Page 46 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

KARA

I've been holding the vial so long, it's warm in my hand.

The box moma gave me before my wedding sits open on my old bed. It's the first time in my seven-year marriage that I've opened it.

It stayed closed even when my mind was so chaotic and my emotions were so debilitating after Fitz's birth.

I never wanted to decrease Mick's ardor. Neither have I ever had need to threaten Mick with the dagger.

The Ethylene Glycol never even registered to my brain that dark day I took all the sleeping pills to shut down the cacophony of terrible thoughts in my mind.

Now, I'm holding onto it and not sure who I mean to use it on.

Dierdre...or Mick.

With him out of the picture, she won't have a reason to harm my son. And without her death, the Northside Dublin Syndicate will have no reason to withdraw their alliance.

Or worse, declare war on the Shaughnessy Mob.

The thought is so much like the way my father would think, it makes me sick. It's the exact way of thinking that led him to promising my hand in marriage to a complete stranger at the age of sixteen.

It's this kind of mob-is-all based logic that made Brogan think it was okay to blackmail my cousin Róise into a marriage alliance with the Italian mafia she despised.

These thoughts are not mine.

I may have sacrificed my future for the good of the Shaughnessy Mob, but I will never sacrifice the life of someone I care about for it.

Dierdre, on the other hand, is a different matter.

If I kill her, that will protect Fitz in the short term. However, it puts his father in danger from retaliation at the hands of his own family. My father too.

I may not like Brogan Shaughnessy, but I do love him.

There is only one way to protect everyone and make sure Dierdre dies. Divorce Mick.

Once I ask for a divorce, my father and Mick will know that jealousy isn't motivating what I tell them about Dierdre. They will both believe me that she threatened Fitz.

And that will be her death sentence.

While I have a bottle of Ethylene Glycol, they have the skills and means to guarantee her death is perceived as an accident.

All I have to do is convince both men I really want a divorce.

And I do.

No matter what my mob boss father and underboss husband believe, I deserve a husband who loves me. Who puts me first when my life and that of his son is on the line.

Who immediately believes me fully and completely when I tell him that's what's going on.

~

Brogan is at his desk and Mick is in one of the chairs facing it when I enter my father's office.

That's fortuitous.

And a sign, if I need one, that I'm doing the right thing.

My father greets me as soon as I walk through the door. "Hello, Kara. Mick was just telling me about your little run in with Dierdre."

Little run in? "Is that how you describe a guest in your home threatening the life of your daughter and grandson?"

His expression turns pained. "I know she has been making something of a nuisance of herself."

"Do you?" I ask.

"Hope told me." His eyes soften briefly when he says the other woman's name. "She doesn't like Dierdre either."

"Hope has discerning taste."

My father's mouth twists with disapproval. "You don't have to make up stories about Dierdre to get rid of her. She'll be going back to Ireland soon enough."

Mick makes a sound. Of annoyance? I'm not sure. But it definitely isn't agreement with Brogan's condescending words.

"I'm not here to talk to you about the Wicked Witch of the West." Not yet anyway. "I want permission to divorce Mick."

Eyes widening with discernable shock, my father opens and closes his mouth without anything coming out of it.

"No," Mick says with glacial finality.

I don't look at him. I can't. Not if I want to get through this meeting without crying, or doing something equally humiliating, like ask him why he doesn't love me.

But I do address him. "I wasn't asking you. We were married in the State of New York. That means, I can file for a divorce and it will eventually be granted, regardless of what you want."

"This is a discussion you need to be having with your husband, Kara." My father has found voice again.

I shake my head. "I disagree. As I said, Mick ultimately has no say over whether or not I can divorce him. However, you as the mob boss, do."

We all know that he has granted permission for a handful of divorces in his tenure as mob boss. Under the right circumstances, even my hidebound father acknowledges an individual's right to choose who they are married to.

"Like hell," Mick says.

But my father nods, his expression now troubled. "That is true. But you must know I'm not about to allow you to divorce Mick and destroy our alliance with the Northside Dublin Syndicate."

"Fitz is now the guarantor of that alliance, not me. I don't have to be married to Mick for him to be your underboss, or for him to take over from you when you retire."

"As much as I hate to even think about it, there's no guarantee my grandson will live to take over from his father," Brogan says heavily.

In other words, he wants more grandsons.

It's my turn to nod. "There are still male embryos in frozen storage at the clinic."

No female ones, but that's not a memory I want to relive.

"You are not going through IVF to get pregnant again." Mick's voice is deadly certain.

I shrug, still not looking at him. "I don't have to. An appropriate surrogate can be found to carry the baby."

Dierdre was right about that at least.

The astonishment on my father's face is almost comical. He was surprised by my request for a divorce, but my willingness to allow another woman to carry my child stuns him.

I'm not thrilled with the idea, but the reality is my father will not approve me beginning divorce proceedings if I'm pregnant. And he's not going to allow Fitz to be his only grandson.

