Page 47 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

MICK

Primal rage pushes against my control with the power of a rocket launcher.

If I speak, I will snarl.

If I move, I will kill Brogan. Then I will grab Kara and drag her back to our apartment where we will discuss her appalling request with our bodies.

I sit. I listen. And I plan.

My wife is not leaving me. Not to death. Not to divorce. Not ever.

"Now, we need to talk about Dierdre," Kara says, like she hasn't just taken an Uzi to our life together.

"I told you, she's going back to Dublin soon," Brogan says.

Then he looks at me with an expression that says he expects me to back him up.

I'm more likely to blow him up and I let that truth shine in my eyes. The only part of my body any emotion is getting through.

He frowns and turns his gaze back on his daughter.

"As long as she is living, she is a danger to Fitz." Kara's tone is implacable.

Brogan sighs. "She won't be living in the mansion for much longer."

He missed the point of what his daughter just said to him. I didn't.

For the first time since coming upon my wife and Dierdre in our apartment, I consider that Dierdre Kelly is egotistical enough to believe she can get away with harming my wife and son.

I thought she was too smart to sign her own death warrant, but if she threatened Fitz, that's exactly what she did.

"Mick." Kara says my name, trying to get my attention.

As if every molecule of my body isn't already consumed with her and only her.

I turn my head and our gazes collide. Hers is filled with emotion. Pain. Grief. Determination.

"What do you need, mo chuisle ?"

Her lips twist like she's just sucked on a lemon wedge. She doesn't like me using endearments with her?

Tough.

She is the beat of my heart and if she is gone, so is my heart. Then no one is safe except my son.

I will kill them all. Starting with her father.

"You said you watch me on the video feeds sometimes."

More like all the time. "Aye."

"You have cameras in our apartment then, right?"

"Aye." There is no point in hiding the level of my obsession any longer.

After tonight, she is going to see how fixated I am, how tight I am willing to hold her to me.

"Do they pick up sound, or only images?"

"They have sound." I like to hear her voice, especially when she's talking to our son.

There's a softness in it I crave.

"Do you record, or only livestream?"

"Record." I have an 8-terabyte external hard drive filled with my favorites.

"Can you access the minutes before you walked in on me with my foot on Dierdre's neck on your phone?"

"Aye."

"Thank you." She's taking my willingness to do it for granted.

As she should.

Like she should take for granted that she is mine and I am hers and that is not going to change.

It takes a minute, but I find the segment she wants me to play. Assuming she wants her father to hear what was said, I put my phone on speaker and start the video.

"Your best-case scenario is to be put on the first plane back to Dublin." Kara doesn't sound worried. She sounds angry.

Dierdre’s snide voice follows. "Why would he believe you? Your past irrational jealousies make your take on any situation between Micky and another woman unreliable."

"Whatever gossip you’ve heard is old news. My father has no reason to doubt my word." Dierdre wouldn't have heard the lie in Kara's voice, but I do.

I shift my gaze from my phone's screen to my wife. She's trying to hide her vulnerability, but it's shining in her hazel eyes.

The temptation to kill her father and then stab my own thigh in punishment for doubting her is so strong, my hands ache with the need to act.

"If it’s such old news, why was he bemoaning to Mick’s da and mine about all the drama your jealousy caused only last fall?"

Brogan jerks, his expression turning pained.

"I don’t believe you." The words are right, and Kara probably convinced Dierdre, but her lack of confidence is obvious to me.

She does believe her father opened his big mouth yet again.

And the look on Brogan's face says he realizes that too. Regret and guilt are written all over my boss's expression, but Kara isn't looking at him. So, she doesn't see it.

She's watching me.

To see if I'm getting the point yet?

"Why would I lie?" Dierdre asks.

Kara's laughter is filled with mockery. "I could write a book – no, make that a series – on the lies you tell." I'm watching while listening, so I see the moment Kara has had enough. "If that is all." Kara’s voice is colder now. "I’m busy."

"Do yourself a favor and ask Mick for a divorce."

"Not going to happen. Even if I wanted to divorce my husband, and I don’t, my father would have to approve the dissolution of my marriage." She changed her mind pretty fast on that, didn't she?

She can change it back just as quickly then.

"Once Fitz was born, you were no longer necessary for the alliance between the Shaughnessy Mob and the Northies. If you die, the alliance still stands. You are now surplus to requirements."

There’s a pause.

Then Kara’s voice, tight and cutting: "If you have me killed my father will find out. But more importantly, so will Mick. What do you think he would do to the person responsible for the death of his beloved son’s mom?"

