Page 11 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

KARA

I'm enjoying a rare moment of me-time when I hear what has so quickly become the unmistakable harbinger of Dierdre's arrival.

Click. Click. Click.

It has been four days since Dierdre's arrival and I am not ashamed to say I have avoided our houseguest as much as possible. Because every time we are alone together, she always gets a dig in.

Heck, she's pretty good at drawing blood in the company of others too.

A memory that starts off innocuous and quickly devolves into, "But you don't want to hear about that do you? If I were you, I wouldn't want to hear about how close my husband was with the lover he had to give up to marry me."

A comment that should be a compliment, but is anything but. "You're so good with children. I guess that's the benefit of Micky marrying someone so much younger than him."

One of my favorites? "Women in alliance marriages are so lucky they don't have to keep up their figure. It's not as if you have to worry about your husband moving onto someone else…permanently."

It's my favorite because it's the one zinger that never hits its target. My husband is way too addicted to my curves for me to think he wants me to change them.

Here she comes again, her high heels tapping a determined rhythm across the marble floor of the foyer. Will she turn off to visit Mick in his office? Again.

She sees more of my husband than I do. When I brought that up last night after he came to bed, he did the whole, you don't have anything to be jealous of, you're my wife thing before making me insensate with pleasure.

Which is his answer to pretty much any conflict between us. Sex so good, my body hums from it the next day.

But it's the words that stick with me long after he goes to sleep. They're code for, "You're being unreasonable, just like before."

The just like before might be something my brain tacks on. Despite weekly therapy, I've never managed to forgive myself for trying to abandon my son. If I had died that day, my sweet little guy would have grown up without his mom just like I did.

So, I'm hypersensitive to any emotion that resembles the chaotic, pain-filled thoughts that plagued me the first six months of Fitz's life.

Well, damn. Dierdre is definitely heading in this direction. And too quickly for me to vacate the sunroom before she reaches it.

There goes my peaceful respite.

If I hadn't taken off my shoes and started reading a book, maybe.

But it took too long for the click-clack of her heels to infiltrate my conscious mind.

After a more exhausting session than usual with my therapist, I needed to get out of my own head. And I do that best while reading a book where I can immerse myself in someone else's thoughts and experiences.

I really needed that after I signed off with a bruised heart and mind filled with confusion.

"What is it you want from your marriage, Kara?"

I know what I want, but isn't the more achievable and therefore important question, what can I have?

My therapist doesn't think so. She asked if my marriage is the type of future I want for Fitz? After that gut punch, she gave me the name of a child psychologist to reach out to for Fitz and told me my homework was to write down the three most important things I want from my marriage.

Not three things I believe I can have. Three things I want. My emotions started spiraling, and not in a good way, after one.

I want Mick to love me like I love him and that is never going to happen.

Dierdre appears in the doorway to the sunroom looking too sexy for eleven in the morning.

Her dark red, backless sundress leaves most of the flawless skin of her upper body on display.

The tightly fitted bodice pushes her modest breasts into prominence and the swirling skirt emphasizes her tiny waist.

"Good morning, Miss Kelly. Did you need something?"

Her mouth twists in a moue of displeasure. "I told you to call me Dierdre."

I incline my head, like I do every time she makes the demand. Neither agreeing with nor denying her request, but my actions speak for me.

I don't use her first name and I don't plan on ever using it. Petty? No. It's a boundary I set, something I've given myself permission to do.

I will not pretend friendship with someone who so clearly sees me as a rival. It's a big departure for me and not one my family is used to.

Fi loves it though. Every time I call Dierdre Miss Kelly , my little sister gives me a discreet thumbs up. Since moma also continues to use the more formal address, I'm not worried I'm disappointing her.

Hope also calls Dierdre Miss Kelly, when she speaks to her at all. Which is not often. All three of the kids avoid Dierdre too. Even my usually gregarious little boy gives monosyllabic answers when she tries to talk to him.

The only people in this house who enjoy Dierdre's company are my husband and father. Which seems to suit the Irish beauty just fine.

I have no doubt she's used to getting her way. Too bad for her, this isn't Dublin and she's not the reigning mob princess. Worse for her, I'm no longer a mob princess. I'm a mob queen.

