Fitz doesn’t sur­vive, nei­ther does my fa­ther’s deal with Mick?” And Bro­gan proved with my cousin that a prom­ise doesn’t count in his eyes when the per­son who guar­an­teed it is dead.