Page 63 of Sins of Arrogance

If there’s a chance for Fiona to be able to live a less anx­i­ety-filled life, she de­serves it.

Bro­gan frowns heav­ily. “She could be hap­pier.”

“You mean you could be hap­pier us­ing her to se­cure an­other al­liance.”

“That’s not hap­pen­ing,” Bro­gan grum­bles.

“No, it’s not.” I re­spect the hell out of my wife’s cousin for ne­go­ti­at­ing Fiona’s free­dom from an ar­ranged mar­riage.

Róise made it a con­di­tion for her be­ing will­ing to en­ter a mar­riage al­liance with the De Lu­cas. We needed that al­liance to end decades of strife be­tween the Shaugh­nessy Mob and the Cosa Nos­tra.

And she took ad­van­tage of our need to force Bro­gan into a prom­ise I would never let him break.

“About Lon­don, I need you there the day af­ter to­mor­row,” Bro­gan changes the sub­ject.

“You heard Kara. She’s not go­ing. I’m not leav­ing her and Fitz here with a po­ten­tial spy liv­ing un­der our roof.” And even if Dier­dre isn’t a spy, she’s a dra­matic pain-in-the-ass I don’t want caus­ing trou­ble with, or for, my wife.

“You’ll just have to change her mind,” Bro­gan says com­pla­cently.

I lean back in my chair and meet his gaze, mak­ing no ef­fort at a pre­tense of nor­mal­ity. “No.”

“What the fuck? You know I need you there, Mick. There’s no one else we can trust with this ne­go­ti­a­tion.”

“Are you say­ing you don’t trust your­self to han­dle it?” I gibe.

“You know that’s not what I’m say­ing. It’s your job, damn it!”

“No, my job is to pro­tect my fam­ily. Ev­ery­thing else is sec­ondary.”

“You don’t think I can keep my own daugh­ter and grand­son safe?” he de­mands, of­fence in ev­ery line of his tall frame.

I don’t sugar coat it. “Nah.”

“Fuck me.” Bro­gan leaps to his feet. “Who do you think you’re talk­ing to?”

“Do you have feel­ings for Hope?” I ask.

Bro­gan rears back. “What in the hell does that have to do with this?”

“If you do, you lost ma­jor ground with her at din­ner tonight,” I point out.

“I don’t know what you think you know—”

I don’t let him fin­ish his false de­nials. “You hurt her by play­ing up to Dier­dre.”

“Well, you sure as hell weren’t do­ing it.”

“It wasn’t nec­es­sary.” And I al­ready pissed my gen­tle wife off to the point she barely ac­knowl­edged me over din­ner.

“I don’t agree.”

“Clearly.”

“You think it up­set Hope?” he asks, shock­ing me.

I didn’t think Bro­gan would ac­knowl­edge his in­ter­est in the widow with two chil­dren.

“I know it did. The ques­tion is: how come you don’t?”