Excerpt

Divorce, Mob Style (Step 1: Kill the Mistress)

He broke her heart. She’s about to break the rules.

 

KARA

 

My heels clack a staccato rhythm on the marble floor of the hallway leading to my father’s office. There’s no hesitation in my steps, nothing to indicate the turmoil inside me.

Am I really going to pull the lever on this?

Do I have a choice?

A normal woman, from a normal family would have this discussion with her husband and then an attorney. But I’m an Irish mob princess and my father’s word is law.

I have to convince him that a divorce between me and Mick is the best thing for the syndicate as well as myself. Beyond that, I want him to kill the woman my husband calls friend.

Neither are going to be easy sells. The former because my father doesn’t believe in divorce and the latter because Mick is going to oppose killing Dierdre.

Unfortunately, he has a stronger position with my father than I do.

Mick is da’s right hand man. I’m just his daughter.

But I’m not giving in on either. My marriage is ending and Dierdre will no longer be a threat to me and my son.

One way, or another.

Chapter 1: Let’s build a Ghost

8 Months Earlier

 

MICK

 

Brogan, boss of the Shaughnessy Mob and my father-in-law, follows me into the strategy room.

This is not a conversation I want to have at the mansion, regardless of the new security measures I employed after a recent breach.

My top three lieutenants follow close behind. Brice shuts the door when we’re all inside and leans against it.

“Okay, I’m here. What’s this about, Mick?” Brogan plants himself in the chair at the head of the long conference table, arms crossed.

I put my finger up in a sign for him to wait while Conor scans the room for listening and video recording devices and Rory sets up the portable signal jammer.

Overkill? Maybe.

But that’s the way I lean when it comes to security. Especially after discovering not one, but two different infiltrations by other organizations into our mob in less than two years.

Conor gives me a thumbs up and takes out his earbuds. “Clean.”

“We’re secure.” Rory steps away from the device placed in the southwest corner of the room.

Building joists, pipes and vents affect the jammer’s performance and he tested for the ideal spot before we had our first meeting in here.

This is the first time I’m looping my father-in-law into my plans.

“What do you know about whisper guns?” I ask Brogan.

“What the hell is a whisper gun?”

And that’s my answer. He knows nothing. Which means we start from the beginning.

“Imagine a firearm that doesn’t leave a trace.” I cross to the table where I lay out the mockup schematics in front of him. “No sound signature. No powder residue. No rifling marks on the bullet.” The electromagnetic charge causes the spin for accuracy. “No casing left behind.”

Brogan frowns. “Sounds like sci-fi bullshit.”

“It’s not.” I tap the printout of the internal barrel design. “This is real. Magnetic rail propulsion using neodymium magnets instead of explosive force. The projectile moves fast enough to kill, but silent. Close-range only.”

For now. But the plan is for that to change once we get the initial tech perfected.

Brice steps away from the door. “Think of it like a cross between a railgun and a ghost. No bark. No footprint. Just a body hitting the floor.”

The six-foot tall Black man came with me from Ireland and is my top lieutenant. So did Conor. Five-feet-eight inches of deadly accuracy with a rifle, he’s our sharpshooter.

Rory was born here. Worked on the docks, connected to the Shaughnessy Mob, but not a soldier. He wanted something different though. We met over a pint and a dead body.

He kills up close and with a knack for keeping the scene clean.

All three run crews under me. Our ranks are the deadliest in the Shaughnessy Mob. Which is not a coincidence. Like draws like. My men all have a code of honor they know I’ll kill them for breaking, but none of us feels guilt about doing the things we need to in order to protect the mob and our interests.

Brogan leans forward, interest sharpening. “And this is your idea?”

“Not originally,” I admit easily.

I don’t have to be the first to the table, I only care about being the best when I get there.

My father-in-law makes a “continue” motion with his hand.

“I saw a weapons prototype at an arms showcase in Istanbul two months ago. Off-the-books presentation. Russian engineer, desperate for backers, acting the maggot fired too many shots to impress his protentional clients. Sloppy build, it overheated after four.”

Brogan will understand my Irish slang. The man was a total fool.

“Totally banjaxed,” Conor says with disgust. “And it was his only prototype.”

“Practically melted the demonstrator’s hand off too.” Rory’s eyes gleam with gratification from the memory.

The engineer had been so desperate for cash that he’d stuck around to bargain for the schematics of the nonfunctioning gun. It had fired two shots with non-lethal force and enough accuracy to hit the target, if not the center of it.

The third shot had gone completely wild and the fourth had given him third-degree burns and lost any chance for him to get backers on his project.

