Page 49 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

These may be like the cuffs he uses when we make love, but they aren't them. There's no discernable way to release them, or to unhook them from each other.

I try pressing against the leather, over and over, everywhere my fingers can reach. Then I run my fingers between the leather and my ankle, looking for a hidden release. Nothing.

"They require a key." Mick is standing in the doorway to the closet, the duffel dangling from one hand.

"Take them off me."

"No."

I try a different tack. "Where's Fitz?"

Mick heads into the bathroom, presumably to grab my toiletries. "In a helicopter on the way to where we are going."

"So, you kidnapped our son too?" I raise my voice so he can hear me.

"I didn't have to," Mick calls from the bathroom. "Fitz is happy to go on a trip with us."

Only he's not with us. He's already on the way there and I can't help feeling that's on purpose.

"What about school?" I demand.

Mick comes back into the bedroom, the duffel zipped. "I arranged to get his schoolwork and the learning goals for the week from his teacher. You will be able to work with him so he does not fall behind."

"We're going to be gone a week?" My voice rises, but I can't help it.

"We'll be away from the mansion as long as it takes."

I don't ask takes to do what because I've got a pretty good idea. Mick's a possessive guy. His outlook is pretty basic. Me and Fitz? We're his.

He says he's mine too, but it's not true. There's a big part of him I cannot touch because it belongs to the mob.

He doesn't acknowledge that and in his primitive view, marriage is for a lifetime. Even if that marriage is nothing but a contract and good sex.

Okay, mind-blowing sex, but that's not love.

"How do you plan to get me out of the house without me screaming my head off?"

"It would be easier if I could drug you, but I can't," he says conversationally.

"Because of what happened before." For the first time ever, there's something about that time in my life that works in my favor.

"Because a man does not drug his wife."

"Uh…" I'm seriously at a loss as to what to say to that.

It's okay to kidnap me, but not drug me?

"I don't want to kill our men, but I will if they try to stop me." His face reflects not a single regret for making that threat.

There's something different about him. That thing that lurks underneath his easy Irish charm is on the surface. I always assumed that it was the mobster, the man willing to commit criminal acts for the good of the syndicate.

But it's something more.

I'm not convinced the men would come to my aid if they saw Mick carrying me out of the house, no matter how loudly I screamed. But am I willing to take that chance?

"You're insane," I accuse.

"It's called antisocial personality disorder, and it is not accompanied by delusions or paranoia."

Which apparently is supposed to mean he's not insane.

"You're a sociopath?" How can that be possible?

He loves Fitz. I know he does.

"Aye."

"You're deluded if you think I'm going anywhere with you," I inform him.

"I thought you would prefer I not kill your father either." He says it so prosaically.

Like he didn't just threaten to murder his boss and friend.

"Why in the world would you even threaten that?"

"He gave you permission to file for divorce. Once I am boss, that permission will be rescinded."

"No. No. No." This is not happening.

Mick, the affable, but scary underboss, is not threatening to kill my father to keep me married to him.

"You can't kill my father. He's your boss. You took an oath."

"He betrayed that oath when he agreed to the divorce," Mick says implacably. "Just as your seanathair did when he ordered the disposal of our girl embryos."

That is not a memory I want to revisit, but he can't be saying what I think he's saying. "You killed my grandfather?"

His health began to deteriorate months before Uncle Derry's death and more rapidly after. Everyone put it down to seanathair's grief.

"Aye."

My brain cannot take this in. "Why?"

"He stole from me. That is an unacceptable betrayal of the oath between boss and soldier and negated the oath I made to him."

Because the girl embryos belonged to me and Mick, not my grandfather. Only seanathair hadn't seen it that way.

"I don't understand." My brain is spinning like hard disk drive gone amok. "How did you kill him?"

"Thallium poisoning. I wanted to use arsenic, to prolong his suffering because he made you cry. But your grandfather was old school Catholic which meant no cremation. And arsenic can be detected in the body too long after death."

My husband's eyes reflect a complete lack of emotion, including remorse. This is the real Mick. Not the charming facade he puts on to fool people.

I always knew it was there, but he held this part of himself back from me.

"If I had known the full cost of his actions toward you, I would have made him suffer much worse before death."

"You think I took the pills because of seanathair ?" I ask, aghast.

"Aye. Because he made you believe you had no value when your value to me was and is immeasurable."

"That can't be true. You don't love me."

"You are my addiction, Kara. I need you."

"That's not love."

"Nah, it's not. But it is real."

"You love Fitz."

"Aye."

"But you don't have those kinds of tender feelings for me."

He shakes his head. "Addiction is not a feeling."

I'm not sure that's true, but what do I know? I never even realized my husband was obsessed with me.

The fact he has been stalking me since the early days of our marriage gives credence to his claim though. I'd only been guessing about the cameras in our living room earlier today.

But they're there and Mick had recorded footage of me and Dierdre from them.

How long does he keep the recordings? Does he have favorites?

And what is wrong with me that my mind is going there right now? "You can't kill my da."

"You stopped calling him that. After you came home from The Marlowe Center."

"I did." I don't know why I slipped now.

Or maybe I do. Because when it comes down to it, I don't want him hurt. He's still my father, even if I don't think of him as my da.

"Why?" Mick asks.

"A da is someone who loves his children. Nurtures and protects them." Even Mick with his ASPD, is a da to our son. "Regardless, Brogan is your father-in-law. He's family."

"You and Fitz are my family." Emotionless implacability stares back at me from Mick's green gaze.

"We might be your primary family, but he's still your father-in-law."

Mick shows no softening.

"He's your friend," I claim desperately. "Like Brice, Conor and Rory. You wouldn't kill them."

"If they threatened you or Fitz I would." He pauses, thinking. "Or if they betrayed me."

I can't help noticing me and Fitz came first, but I shake my head. "My father didn't betray you."

"Aye, he did. And Kara, Brogan is not my mate."

"Well, according to you, Dierdre isn't your friend either. She threatened to kill me and you told her I don't take criticism from her very well . Why does she get a pass?"

My grandfather didn't. And I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Life for moma , Fiona, Róise and me has been better since his death. Brogan Shaughnessy may be a ruthless mob boss too, but some part of him cares about us.

For all his talk about family loyalty, I'm not sure any part of seanathair ever did.

"She doesn't. Brice is doing a chemically enhanced interrogation on her with our newest recruit. After that, she'll be sent back to Dublin with no memory of the interrogation."

"Sounds like a pass to me." And that's not what my father promised.

"Once she is back in Dublin, she will disappear. Her family will believe she has been kidnapped by Ilya Darakov. Both will die in a plane crash while he is trying to get her to Odessa."

It's a good plan for killing her without starting a war with The Northside Dublin Syndicate. "Who's Ilya Darakov?"

"The Russian bratva leader trying to steal new weapon technology from me."

Me. Not us. Not the mob. Me.

Whatever is going on, Mick is taking it personally.

"Why aren't you doing the interrogation?" And why is Mick telling me all this?

It's mob business even if I have a vested interest in permanently removing the threat of Dierdre to my son.

"Because I fucked it up the first time and didn't ask the right questions. I won't let that happen again." He said something like that in my father's office.

"Funny, I thought you'd say because you're busy kidnapping your wife !"

"That too. Our marriage takes precedence."

"I don't believe that for a minute."

"You will."

I ignore his claim and say, "Brogan is your boss. You can't kill him without serious repercussions."

"None more serious than allowing you to leave me."