Page 214 of Sins of Arrogance

“My aunt, who I loved like a sec­ond mom, was gunned down in front of me, my sis­ter and her daugh­ter, my cousin. My un­cle was shot and killed af­ter I mar­ried Mick. My cousin was kid­napped right in front of me and Fitz in Au­gust. Our lives are hemmed in vi­o­lence, but I wouldn’t give up be­ing mar­ried to Mick for any­thing or any­one.”

The si­lence that fol­lows my pro­nounce­ment lasts for nearly a minute.

“You re­ally mean that,” Brigid fi­nally says.

I sip my tea and smile at her. “I do.”

“But he’s…” Chivon’s voice trails off.

“He doesn’t feel love,” Sheila says. “He pre­tends, but he’s my son. I raised him and no mat­ter how he and his dad worked to hide it, Mick isn’t nor­mal.”

I shrug. “We live in a world of vi­o­lence, crime and jus­tice that has noth­ing to do with gov­ern­ment laws. None of us is nor­mal.”

“But he’s dif­fer­ent,” Chivon says. “Scary.”

“Not if you’re part of his fam­ily,” Brigid says firmly. “He’d never hurt one of us.”

“You re­ally be­lieve that?” Sheila asks her youngest, hope lac­ing her voice.

“I know it for a fact,” I say. “Mick is ab­so­lutely loyal to those he con­sid­ers fam­ily and he loves me and Fitz.”

I don’t claim he loves them. He doesn’t and I’m not go­ing to lie to my in-laws un­less I have to.

“Brian pushed him to ac­cept the mar­riage al­liance be­cause he was wor­ried Mick might…” Her voice trails off again.

I set my teacup down on the small ta­ble and lean for­ward. “Never! Mick would never harm fam­ily.”

Not un­less they be­trayed him and negated his sense of loy­alty. I don’t men­tion that be­cause it’s never go­ing to hap­pen and it would hin­der the ar­gu­ment I’m try­ing to make.

“But he’s so emo­tion­less.” Chivon shakes her head. “The only liv­ing thing he ever loved was Toby.”

“That’s not true any longer,” I re­mind them. “Who was Toby?”

“Mick’s dog. A drunk driver ran him over. My son killed him. Mick was eleven.” Sheila says this like it should shock me.

It doesn’t, but then I know my hus­band’s dark na­ture and ac­cept it for what it is. Part of him.

“My son has a cat. His name is Gobby. His un­cle, Rory, is cat sit­ting while we’re here. If some­one ran over Gobby while driv­ing drunk, my son wouldn’t have to kill them. Mick would do it for him.”

Chivon frowns. “You say that like you think it’s a good thing.”

“He calls Rory un­cle?” Brigid asks.

“Mick has one of his lieu­tenants cat sit­ting for your son?” Sheila asks.

I pat Chivon’s arm. “Yes, it is a good thing. Mick will pro­tect us from any­thing, in­clud­ing my son feel­ing the need to ex­act vengeance at an early age.”

Then I turn to Brigid. “Yes, he calls Rory, Brice and Conor un­cle. They’re fam­ily.”

I fo­cus my gaze on my mother-in-law. “They’re more than his lieu­tenants, they’re his broth­ers. Broth­ers who would die for him or to pro­tect our son and me. Not be­cause he asks them to, but be­cause we’re fam­ily.”

Sheila rears back like I struck her. “We’re his fam­ily.”

“Yes.” It’s true. “But so are they.”

“And they’re the fam­ily he trusts. That’s what you’re say­ing,” Chivon says.

“Yes.”