Page 189 of Sins of Arrogance

Fuck.

I send a mes­sage to Brice.

Mick: Ask if there’s a plan to as­sas­si­nate my fa­ther.

But even be­fore my text reaches Brice, Wraith asks, “Does your da have plans to help Brian on his way?”

Sound­ing more like Kieran than his moniker Wraith, my new re­cruit slides into a cred­itable Irish lilt, giv­ing Dier­dre a false sense of be­ing among friends.

“No. He’s loyal. But once Brian is dead, da will take Nevan’s ad­vice.”

So loyal he talks shite about the code of honor the Nor­thies have lived by for gen­er­a­tions. Lim­its my fa­ther still ad­heres to.

Though maybe not if he’s will­ing to be talked into us­ing bi­o­log­i­cal weapons.

“If not your da, then who?”

“My brother knows if we don’t move with the times, we’ll be left be­hind. He’s the one that talked my da into the mar­riage al­liance with Darakov.” For a sec­ond her clear ad­mi­ra­tion of her brother wa­vers. “That was a mis­take. There are other ways to form the al­liance.”

“Your brother has plans to kill Brian Shaugh­nessy?” Wraith asks, still talk­ing low and gen­tle, his Irish lilt per­fect.

Dier­dre blinks and Wraith has to ask the ques­tion again.

Then she nods. “Un­cle Brian has a heart con­di­tion. No one will ques­tion when he has a heart at­tack af­ter eat­ing all the rich foods at Christ­mas din­ner.”

The di­a­bol­i­cal sib­lings even have a time­line for the as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempt that is never go­ing to hap­pen.

“Your brother con­fides in you a lot,” Wraith says with false ad­mi­ra­tion.

“We see things the same way.”

Like psy­chopaths with no honor.

“What about Mick’s brother. Isn’t he sup­posed to take over for his da?”

Dier­dre frowns. “He’s in the way.”

Which is not an an­swer. I want Wraith to shake the dis­loyal cow, but that wouldn’t help in an in­ter­ro­ga­tion like this one.

Un­less we were us­ing the drug to in­duce fear and para­noia…the thought is a tempt­ing one, but an­swers given out of fear aren’t al­ways re­li­able.

“Does your brother have a plan for how to deal with that?”

“No. Nevan thinks he can con­vince Adam to go along be­cause he’s more ruth­less about busi­ness than Un­cle Brian.”

I al­ways knew Nevan was a gob­shite. Adam is ruth­less, but like all of us Fitzger­ald’s he ad­heres to his own code of honor and that in­cludes the one es­tab­lished for the Nor­thies.

Dier­dre leans for­ward. “He’s wrong, but I have a plan.”

“I bet it’s a good one,” Wraith en­cour­ages her.

“It is. Once Micky’s broth­ers are out of the way, he can take over. He won’t hes­i­tate to do what’s best for the mob.”

My wife is right. Dier­dre is delu­sional.

“You plan to get rid of all of Mick’s broth­ers?” Wraith asks, flick­ing a glance at the cam­era record­ing the in­ter­ro­ga­tion.

“Over time. I can’t do it all at once, but by the time they’re all dead, he’ll be in charge of the Shaugh­nessy Mob too and we will rule Dublin and New York.”