Because my husband and son are the next in line to run this mob, that makes me the senior ranking woman in the Shaughnessy Mob, something mamo regularly reminds me of.

Dierdre sinks artfully into an armchair without being invited.

"I hope I didn’t make things…awkward last night." Her tone laced with innocence so false, it might as well be sugar free sweetener.

Unsure which particular memory she dredged up with my husband that she's referring to, I say, "Not at all."

She crosses one leg over the other, posing even now, with no one but me in the room to appreciate her practiced movements. "It's just we have so much history."

"That's usually the case with older friends." Forced by my own adherence to good manners, I put the e-reader down on the occasional table beside me.

Her eyes narrow. "I'm sure you meant old friends."

The way she says old friends sound like past lovers , or is that just me?

"Did I? Would you like a glass?" I indicate the pitcher of iced tea on the serving tray. "Green tea is filled with antioxidants that can help keep older skin looking youthful."

"What are you implying? I don't need anything to help me look younger."

"Of course. With your fixation on me being younger than you, I thought you might appreciate the—"

"It's not your age relative to me that I find so…" Dierdre cuts me off before I can finish, but then flounders in her umbrage, unwilling to say the word on the tip of her tongue.

"Objectionable," I offer. She's certainly implied as much.

"Concerning," she counters.

She's been very careful thus far not to say anything that can be pointed to as a direct insult.

"I'm not sure why me being nearly a decade younger than you would be so concerning?

" I pause and then give her a commiserating look.

"You shouldn't let the fact that you're over thirty and unmarried get to you.

I know mob culture can be backwards, but we don't live in the last century.

A woman doesn't need a husband and family to have a satisfying life. "

Which is something I believe strongly, but not a sentiment I think Dierdre will appreciate.

Her murderous expression tells me I'm right. "My concern is how much younger than Micky you are, not me."

"But you're the same age, aren't you?" I ask, doing my own imitation of false innocence.

"Yes," she grinds out. "But that's not the point."

"What exactly is the point?" I pour myself a glass of tea and take a sip, giving her plenty of time to answer.

"It must be…" She waves her hand like she's looking for words, when I have no doubt she'd come in here with every word already planned.

Hopefully my question got us back on script. As fun as it has been to give her a little of her own back, I would still rather be reading.

"Exhausting," she goes on, her eyes filled with pity. "Always watching. Always wondering."

Refusing to let her get to me again, I arch one brow. "Wondering about what exactly?"

My post-partum depression fueled jealousy notwithstanding, the only thing I've ever had cause to wonder about is whether or not my husband will ever love me.

"A virile, powerful man like Micky…you've got to be curious what he does so many hours of the day away from you."

So, she noticed how little time Mick spends with me. It's hard to miss. But it's also not uncommon with mob men at his level. The mob comes first, family second, no matter what kind of lies my father likes to tell himself.

"Not particularly." Which is true.

I'm neither interested in the details of Mick's legitimate business dealings nor the gritty ones related to his role as the Shaughnessy mob underboss.

Even back when we were first married, and I used to hang out in Mick's office – I still struggle with memories of how besotted I was – the details of his work didn't interest me.

I just wanted to be in the same room as him, which is my own pathetic truth to live with.

Dierdre's scoffing laugh is the first real thing in her demeanor since she came into the room. "Is that the line you've been taught to toe? It must be different in Ireland. I wouldn't stand for my husband having friends on the side."

"Mick can have whatever friends he likes," I answer with deliberate obtuseness. "Though outside of his crew, I don't think he has many."

He and Róise's fiancé, Miceli De Luca, underboss to the Genovese Family? But even with the family ties soon to be cemented, that relationship is still primarily business.

"Maybe you're not as smart as I thought. I wasn't talking about boyos to drink at the pub with."

"I didn't think you were, but why should I dignify your nasty innuendo with an answer? If you think my husband lacks the integrity to keep his marriage vows, that's a you problem."

"You think he's faithful?" she scoffs.

"You don't?" I counter.

Dierdre shifts in her chair. Something about this conversation isn't going the way she expects.