Page 40 of Sins of Arrogance

What the fuck just hap­pened?

I thought I had the per­fect lever­age to gain Kara’s co­op­er­a­tion. I didn’t think I’d have to use it.

As the high­est-rank­ing woman in the Shaugh­nessy Mob, in­sin­cere apolo­gies are noth­ing new to Kara. She knows how to play the game to keep peace when an­other syn­di­cate leader’s wife or daugh­ter takes um­brage over an imag­i­nary slight.

How is this any dif­fer­ent?

Dier­dre’s a source of in­for­ma­tion and must be tol­er­ated un­til I can get that in­for­ma­tion out of her.

Re­al­iza­tion blinds me like the muz­zle flash of a Ruger 57 shoot­ing 5.7mm am­mu­ni­tion.

I didn’t ex­plain that to my wife.

Kara doesn’t usu­ally re­quire an ex­pla­na­tion to co­op­er­ate when it’s for the good of the mob, the fam­ily, or both. But I didn’t couch it in those terms, did I?

I made it about Dier­dre’s feel­ings which I give feck all about. And some­how I ex­pected my wife to know that.

But she’s not an emo­tion­less mon­ster like me. Kara feels things and that mat­ters to me. Be­liev­ing I’m a bet­ter man than I am, she as­sumes that Dier­dre’s feel­ings mat­ter too. And didn’t I feckin’ feed that fear?

Bleedin’ hell. I’m not a stupid man, but I should have led with the ex­pla­na­tion and then none of the other shit would have been nec­es­sary.

I swiftly catch up with my wife be­fore she opens the apart­ment door, Fitz’s hand in hers.

Press­ing my hand against the door, I look down into her beau­ti­ful, closed off face. “Your da and I need Dier­dre to stay for the next lit­tle bit.”

In­stead of light­ing with un­der­stand­ing and ac­cep­tance like I ex­pect, Kara’s pretty hazel eyes darken with dis­plea­sure.

“Will you be eat­ing din­ner with us, Mick?” she asks, right there in front of our son.

“That’s up to you,” I lobby back.

Her ex­pres­sion stony, she shakes her head. “No, it is not.”

“Do you have to work, da?” Fitz asks, my lit­tle guy’s voice tinged with the dis­ap­point­ment he’s try­ing to keep off his face.

Bleedin’ feckin’ hell with demons danc­ing on a man’s grave.

“Of course I’ll be eatin’ din­ner with ya.” My wife well and truly won this round.

And as frus­trat­ing as that is, part of me, the pole be­tween my legs to be ex­act, is im­pressed.

Re­mov­ing my hand from the door, I step back and let Kara open it. Two of her se­cu­rity team are wait­ing in the hall and they ac­com­pany us to din­ner.

My fam­ily doesn’t need se­cu­rity when I’m with them, but their pres­ence re­minds our son that I keep my prom­ises.

Maybe I need to fig­ure out a way to re­mind my wife of the same thing. I promised fi­delity. I will never break that prom­ise. Not only be­cause I am ap­par­ently now Kara-sex­ual, my cock re­act­ing to no one but her.

But also be­cause al­though I may not ex­pe­ri­ence nor­mal emo­tional re­ac­tions, I do have my own code of honor. And I don’t break my prom­ises.

Plac­ing my hand on the small of Kara’s back, I an­swer Fitz’s ques­tion about the nu­tri­tional mer­its of broc­coli. My son is look­ing for a rea­son to strike it off his “foods I eat” list.

Kara steps a lit­tle faster, try­ing to dis­lodge my hand, but I keep pace with her.

I don’t usu­ally touch her like this in pub­lic, not be­cause I don’t want to. But she and Fitz are safer if both of my hands are free to pull a weapon to pro­tect them. Or de­fend them with my bare hands and in that case, two is al­ways bet­ter than one.

But we have two guards with us and I’ve seen the way Kara looks at Róise and Miceli. Like she yearns for the same small touches of af­fec­tion that come so nat­u­rally to the Ital­ian un­der­boss with Kara’s cousin.

I’m not a touchy-feely guy out­side the bed­room, but I don’t like my wife look­ing at an­other man like he’s all that.