The very fact he is the current mob boss instead of his dead older brother is evidence enough of the dangers to this life.

"Perhaps you should return to The Marlowe Center." My father doesn't sound condescending now.

He sounds worried.

"Some things cannot be therapied away. Believe it, or not, I am not jealous of Dierdre. I don't believe Mick wants to sex her up." Mostly. "I know she's still here because of mob business."

"Then what is the problem?" my father asks.

"The problem is that I deserve to be happy. I know my happiness means nothing to you, but it means something to me."

Brogan winces, like my words hurt him in some way. But I don't let myself go down that mental pathway. The only reason they bother him is that I'm not acting like the perfect mob princess puppet he wants me to be.

"You do not believe I will protect you from Dierdre. That is why you are pretending to want a divorce." Mick's voice is devoid of emotion.

"I want a divorce because I want to be happy," I say baldly.

"You love your husband, Kara. You're not going to be happy divorced from him." Brogan sounds so sure of himself.

"I don't expect you to understand. Or even to care about my happiness. But I expect you to be fair. I've done my duty. I went through IVF at the age of eighteen so you could have the grandson you and seanathair wanted."

My grip on the chair arms tightens to the point of pain. Talking about that time is still hard for me.

My therapist said it might always be triggering, but I'll say what needs to be said, if there's a chance it will sway my father.

"The hormone imbalance that came after – the reason for my postpartum depression – could have been linked to the hormone therapy I was forced to endure for the harvesting of my eggs at such a young age."

Brogan grimaces.

He doesn't like hearing that. Well, I didn't like living it.

"Did you know that the early mortality rate for women who give birth in their teens is over twice that for women who don't? That a second pregnancy in her teens will increase that number by 50%?"

The color leaches from my father's face. "No."

Is he wondering if that's the reason mom died? She married my father right after her eighteenth birthday and gave birth to me before she turned nineteen.

Pregnancy and delivery weren't easy on her and she suffered from anemia after.

My memories of my mom are of a kind, gentle, almost ethereal woman.

I realize as an adult, that her health was always fragile and that's why she seemed like she wasn't entirely tethered to this world.

Mom had a dangerous miscarriage when she was nineteen and was told by her OB to wait at least two years before getting pregnant again.

Her next pregnancy was no kinder to her health than the first two and after she miscarried a second time, her doctor strongly recommended she not get pregnant again.

Ever.

She died giving birth to Fiona at the age of twenty-five.

"You will not die young," Mick says in a voice that sounds like ground glass.

I shrug. "I hope for Fitz's sake I don't."

"Stop talking like this. You are not going to die!" My father slams his fist down onto his desk.

"The point is not how old I will be when I do, but that you've already taken too much from me. I sacrificed my future for the good of your mob, and now I want to take some of it back."

Brogan's head rears back, like I punched him in the jaw. "It's your mob too."

"If it is, if I'm as much of a member as your soldiers…" I don't for a minute believe I am, but I do believe my father likes to believe he's a fair, if harsh, man. "Then in all fairness, you will honor my request."

"Dierdre will be leaving to return to Dublin soon." My father rubs his eyes, like he's tired.

Soon is not immediately and as long as she's here, my son is at risk.

"Dierdre's being here and the way she's treated me might be the catalyst, but she's not the problem." Being married to a man who places mob business ahead of my feelings and needs is.

That's not something my father will ever understand though, so I don't bother saying it.

Brogan sighs, suddenly looking every one of his fifty-two years. "If you want to divorce your husband, you have my permission on two conditions."

Of course there are conditions. "What are they?"

"The first is that you act as a mother to the sons born of a surrogate."

"I would have insisted on it. I am their legal mother, no matter who carries them in her womb."

My father nods, satisfied.

"The second condition is that if there are no viable pregnancies from the current embryos, you are willing to have your eggs harvested again."

"No way in feckin' hell!" Mick surges to his feet, his lack of emotion suddenly transforming into incandescent rage. "Kara will never be forced to go through IVF again."

I can't see my husband's face, but the way my father blanches looking at him tells me I don't want to.

"You need more than one son," Brogan says without his usual conviction.

Mick says nothing. He just stands there vibrating rage.

Finally, my father sighs. "Fine. I'll grant permission for the divorce if you are willing to discuss the option should it become necessary, Kara."

"Agreed."

Still silent, Mick returns to his seat.

My father avoids looking at him which makes me sneak a peek at my husband's profile.

His jaw is rigid; his entire posture is coiled violence ready to strike.

"You need to talk to your husband, Kara, but you have my permission to file for divorce if that is what you really want."

I can't believe it was this easy. I expected to have to argue a lot longer.

But I'm relieved I don't have to. Because I've got another unpleasant discussion ahead.

Convincing my father that Dierdre Kelly has to die.