Page 188 of Sins of Arrogance

Be­cause if I do, I’ll end up fan­ta­siz­ing about walk­ing into that room and peel­ing the skin off Dier­dre Kelly with my bare hands.

And I need to pay at­ten­tion to what’s be­ing said, no mat­ter how sat­is­fy­ing those fan­tasies might be.

She sits slumped in the steel in­ter­ro­ga­tion chair, lashes flut­ter­ing like she’s on the edge of sleep. The drug makes her docile, not un­con­scious. Her eyes are open, her pulse steady.

Her mouth, at last for the mo­ment, in­ca­pable of lies.

Good.

Brice stands off to the side, arms crossed, quiet and im­pos­ing.

Wraith leans in, voice low and calm. His hands stay open and re­laxed, not threat­en­ing. He doesn’t need to be.

Not when Dier­dre’s will is com­pro­mised, chem­i­cally.

I couldn’t be in that room. I know that. I’d crush her wind­pipe the sec­ond she spoke my wife’s name. And that would de­feat the pur­pose of the drug. We need an­swers.

With­out start­ing a war.

Kara’s help­ing Fitz with his school­work. I’ve got a live feed of them too. It’s play­ing on my phone and when I need to lower my blood pres­sure so I don’t give the or­der to kill Dier­dre, I look at it.

My fin­gers flex be­side the lap­top. I should’ve asked the right ques­tions when I in­ter­ro­gated Dier­dre my­self. My sins of ar­ro­gance nearly cost me my wife.

Never again.

“You’ve been in con­tact with Ilya Darakov since com­ing to New York,” Wraith says.

Dier­dre’s mouth twists in dis­taste. “My da wants me to marry him.”

“Why?”

“Darakov has con­nec­tions the Nor­thies want. Ac­cess to weapons the Shaugh­nessy Mob doesn’t trade in.”

Wraith’s mus­cles bunch un­der his snug fit­ting tac­ti­cal t-shirt, a sub­tle in­di­ca­tion of ten­sion. “What kind of weapons?”

“Bi­o­log­i­cal. Brian Shaugh­nessy doesn’t like the idea of us­ing them, but da says stay­ing on top means us­ing what’s nec­es­sary.”

“What do you think?” Wraith asks, us­ing an ef­fec­tive drug in­duced in­ter­ro­ga­tion tech­nique.

Ask the sub­ject their opin­ion and other pieces of in­for­ma­tion will be re­vealed.

“I think Brian Shaugh­nessy is soft. He re­fuses to do busi­ness with syn­di­cates that are in­volved with hu­man traf­fick­ing. We’re los­ing mil­lions in rev­enue from deals we could have made.”

She re­cites the words like a well learned les­son, no doubt learned at her fa­ther’s knee.

Oisín Kelly isn’t the loyal friend my fa­ther thinks he is.

“When my da and Nevan are in charge, the Nor­thies will pros­per like never be­fore.”

Her fa­ther and brother? What about my brother, Adam? Do they ex­pect him to go along with their plans? To step aside?

No chance on ei­ther.

“How’s that go­ing to hap­pen then?” Wraith in­vites Dier­dre to share her knowl­edge.

To feel smart and su­pe­rior.

“Once Brian Shaugh­nessy is gone…” Dier­dre taps the side of her nose. “Well, no one lives for­ever.”