Page 34 of Sins of Arrogance

My crew texts they’re on their way be­fore they get here. The other men knock like the sol­diers they are. Three, quick, firm raps.

Kara?

Be­fore I call to en­ter, the door opens.

Not Kara. My wife would never walk into ei­ther my or her da’s of­fice un­in­vited.

The sleek black hair fram­ing a fa­mil­iar face peek­ing around the door comes as no sur­prise.

Spoiled by her par­ents and raised to see her­self as mob roy­alty, Dier­dre has a flex­i­ble re­la­tion­ship with other peo­ple’s bound­aries.

This is not her first visit to my of­fice in the last four days. It’s not even the first time she’s en­tered with­out be­ing given leave to.

She pauses in the door­way, framed in the af­ter­noon light like she thinks she’s walk­ing onto a stage. Shoul­ders drawn in just enough to sug­gest fragility. Lips glossed pink in­stead of her usual red.

Eyes glis­ten­ing with mois­ture, but not red. Be­cause no mat­ter what she wants me to be­lieve, she hasn’t cried.

“Micky…” Her voice trem­bles.

I lean back in my chair and say noth­ing.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes. “I shouldn’t have gone look­ing for Kara, but I’m lonely here and I didn’t want to in­ter­rupt your work.”

“That’s never stopped you be­fore,” I say dryly.

“Don’t tease.” She snif­fles. “I just. I didn’t think she’d be so…” She trails off, like it hurts her too much to say the word.

I don’t jump in to fill the si­lence. Dier­dre has some­thing she wants to say and she’ll say it. If I show any sym­pa­thy at this point, it’ll only en­cour­age the dra­mat­ics.

She likes per­form­ing a damn sight too much.

Dier­dre bites her lip and blinks at me. “Your wife. She’s just so jeal­ous.”

She says the word like it should trig­ger some­thing in me and my first thought is, who in the hell leaked in­for­ma­tion to my for­mer mob about my wife’s hor­mone driven jeal­ousy af­ter she gave birth to our son?

Or did they do a deep dive and dis­cover her stay at The Mar­lowe Cen­ter? Like I told Kara, HIPAA be damned. If some­body paid some­one enough, or had hack­ers on level with ours, they could learn she’d been a pa­tient and gain ac­cess to her file.

The ques­tion is, why would the Nor­thies go to all that trou­ble? Or have they been spy­ing at that level since I left Ire­land? And if they have, how in the bleedin’ hell did I miss it?

When I don’t re­act, Dier­dre comes around my desk to stand be­side me and set­tles her hip on the edge. Cu­ri­ous where this is go­ing, I don’t move.

“I sup­pose I can’t blame her.” Dier­dre trails her hand down my arm. “You are some­thing spe­cial. Some­one like her, nat­u­rally she’d be in­se­cure about a man with your ap­petites.”

As if Dier­dre knows any­thing real about my sex­ual pro­cliv­i­ties. Did I fuck her with less care than I give Kara? Aye. Dier­dre likes rough sex.

But I was never tempted to fuck her un­til she couldn’t walk. Or lock her away so I didn’t have to share her.

The only woman who trig­gers that kind of pos­ses­sive­ness in me is my wife. And the only woman I would tem­per what I crave with what is good for her is Kara as well.

Dier­dre folds her arms around her waist and bites her lip.

I stand, dis­lodg­ing Dier­dre’s hand from my arm and take a step away from her. “My wife has no rea­son to be in­se­cure.”

“Of course not. But that won’t stop her wor­ry­ing, will it? She doesn’t know you like I do. “

“Did Kara say some­thing to you?” As soon as I ut­ter the words I want to knock my­self up­side the head.

Of course my wife wouldn’t say any­thing to Dier­dre. And ask­ing that ques­tion im­plies I’m wor­ried. I’m not.