Why did I think it was okay to subject Kara to this viciousness? She's abso-feckin'-lutely right.

I should have protected her from Dierdre's cruelty as much as the threat of any physical harm that could come to my wife.

"More to the point, what would it do to your husband if his son became the casualty of your mob’s current conflict with the bratva?" Dierdre taunts calmly.

I pause the recording and look at Brogan to see if he caught it. He's not tracking. That regret? It's so strong, I'm not sure there's room for anything else right now.

Not even thinking like a mob boss.

"She knows about our issues with Darakov," I point out to him.

Which is confirmation that at some point they have communicated about things other than his pursuit of a marriage alliance with her mob through her.

Brogan's head snaps up, his eyes coming back into focus.

"I asked the wrong bleedin' questions." And I am feckin' furious at myself.

Believing her reason for being in New York was to make a play for me, I dismissed the potential for additional motives and didn't question her on them.

I don't make mistakes. Especially not ones that could put Kara or Fitz at risk.

Brogan gives a significant look toward his daughter. "We can discuss that later."

"Maybe if you had discussed whatever it is with me before today," Kara says drily. "This whole situation could have been avoided."

With my wife's words, another bullet point to add to my plan to keep her emerges.

She's been frustrated with me for withholding information from her for weeks. She wanted to know what business kept Dierdre at the mansion and I refused to tell her.

Because it's safer for Kara not to know.

At least that's what I've always believed.

However, I thought she didn't need my protection against Dierdre's words, and I was wrong about that.

It's looking like I was wrong about this too.

I meet my wife's eyes. "I'm sorry."

She jerks a nod, but there's no softening in her demeanor.

She's still stuck on getting the divorce then.

"You want me to kill Dierdre?" I ask.

"I don't care who does it, but yes, I want her and the threat she poses to Fitz gone. Permanently."

"You don't mention yourself," Brogan says. "But it's obvious she threatened you first."

"You already knew that, but it wasn't enough was it?"

Brogan doesn’t answer.

I don't think he can. There's pain on his face I can't identify with. It's emotional, but there's no doubting it's real.

"I don't matter. You made that clear. I've never mattered. Not to you. Not to Mick. All I've ever been to either of you is a means to an end.A uterus to carry the heir and a spare." The bitterness in Kara's voice is laced with her own emotional pain.

And that pain bothers me.

It has to be fixed.

"You do matter, Kara. I'm sorry I didn't believe your version of what happened until I saw it for myself."

Kara's expression says she's not handing out any offers of easy forgiveness. "As long as you take care of the problem now without plunging us into war with the Northside Dublin Syndicate, I'll be satisfied."

"But not happy," Brogan says, sounding none too much in that state himself.

"There's nothing for me to be happy about in this situation. If Dierdre had acted on her desires before giving me a warning, either I would be dead and my son would be without a mother, or both of us would be."

And Kara holds both her da and I accountable for that.

Brogan shakes his head. "She wanted you to ask for the divorce and thought she could threaten you into doing it."

"It worked." And for that alone, Dierdre would have to die.

That she threatened my wife and son with intent only means her death isn't going to be quick.

Kara shrugs. "I guess we all learned a lesson from this."

"Yes, we did," Brogan says with sincerity.

"Fitz is going to be home from school soon." Clearly done with the meeting, she turns to walk out of the office.

"Kara," her father says with some urgency before she reaches the door.

She stops but doesn't turn to face him.

"I really am sorry. You are my daughter and I love you, even when I do a terrible job of showing it."

"I'm not sure it's love if you can't show it," she says quietly before leaving Brogan's office.

I send a text to Brice to pick up Dierdre and put her on ice until I'm ready to deal with her.

"I'll take care of Dierdre," I tell Brogan.

He nods. "She has to die."

"Aye."

"Kara deserves a better father than the one I have been."

I won't argue with that. He's a strong mob boss, but he has never valued his daughters like I value my son.

And I'm a sociopath.

He's not.

Or so I have always assumed.

I stop at the door on the way out of his office. "I will burn down this mob and everyone in it before I let my wife go."

"Good. My daughter deserves to be loved that way. But I’m not the one you have to convince."

Loved? I don't do love. But I need her.

And she needs me.

For a man like me, that's more powerful than any ephemeral emotion.

Brogan thinks I’m going to romance his daughter into staying with me, but that’s not how a man like me works.

I keep what is mine no matter what the consequences.