Page 154 of Sins of Arrogance

I shift my gaze from my phone’s screen to my wife. She’s try­ing to hide her vul­ner­a­bil­ity, but it’s shin­ing in her hazel eyes.

The temp­ta­tion to kill her fa­ther and then stab my own thigh in pun­ish­ment for doubt­ing her is so strong, my hands ache with the need to act.

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

Bro­gan jerks, his ex­pres­sion turn­ing pained.

“I don’t be­lieve you.” The words are right, and Kara prob­a­bly con­vinced Dier­dre, but her lack of con­fi­dence is ob­vi­ous to me.

She does be­lieve her fa­ther opened his big mouth yet again.

And the look on Bro­gan’s face says he re­al­izes that too. Re­gret and guilt are writ­ten all over my boss’s ex­pres­sion, but Kara isn’t look­ing at him. So, she doesn’t see it.

She’s watch­ing me.

To see if I’m get­ting the point yet?

“Why would I lie?” Dier­dre asks.

Kara’s laugh­ter is filled with mock­ery. “I could write a book – no, make that a se­ries – on the lies you tell.” I’m watch­ing while lis­ten­ing, so I see the mo­ment Kara has had enough. “If that is all.” Kara’s voice is colder now. “I’m busy.”

“Do your­self a fa­vor and ask Mick for a di­vorce.”

“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.” She changed her mind pretty fast on that, didn’t she?

She can change it back just as quickly then.

“Once Fitz was born, you were no longer nec­es­sary for the al­liance be­tween the Shaugh­nessy Mob and the Nor­thies. If you die, the al­liance still stands. You are now sur­plus to re­quire­ments.”

There’s a pause.

Then Kara’s voice, tight and cut­ting: “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?”

Why did I think it was okay to sub­ject Kara to this vi­cious­ness? She’s abso-feckin’-lutely right.

I should have pro­tected her from Dier­dre’s cru­elty as much as the threat of any phys­i­cal harm that could come to my wife.

“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?” Dier­dre taunts calmly.

I pause the record­ing and look at Bro­gan to see if he caught it. He’s not track­ing. That re­gret? It’s so strong, I’m not sure there’s room for any­thing else right now.

Not even think­ing like a mob boss.

“She knows about our is­sues with Darakov,” I point out to him.

Which is con­fir­ma­tion that at some point they have com­mu­ni­cated about things other than his pur­suit of a mar­riage al­liance with her mob through her.

Bro­gan’s head snaps up, his eyes com­ing back into fo­cus.

“I asked the wrong bleedin’ ques­tions.” And I am feckin’ fu­ri­ous at my­self.

Be­liev­ing her rea­son for be­ing in New York was to make a play for me, I dis­missed the po­ten­tial for ad­di­tional mo­tives and didn’t ques­tion her on them.

I don’t make mis­takes. Es­pe­cially not ones that could put Kara or Fitz at risk.

Bro­gan gives a sig­nif­i­cant look to­ward his daugh­ter. “We can dis­cuss that later.”

“Maybe if you had dis­cussed what­ever it is with me be­fore to­day,” Kara says drily. “This whole sit­u­a­tion could have been avoided.”