Page 36 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

Dierdre tries to stab a prawn on her plate and misses twice. She ordered Dublin Lawyer, but prefers prawns over lobster and insisted the chef prepare it with them.

She hasn’t touched the crusty bread it was served with, but she's made inroads in the shrimp tossed in a rich whiskey-cream sauce.

She tries to stab another one again, but when she misses, she drops her fork as if she forgot what she was doing with it.

Perfect.

"I’m curious," I say, voice mild, "why the Odessa boys would want you bad enough to risk taking you on the Northie's turf."

She reaches for her glass, misses and waves her hand. "I wasn't in Dublin. I was shopping in London."

That makes more sense, but doesn't explain why they felt the need to kidnap her at all.

"Why take you?"

"It’s mob business. Something to do with shipments or accounts, I don’t know. You know how it is. Your da and mine think women are mushrooms and do their best to keep us in the dark."

"But you don't stay in the dark, do you?" It's the reason I continued to cultivate her as an information asset after my marriage.

She always knows the details.

She used to whisper them in my ear at night, between moans and murmurs. Dierdre Kelly collects information the way other women collect handbags. And she always, always knows more than she should.

She winks. "You know me well."

"So?"

"Our das are refusing to budge on the price of a shipment of weapons and have threatened to go elsewhere." Her hazy eyes widen, like the words coming out of her mouth surprise her.

Speaking unvarnished truth probably does. It's not her norm.

"And Odessa thought they would kidnap you for leverage?" Doesn't sound like the way to keep a business relationship strong.

They might get the price they want for the current weapons, but my da will never buy from them again.

"They want a marriage alliance." This time the shock is so strong at speaking the truth, she slaps her hand over her mouth.

"It's not our das who are balking then?" I ask, taking a stab in the dark.

And the bratva doesn't want more money. They want Dierdre.

Even woozy and uninhibited, fury suffused her features. "I'm not a bargaining chip."

"We all are." Even me.

True, if I hadn't wanted what Fergal Shaughnessy was offering, I would have found a way out of marrying Kara seven years ago. I'm glad I didn't, and not because one day, sooner than later, I will be the boss and my son after me.

There is no woman on the planet more perfect for me than my own personal obsession.

"Well, I'm not going to marry a bratva boss nearly twice my age just to provide him with the male heir he didn't manage with his first wife." Dierdre manages to grab her wine glass and drink.

Or tries to. It's empty.

She puts it down with a frown, like she's wondering where the wine went.

I don't want her too inebriated to answer my questions and give another sign to my soldier indicating I want the nonalcoholic version of the wine brought to the table.

Lifting the bottle, I shake my head. "Empty. Here's the waiter with another."

Dierdre gives my soldier a brilliant smile. "Just in time."

He pours her a glass of the nonalcoholic wine and then leaves the bottle on the table before stepping away with the nearly half full bottle in my hand.

Dierdre is so out of it, she didn't even notice my lie.

She takes a long sip of her newly poured beverage. "Ilya Darakov isn't even a pakhan. He's a weapons dealer."

The name hits like an icepick to my brain. "Our das want you to marry Ilya Darakov?"

"It was his idea and he's offering incentives that both our das are finding hard to resist."

"And when you refused to agree to the marriage, he tried to kidnap you?" I ask.

"Not him personally. He sent his flunkies for me." Which seems to offend her as much as the fact her da wants her to marry the Russian.

"Whose idea was it for you to come to New York?" I ask.

"Mine." She gives me a seductive wink. "All mine. But da went along with it. He did not approve of Ilya trying to take matters into his own hands."

"They still want you to marry Darakov though?"

Dierdre scowls. "Aye. The das think they can use the failed kidnapping as leverage for even more concessions."

"Smart."

"You think so? I don't like being bartered like a treasure full of diamonds."

Trust Dierdre to liken herself to precious stones rather than something more prosaic. She still sees herself as the queen on the chessboard.

"What about you? What are you trying to get out of coming to New York?"

"What else?" she asks with a husky chuckle. "I want you, Micky."

