Page 48 of Sins of Arrogance

“But what about a post mortem?” I like true crime pod­casts, but I’ve never heard of Eth­yl­ene Gly­col poi­son­ing.

“We’re the mob, dear. We don’t do post mortems.”

I’m sure moma means our lit­tle chat to be com­fort­ing, but all it does is in­crease my anx­i­ety be­fore the wed­ding. What she’s re­ally say­ing is that if my fu­ture hus­band mis­treats me, I can’t rely on the men in my fam­ily to pro­tect me.

Never as de­tached as her son to my well­be­ing, I don’t doubt that moma will kill to pro­tect me. But the fact that she thinks it might be nec­es­sary?

That scares the crap out of me.

With no real idea what to ex­pect and her dire warn­ings ring­ing in my head, I spend the last se­mes­ter of high school hid­ing my fear from my friends and fam­ily when I see them.

I’ve got­ten so good at it, my smile doesn’t slip once on my wed­ding day.

And Michael’s is com­pletely ab­sent.

He doesn’t smile dur­ing the cer­e­mony. He doesn’t smile when we’re pro­nounced hus­band and wife. His face is void of emo­tion when we cut the cake and that doesn’t change when we share our first dance un­der the ball­room chan­de­liers.

It’s dis­con­cert­ing. And con­fus­ing.

I don’t know my groom well, but from what I’ve seen, Michael’s blessed with more than his fair share of Irish charm. And his smile gives me but­ter­flies when it’s turned on some­one else and makes my heart race the few times it’s turned on me.

Un­til now, I have no inkling why the men whis­per about him and call him an di­a­b­hal. Devil.

But this Michael is in­tim­i­dat­ing. Down­right scary.

Where is his easy smile? To­day of all days, I need to see it. But it doesn’t break through once.

I can’t stop think­ing about it the en­tire he­li­copter ride to Martha’s Vine­yard.

Why is he so somber? Did he not want the mar­riage?

I mean, I know it’s an al­liance, not two peo­ple in love, but I never thought he didn’t want to marry me.

Is there some­one he had to leave be­hind in Ire­land and to­day was the re­minder that he would never see her again? Never have the fu­ture they wanted?

My stom­ach twists in knots, a feel­ing I’ve never ex­pe­ri­enced be­fore, mak­ing it hard to breathe.

Jeal­ousy.

We’re both silent on the short drive from the he­li­pad to the Martha’s Vine­yard house.

Bit­ter­sweet warmth surges through me when the large white, two story beach cot­tage comes into view. The Shaugh­nessy fam­ily has been us­ing this place for va­ca­tions for three gen­er­a­tions.

Or what we call va­ca­tions: mob busi­ness with our al­lies mas­querad­ing as fam­ily bond­ing time.

Like our home on Long Is­land, there’s a smaller build­ing meant to bar­racks what­ever sol­diers are on se­cu­rity, but there are no quar­ters for live-in staff.

A groundskeeper, cook and house­keeper come daily, when we’re here. I don’t know what their sched­ule is when we aren’t. I sup­pose that’s some­thing I’m go­ing to have to know.

Moma will teach me.

De­spite the busi­ness that went on be­hind closed doors, some of my best mem­o­ries are play­ing in the lush grass with my cousin and sis­ter while Aunt Char­ity and moma sipped iced tea on the ter­race.

Some­times Un­cle Derry would join in, chas­ing us down the path to the beach, mak­ing us scream with laugh­ter. Af­ter Aunt Char­ity’s death, he stopped do­ing it.

Ev­ery­thing changed af­ter Aunt Char­ity got shot four years ago. In­clud­ing me.

Conor, one of the men Michael brought with him from Dublin, opens my door and I step out of the SUV.