Page 204 of Sins of Arrogance

Mick’s in­ter­ro­gat­ing a man who showed up in sev­eral con­ver­sa­tions with Dier­dre and even en­tered her room on one oc­ca­sion. I wouldn’t want to be him.

Even if he didn’t di­vulge any­thing to her, he’s been un­know­ingly con­sort­ing with the en­emy and Mick has no mercy when it comes to our safety. If the man turns out to be a rat, I don’t envy me, be­cause se­cu­rity is go­ing to get boa con­stric­tor tight around here.

I’m tak­ing a break to read, en­sconced in my fa­vorite chair in the sun­room, when Dier­dre comes storm­ing in.

She slams the door and glares at me. “I don’t know who you think you’re fool­ing, but all this lovey-dovey bull­shite with Micky is just that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talk­ing about.” I lay my eReader on the ta­ble and shift my weight in the chair.

I know there are se­cu­rity men around me, but I’m not tak­ing any chances. My life is fi­nally what I want it to be and this woman is not tak­ing that away from me.

One of my se­cu­rity de­tail is on the far side of the room, to give me pri­vacy. Mick in­sists if I’m not in our apart­ment that I have a body­guard with me at all times.

And the men have all been in­structed to pre­vent Dier­dre ac­cess to our apart­ment, no mat­ter how big a tem­per tantrum she throws.

My body­guard is silently mak­ing his way to­ward us, but I’m not wor­ried.

Dier­dre isn’t armed with any­thing but her poi­sonous words and they can’t hurt me now.

She’s not best­ing me a phys­i­cal al­ter­ca­tion and we both know it. Still, my mus­cles are bunched and I’m pre­pared to jump up if I need to.

“Did you for­get what I told you would hap­pen if you didn’t di­vorce my Micky?” she de­mands, her eyes lit with a fa­nat­i­cal gleam.

I stand up and step right into her per­sonal space. “Did you for­get what I said I would do if you threat­ened my son?”

She takes an in­vol­un­tary step back, but scoffs. “Like you’re go­ing to kill me.”

“I don’t need to kill you, Dier­dre. You’re al­ready dead.”

“What’s that sup­posed to mean?” she asks bel­liger­ently.

The door opens and Mick en­ters, slid­ing his phone into his pocket. “Just what it sounds like, Dier­dre.”

“Stalk­ing me again?” I tease my so­ciopath.

“Al­ways.”

“Your wife just threat­ened to kill me,” Dier­dre screeches at top vol­ume.

“Not ex­actly, boss,” my body­guard pipes up.

Dier­dre’s head jerks around and she stares at the man she didn’t re­al­ize was in the room with us.

“I know,” Mick says calmly. “She told Dier­dre she’s al­ready dead.”

“I’m not dead,” Dier­dre yells.

I tilt my head. “Aren’t you?”

“You thought you could come be­tween me and the woman I love. The only woman I could ever love. The only woman who could ever match me strength for strength. Pas­sion for pas­sion.”

“You re­ally are sweet, Michael.” I smile dream­ily at my hus­band.

Dier­dre lunges for me, but Mick is light­ning fast and has her hands cuffed be­hind her back in zip ties in less than a sec­ond.

He shoves her to­ward the body­guard. “Put her in a hold­ing room.”

Like I told my fa­ther, mob busi­ness hap­pens here when it has to. Not ev­ery­one who shows up at a mob boss’s door is his friend.