Page 57 of Sins of Arrogance

And that’s the way it’s al­ways been. The mob first, me some­where down the list of his pri­or­i­ties.

Maybe Fitz has that first spot now, but I know I’m not sec­ond. Or third.

I’m not even sure I’m in Mick’s top ten.

Chap­ter 16: A Scythe Well-Honed

MICK

The last bite of her dessert is barely off her fork be­fore Kara wipes her mouth with a linen nap­kin, rises from the ta­ble, and walks out.

She doesn’t look back.

Not at Dier­dre, who has been shoot­ing her al­ter­nat­ing looks of dis­ap­proval and wounded re­proach through­out din­ner. My ex is clearly still play­ing the vic­tim role and it’s work­ing.

At least on Bro­gan, who spends most of din­ner pay­ing at­ten­tion to Dier­dre as Hope grows qui­eter and qui­eter.

Kara doesn’t spare a glance for her fa­ther, who’s nurs­ing a whiskey and act­ing like he didn’t just put a feckin’ match to a pow­der keg.

Not at me.

The only per­son she ac­knowl­edges is our son, who jumps up to fol­low her af­ter kiss­ing Maeve’s cheek.

“See you to­mor­row, Enoch!” Fitz waves, but side­steps Bro­gan like his beloved athair mór is not there.

How­ever, he smiles at Hope. “See you to­mor­row, Aun­tie Hope.”

Aun­tie? When did Hope Dobbs get pro­moted to fam­ily?

From the warm ap­proval on my wife’s beau­ti­ful face when she looks back over her shoul­der to nod at our son, I think the pro­mo­tion hap­pened just now.

Fitz is no more for­giv­ing than me.

And it won’t be his grand­fa­ther’s chas­tise­ment of him­self he’s taken is­sue with. It will be the way Bro­gan up­set Kara.

Fitz is fiercely pro­tec­tive of his mam.

As he should be.

And tonight, it’s his mother’s ex­am­ple he’s fol­low­ing.

Leav­ing the rest of us with­out a back­ward glance. I’m not aware of what I did to earn my lit­tle man’s ire, but sure as cer­tain, it’s some­thing to do with his mam.

Then he turns his head and the look he gives me asks, “Are you com­ing?”

“Ex­cuse me,” I say to the ta­ble at large and stand to go.

“We have busi­ness to dis­cuss,” Bro­gan blus­ters.

“It will keep.” My fa­ther-in-law stepped over a line tonight and I’m let­ting him know it.

Fitz’s sug­ges­tion that Bro­gan go to Lon­don in­stead of me grows on me as I fol­low my wife and son. Bro­gan may be the boss, but within my fam­ily? He doesn’t over­ride me, or Kara.

He needs a les­son in the cost of for­get­ting that fact.

I catch up with Fitz and Kara on the stairs. Fitz hops up one stair at a time while Kara pa­tiently slows her pace to stay with him.

She is ev­ery­thing a mam should be.