Page 50 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

MICK

Kara glares at me in silence as I wait for her to understand the ramifications of her screaming for help.

"If you're so worried about me yelling," she says, her voice meaner than I've ever heard it. "Why don't you just gag me?"

"You know why."

Seven Years Ago

I walk into the clinic treatment room expecting my wife to be dressed and ready to return to the Shaughnessy estate.

But she's standing in her nightgown, her expression dazed as silent tears track down her cheeks.

I don't know why, but I do not like seeing her cry. "Kara?"

Her head turns toward me, but she doesn't speak.

"The nurse said the implantation procedure went as expected." I take a slow step toward her, my atavistic instincts telling me that any quick movement will cause her distress.

Causing her upset is unacceptable.

Again, I don't know why. I do not react to any of the other women in my life like this. My mother's tears do not affect me. My sisters getting upset only impacts me if the reason for it is something I deem worthy of handling.

My father and older brothers would prefer I let them handle insults to the family. They always have.

My solution usually involves death. Or at the very least, copious amounts of pain.

Pain. Ah. Kara told me she was worried the procedure would be painful.

"You were anesthetized for the procedure, weren't you?" I gave very clear instructions in that regard.

At first, the doctor tried to assure me there would be no more than minor discomfort for Kara. But after my subsequent talk with him, he agreed putting her under for the procedure would be best.

If he did not do so, I will keep every promise I made during that discussion .

"What?" Then her eyes focus on me, and she nods. "Yes."

The anesthesia might explain her disorientation, but not the tears. "Was there more pain than you expected when you woke up?"

I'm within touching distance now and my muscles are rigid with the need to reach out and do so.

We've been married for six weeks and I'm still getting used to the compulsion I have to physically connect with her whenever she is in the same room. I don't act on it unless we are in our bedroom, but it's there all the same.

Once she is pregnant with our son and we are able to have penetrative sex, the inexplicable need will decline sure as certain. But right now, my primitive instincts to claim her completely are going unfulfilled.

And they're growing stronger by the day.

Instincts I understand. They're base animal urges, not born of the emotions I don't feel.

"I…" Kara shakes her head.

"What's wrong, a stór ?" That is not a question I ask.

Because I don't care.

However, I am Kara's husband and watching out for her is my duty.

"They just threw them away." The last word ends on a sob. "In the g-garbage."

Feck this. I pull my tender-hearted wife into my body and wrap my arms around her. "What did they throw away?"

Whoever threw away something of Kara's that is this important to her will lose more than their job by tomorrow.

"The girl embryos. They’re gone. Tossed out with the trash like they were never even there." Another sob wracks her body.

The girl embryos? We only need boy embryos for the in vitro. However, I have enough intelligence not to say that.

I may not understand why she is so distraught, but she is and that is what matters.

And something primal in me is furious the clinic had the audacity to dispose of what belongs to me.

"I knew I didn't matter to seanathair . To any of you. But this..." She pounds on my chest. "They mattered to me."

"If you want daughters, we don't have to use in vitro to make them." After our son is born, Kara is never going through this process again.

Taking the fertility drugs has been hard on her. She's had almost every negative side effect the doctor warned us about: irritability, increased anxiety, headaches, nausea so bad she can't eat some days, hot flashes and even pain around where they gave her the shots.

"They're gone," she says again, sounding heartbroken.

I have no heart to break, but that does not mean it is okay with me that someone broke hers.

Plans for her grandfather's future begin to form in my head as I rub her back. I've never done this before, but I've seen my father do it for my mother and I'm very good at mimicking.

It works and eventually, Kara's tears ebb. I release her and she steps back, the desolation on her face filling me with fury.

"We'll have daughters one day." It's the only thing I can think to say.

But she shakes her head. "No. I won't give birth to a child who will have no voice in her own life."

Is she talking about herself? "You have a voice, Kara."

"No, I don't. I never have."

"You do with me." It's a vow.

Lethargic and acquiescent she lets me help her dress.

It takes more effort than normal to keep my normal mobster facade in the face of the rage that fills me at the lost look in her eyes.

The Present

I would remember that haunted look six months after Fitz's birth, when I walked into our en suite to find my precious wife unconscious on the cold marble floor, an empty bottle of pills by the sink.

"I don't break my promises."

"What do you call this?" She lifts her bound hands with a scowl.

"Expedient."

"You would really kill one of your men for trying to stop you from kidnapping me?" She bites her lip, eyes narrowed as she studies me.

"Aye." I could pretend to feel badly about that, but there's no point.

My true self is on display for my wife and there's no putting that genie back in the bottle.

"Fine," she grumbles. "I'm not going to let you keep my son from me."

"That was never going to happen." I send the command for the safety shutters to retract.

She harrumphs. "Like our divorce is never going to happen?"

"Exactly like that." I bend down to lift her, but she rears back.

"You can take the cuffs off. I already promised not to scream."

"But you did not promise not to run." And my wife is just wily enough to have done that on purpose.

"I'm not going to run. I want to see Fitz. Make sure he's okay."

"You know he is."

"Maybe." Her expression is not friendly. "But I still want to be sure."

"Good." That should make getting her into the SUV without incident easier.

She lifts her bound hands and wiggles them in my face. "So, undo me."

"No." I lift her into my arms again, this time holding her tightly so she cannot try to throw herself from them.

Her expression mutinous, she holds her soft curves in rigidity against me.

Which does not make them any less tempting. I regretted missing our anniversary this summer, but never more so than now when I see the tempting nightgown she bought to wear that night.

Apparently, her plans changed when I stood her up for dinner.

When I came to bed on our anniversary, long after she fell asleep, she'd been wearing sleep shorts and a t-shirt. If she had hoped I would not find the outfit sexy, it had been in vain.

I thought when she thanked me for the roses with that emotional catch she gets in her voice sometimes that all had been forgiven.

The fact she is wearing the nightgown on the night she planned to start her life without me would indicate that it is not.

More recently, she showed anger that I took Dierdre to dinner but had not done the same for my wife.

Apparently, Kara wants us to have date nights . Not that she's ever said anything like that to me, but it's clear she sees it as a lack in our marriage that we don't.

If she wants dates, I will take her on dates.