Page 201 of Sins of Arrogance

Which is not to say the women in my fam­ily don’t know about the Bunker. We all do and when Róise was kid­napped she was headed to it for safety.

Not that she knew how to get in­side.

Which is not okay.

“Of course not,” my fa­ther dis­misses. “We con­duct mob busi­ness here.”

“You con­duct it at the man­sion too, but I’m al­lowed to live there.”

“That’s dif­fer­ent.”

“Is it?” I shake my head. “I don’t think it is. The man­sion is for­ti­fied for our safety. But this place is even more se­cure. Why do mob sol­diers have ac­cess to it for sanc­tu­ary, but not the women in your fam­ily?”

I know the an­swer to my own ques­tion: be­cause we aren’t as im­por­tant as his sol­diers.

But the ex­pres­sion on my fa­ther’s face is ar­rested. “It’s al­ways been this way.”

“I won­der. I have no doubt that seanathair had that pol­icy, but maybe the bosses be­fore him val­ued the Shaugh­nessy women more than he did.”

In­stead of get­ting an­gry and blus­ter­ing like I ex­pect, Bro­gan sighs and nods. “Maybe they did. I know I do.”

“And yet you never told me or Fi about it. Never gave us the codes to get in if we needed to.”

“We keep you safe with­out it.” There’s the blus­ter I ex­pected.

But I’m not im­pressed. “Pro­tect­ing us means mak­ing it pos­si­ble for us to pro­tect our­selves.”

“Is this about those self-de­fense cour­ses Miceli in­sists you all take?” My fa­ther sounds agrieved.

He doesn’t like the train­ing, but the only per­son he could have for­bid­den from tak­ing it is Fiona and he was too en­am­ored with the idea she would will­ing leave the man­sion to do so.

“It’s about treat­ing us like equals and not lit­tle dolls you want to keep on a shelf un­til you have use for one of our uteruses.”

“That’s crude.”

I shrug.

“You’re right.”

Shock ex­pels from my lungs in a gasp. “I’m right?”

“Yes. I’ve made mis­takes rais­ing you girls. I see that now. You should have ac­cess to the Bunker and the ar­mory for that mat­ter.” He puts up a hand. “But first you take gun safety and shoot­ing lessons.”

Stunned, I just nod like a bob­ble-head.

“That said, you do not be­long in this meet­ing, Kara.”

I stop nod­ding abruptly and my spine stiff­ens, but this time Mick speaks be­fore I can. “She stays.”

“This is mob busi­ness,” Bro­gan says, like maybe Mick didn’t get the memo.

Mick set­tles his hand on my lower back in a state­ment of sol­i­dar­ity. “Kara is now privy to all my busi­ness.”

“That is not wise. We’ve al­ways kept the women in the dark for a rea­son.” His voice is rough with con­vic­tion. “We keep them safe by keep­ing them sep­a­rate.”

Mick shrugs. “And if that is how they choose to live, we re­spect that. Kara is my equal and she chooses to know.”

That word I like so much that my for­mer room­mate used to say per­fectly de­scribes the look on my fa­ther’s face.