"I'm already married."

"There's such a thing as divorce."

More prevalent in the American mob than it is in Ireland. Not that it's common here though. There are plenty of American mob bosses that consider death the only possible end to a marriage.

"I'm not going to divorce my wife."

"You say that now, but think about it, Mick. You've already got Fitz. He's the guarantor of the contract now, not Kara. You don't need her."

"What do you know about the contract?" I demand.

"Please, Mick. It's like you don't know me. I read it of course."

Shite.

Kara will be livid if she finds out Dierdre knows the particulars of our marriage alliance contract. She carries inexplicable shame around the IVF treatments and has never even told her sister or cousin that's how she conceived Fitz.

Between us, she acts like it never happened and I don't remind her. The IVF was hard on my young wife.

I wonder sometimes if that's the reason she never brings up getting pregnant again. She associates her pregnancy with everything she had to go through to get that way and we lost in the process.

It could as easily be that she doesn’t want to risk having postpartum depression again.

Regardless of her reasoning, Brogan is not happy his daughter refuses to give him more grandchildren right now.

However, I made it clear to him that if he pushes her on it, I will get a vasectomy.

When he threatened me with one of those uncommon divorces on behalf of his daughter, I told him Kara would stop being my wife over my dead body.

Brogan Shaughnessy is a ruthless man, but he's not like me. He still has sensitivities borne of emotion and those make him reluctant to kill his son-in-law.

If he ever starts to show signs that's changing, it won't be me who ends up dead.

Kara is having our next child when she's ready. If she's ever ready.

"Tell me about Ilya Darakov."

Dierdre's eyes soften. "I knew you cared. He's fifty-two, Mick. Old enough to be my father."

But not twice her age of thirty. "When did he approach your father about the marriage alliance."

"Last year some time."

"When?" I press again.

"I don't know, six…maybe seven months ago." She pushes her plate away like the prawns disgust her now.

If she's starting to feel nauseated, my window for effective interrogation is closing.

Ten months ago, we took the whisper gun technology from the weapons engineer and killed him after finding out what a sick bastard he was.

It could have taken a couple of months for Darakov to find out we were the ones who torched the lab and took the prototype.

He's definitely interested in the whisper gun technology, but how much does Dierdre know? How much do my da and hers know?

My gut is telling me, nothing at all.

Darakov wants the alliance with the Northies as a way to get to me. As a competitor in the arms market, he has to know any attempt to do business with us would be suspect.

"Why does he want the alliance with the Northside Dublin Syndicate?" I ask.

"I told you. He wants me to have babies for him." Dierdre shudders. "I don't want to get pregnant."

"Did you tell your da that?"

"No! He'd disown me."

Life in the mob isn't easy for women, but it's not easy for men either.

Certain aspects of our lives are dictated by our births. But this isn't the dark ages.

"Your da wouldn't disown you."

Dierdre shrugs. "As long as I'm an asset for him, he gives me the allowance I need to keep up appearances to attract a suitable husband."

In other words, she pretends to be open to an alliance marriage to keep her substantial allowance coming in.

"It's surprising you aren't already married."

"You know da expected you to marry me. Both our das felt guilty when they saw how heartbroken I was after you left. They understood that I couldn't consider marrying anyone else." The way she says it makes it clear there was no heartache involved.

Just a woman who wanted to keep her lavish lifestyle without being hampered by a mob marriage on the horizon.

"They believe you've had enough time to grieve ."

She scowls again. "Aye. And now they want me to marry a geriatric."

"Fifty-two is not a geriatric."

"I don't want an old man in my bed. I want you Mick."

I don't have to answer that claim because Dierdre's body succumbs to the drug. Passing out, she falls forward, her face landing in the Dublin Lawyer she pushed away.

Now that I know why she's really here and who wants to marry her, keeping her on Long Island might be strategic.

I just hope she's not too big a pain in the ass to Kara. My wife is strong though. She's not going to be intimidated by someone as fake as Dierdre.

Dierdre wants me, but I don't want her.

Problem solved.