Page 20 of Sins of Innocence

Kara's lips quirk. "Do you think maybe you could give Áine a little more room there, Wraith?"

"She's fine," Kieran says without consulting me.

I pinch him in the side. Hard.

He doesn't acknowledge the pinch, but he takes my hand and laces our fingers together. I'd tug my hand away but the look the underboss is giving me is scaring me to death and somehow that big hand holding mine makes me a little less afraid.

The underboss measures me with his soulless green eyes. "Kenneth told you your husband was a rat?"

"And that you killed him for it? Yes." Like he doesn't know that already. "And all the torture you put him through before you did it." I can't help the scowl I give him.

I don't care what my husband did, learning the pain and suffering he went through before dying destroyed me.

"Life in the mob is harsh." There's no apology or even a hint of guilt in Mick Shaughnessy's tone. "Our laws are inviolate and breaking them comes with heavy penalties."

He's so emotionless. Unlike Kenneth, when he told me about it, Mick Fitzgerald doesn't exhibit any pleasure at having meted out those penalties.

Even without the accent, no one looking at him would doubt his Irish heritage. With his dark red hair, green eyes and pale skin. He'd be good looking if he wasn't so scary.

Kieran is his exact opposite. Kieran's silky, dark hair is nearly black and his eyes are espresso brown. His skin has a dusky olive tone that matches his Slavic surname better than his Irish first name.

And he's big. Okay, since I'm a scant five-two, anyone over five-six seems big, but Kieran is definitely over six feet tall. And his tight black henley does nothing to hide his muscles on top of muscles.

"Did you know Troy was mobbed up before Kenneth told you what he did?" Kara asks me gently with a look for her husband I can't interpret.

I shake my head and then nod. "I didn't know when he died, but two federal agents came to me six month's later claiming my husband had been a criminal, not just a businessman. They wanted me to tell them what I knew about the mob, which was nothing. When I told them that, they thought I could spy for them."

"What did you say?" the underboss asks.

"What do you think I said?" Okay, channeling my preteen's inner snark queen is probably not my best move right now. I rein her in and say, "I told them I didn't know what they were talking about and if what they said was true, doing what they considered my civic duty would get me killed."

My parents didn't have any mob affiliations but my family is Irish-American with a long history in New York. I grew up knowing about the rough justice of the mob and hearing whispers about the power of the Shaughnessy Mob in particular.

You might turn state's witness on a street gang, but on the Shaughnessy Mob? No chance.

Only a fool would betray them.

Like my dead husband.

Kieran's thumb brushes back and forth over mine and I realize how tense I've gotten and how labored my breathing has become.

"But you know all this. Why are you asking about it?" I ask with more anger than sense. I hate how they are rubbing my face in what happened to my husband. "Do you think I'm going to lie, or something?"

"Why do you say I know all about it?" Mick asks.

I can't help my glare any more than I can the anger laced frustration in my voice. "Because you do. You told Kenneth to warn me not to talk. You decreed I couldn't leave New York because I was a security risk to the mob. Only I wasn't. Until he told me what happened I still thought my husband died in an accident. I didn't believe the feds when they told me he'd been killed by the mob."

"But you believed Kenneth when he said it?" Kara asks, her brows drawn together.

"Considering he was my husband's boss and that made him mob too, I didn't think he'd lie about it." Besides, it corroborated what the FBI agents had claimed to be true. "Why would he?"

"Why would he tell you that he spoke on my behalf, when he didn't?" Mick counters.

Is he trying to claim that Kenneth wasn't speaking for him?

"You want me to believe Kenneth was lying to me?" If only I could believe that.

The terror freezing my insides and making me shake might thaw a little.