Page 144 of Sins of Arrogance

“Does it? You used IVF to get preg­nant the first time. A sur­ro­gate can carry one of the em­bryos. She could in fact give both the heir and the spare that your fa­ther wants.” The un­like you hangs be­tween us.

“You be­ing the sur­ro­gate, I sup­pose.”

She shud­ders with dis­taste. “No, but an ap­pro­pri­ate one can be found. You’re that easy to re­place.”

“You’re a very stupid woman.” I point to the door. “Leave.”

“What are you go­ing to do? Tell on me to Micky? He didn’t be­lieve you about you ask­ing me to leave. He won’t be­lieve you now. He trusts me. And he thinks you’re patho­log­i­cally jeal­ous.”

I don’t bother to re­ply.

Her stu­pid­ity isn’t in her cer­tainty Mick would be­lieve her over me. Even I’m not sure on that one. Nor is it in be­liev­ing that she can get away with mur­der un­de­tected, be­cause any­one can if it’s planned right.

No, her id­iocy comes from be­liev­ing I will let her sur­vive to harm me and my son.

That I won’t take im­me­di­ate steps to pro­tect my­self and Fitz.

Im­pa­tient for her to leave, I walk to­ward the door.

Her hand lands on my shoul­der, jerk­ing me to a halt. “What’s the mat­ter, cat got your tongue?”

I grab her wrist and turn, ex­e­cut­ing one of the moves Fabi­ana taught us, I flip the bitch onto her back.

With­out giv­ing her a chance to get over her shock at my move, I press the heel of my shoe right over her jugu­lar. “How much pres­sure do you think it would take for my heel to break your tra­chea and leave you gasp­ing for your last breaths right now?”

The temp­ta­tion to ap­ply that pres­sure is nearly over­whelm­ing.

She glares up at me, but keeps her mouth shut for once.

Maybe how close I am to fol­low­ing through shows on my face.

The de­sire to kill her and end the threat to my son’s life roars like an an­gry beast in­side me.

But I need a plan to pre­vent war be­tween our mobs. If I’m not sure how Mick would re­spond to me killing his ex-girl­friend ei­ther, that’s my look­out.

I press down just enough that she has trou­ble get­ting air in. “You might be as ven­omous as a rat­tlesnake, but a mama bear will rip a snake to shreds to pro­tect her cub.”

I might be a born and bred city girl, but even I know that law of na­ture.

She chokes out a sound as her lips tinge blue from lack of oxy­gen.

The door to the apart­ment swings open.

“Stay away from me and my son.” I lift my foot from Dier­dre’s neck and quickly step back be­fore she can grab my an­kle like she’s tens­ing to do.

“What the hell is go­ing on here?” Mick rushes past me and of­fers Dier­dre a hand to help her up.

Like she needs it.

But that ac­tion tells me ev­ery­thing I need to know about how to han­dle her threats. And it’s not by go­ing to him, or my fa­ther for help.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Micky.” Dier­dre’s voice trem­bles and a con­ve­nient tear trick­les down her cheek. “I told you Kara’s ir­ra­tionally pos­ses­sive of you. I thought she was go­ing to kill me.”

“Kara’s not a killer.” Mick steps back from Dier­dre.

What is he do­ing here? Is he ex­pect­ing an­other morn­ing break with me?

I’m so not in the mood af­ter the con­fronta­tion I just had with his ex and the way he helped her off the floor.