Page 22 of Sins of Arrogance

“Enoch taught him. You cross your arms, and twine your pinkies and swear to keep your prom­ise.”

I do as she says, curl­ing my pinkies around my son’s smaller ones. “I dou­ble pinky swear to al­ways pro­tect you and your mam.”

Fitz throws him­self against me and hugs tight. “Thank you da!” He pulls back, grin­ning. “Can I go play with Enoch now?”

“Aye, if you want.” I text the man sta­tioned out­side our door and Fitz’s per­sonal body­guard who is on standby when my son is with me.

Less than a minute later, Kara and I are alone.

She’s look­ing at the door as if she can still see our son through it. “I’d feel bet­ter if I knew Fi was watch­ing him too.”

“Then text her.”

Kara nods, but doesn’t move to grab her phone. “I still want him to see a child psy­chol­o­gist.”

“Aye.” A pinky swear isn’t go­ing cure my son of the trauma of see­ing Róise dis­ap­pear from the dock right in front of him.

“You’re a lot more ac­cept­ing of the idea than I ex­pected you to be.” Her gaze shifts from the door to me, her pretty hazel eyes filled with ques­tions.

“I’m not an un­rea­son­able man, mo chuisle.”

“That’s not what the sol­diers who hide be­hind bushes when they see you com­ing think,” she teases me.

She’s the only per­son who ever does. The only per­son I would al­low to.

“If my sol­diers are jump­ing be­hind bushes to avoid me, they need an­other les­son in do­ing their jobs.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s ex­actly what they need. An­other rea­son to fear you.”

Some­thing goes cold in my chest. “What do you know about my lessons to the men?”

“Only that since you dealt with Troy, the men avoid you to a near com­i­cal level.” She sounds amused.

Not dis­tressed by the truth she’s mar­ried to a mon­ster. She has no idea what went on at the ware­house. And she never will. I promised to cut the tongue out of any man’s mouth who so much as breathes a word about it around her.

“Not all the men.” My crew doesn’t avoid me.

They know bet­ter.

I don’t tol­er­ate weak­ness.

“If you say so,” my wife sasses. “I bet­ter text Fi.”

“I’ll do it.” If she texts her sis­ter, Kara is as apt to end up join­ing them as to stay here with me.

And that would feck with my plans to drown my­self in her tight pussy. Be­fore Kara can ar­gue, I send the text to Fiona.

She texts back im­me­di­ately that they’re all go­ing to play a game of cro­quet.

Good. That should be enough time.

I drop my phone and pick up my wife.

She gasps but im­me­di­ately wraps her arms around my neck. “I could get used to this.”

Yeah. I don’t think so. My wife is too in­de­pen­dent to let me carry her around and keep her at­tached at my side like I want to. I crave her full at­ten­tion, only ever re­ally okay with shar­ing it with Fitz.

Ev­ery­one else only ex­ists in our world be­cause it would hurt her if they didn’t.