Once we had the schematics and all the research documentation, we torched his lab and put the engineer out of his misery.

I was going to offer him a job – not running the project, because he’d already shown his inadequacies for that – but his knowledge of the tech would have made him an asset to the research team.

However, while Rory was scrubbing the hard drives, he came across some sick shite and we ended up killing the engineer instead.

“Mick saw the potential.” Even after nearly eight years in New York, Brice’s deep voice still has a hint of a Dublin accent.

“The concept is game changing,” I say. “Zero noise.” Unlike gun suppressors that cannot dampen all the noise from a shot. “No forensic trail other than the unique character of the ammo itself.”

Instead of gunpowder, the bullets have to have a ferromagnetic core to work with the magnetic acceleration of the firing mechanism and barrel.

We have a supplier, but I’m looking into building our own refinement facility to decrease the chances of the ammo back to us through a third party.

But without barrel striations, the bullets cannot be matched to an individual gun, or person pulling the trigger. And the heat of the firing propulsion burns any residual DNA on the ammo itself.

I let that settle. Let Brogan consider what a gun like that would mean for hits and close-range protection.

It has taken me two months to figure out and source the necessary pieces for research and development without tipping anyone off to my interest in the field. With my most recent hire, I’ve got everyone I need on board.

Except Brogan.

“Forensic-proof. AI-detection proof.” The zeal in Rory’s voice makes Brogan sit back a little. “So quiet even the most sensitive monitoring equipment isn’t going to read the shots for what they are.”

Some men watch porn. Rory watches videos of weapons being fired. He probably gets just as turned on doing it too.

“It’s the kind of weapons tech that changes how syndicates can operate.” These weapons won’t just make us money, they’ll make the Shaughnessy Mob and its allies virtually untouchable.

Brogan whistles low. “So, you want me to believe this isn’t sci-fi bullshit. That it’s something we can actually build?”

I lock eyes with him. “We’re not going to build one. We’re going to build hundreds.”

And they won’t burn away the flesh from the hands firing the guns.

“But first we have to develop one,” Brogan says, showing why the Shaughnessy businesses have thrived under his leadership. “What kind of investment are we talking here?”

“First, we need to rehaul the Bunker for security and usability and then we have to outfit and staff the research lab.”

Brogan looks around the room we’re in. “This place is secure. Built like a Cold War panic room. And we’ve already got a weapons development lab. What else do you think you need?”

“A facility built for today’s warfare, not what we faced in the last century.” I press the button on a remote and the large screen taking up most of one wall comes to life. “And a clean lab designed for the kind of projectile technology we’ll be testing.”

Financial line items and figures I’ve memorized fill the screen, including subtotals for the different stages of the project and an overall projection of total cost.

Brogan’s indrawn breath says there’s nothing wrong with his eyesight.

“This kind of ghost tech doesn’t exist. Yet.” I pause, letting that one word sink in. “But I’m not the only one who saw that demonstration.”

“Just the one smart enough to lay hands on the research and failed prototypes before anyone else could,” Brice adds.

I meet my father-in-law’s gaze. “The first weapons manufacturers to the table will control the market. That advantage doesn’t come cheap.”

Brogan’s eyes narrow, but he nods. “I’m listening.”

“Initial facility expansion, clean lab conversion, full electromagnetic shielding, airflow partitioning.” I point to a number on the screen. “We’re looking at a baseline of $20 million, just to make designated space in the Bunker safe for development. Security retrofits will push that to $35–$40 million.”

Rory whistles. “For a bunker that already exists?”

Doling out information on a need to know basis, I haven’t walked my guys through the numbers. I trust them, but only a foolish man doesn’t take precautions to protect an endeavor of this magnitude.

I might be a sociopath, but I’m no muppet.

“Not like this,” I say. “I’m talking independent air systems, laser-coded hall locks, neural-gated access points. The same shite they use to protect experimental defense labs in Nevada. Only better. Because no one, and I feckin’ mean no one can know it’s here.”

Brogan rubs his chin thoughtfully. “I assume the original engineer is in a holding cell.”

“Dead,” Rory says with satisfaction.

He really hated what he found on the Russian’s hard drive.

“And the other potential backers?” Brogan asks.

I shrug. “Neutralizing all of them would have drawn attention to our interest in the whisper gun technology.”

My risk assessment said that was more problematic than the fact other people knew about the failed demonstration. Magnetic propulsion gun technology is not entirely new, only undeveloped for close range, personal weapons.

Brogan grunts approval and I switch to the second slide. “Then there’s the talent.”

A photo pops up of a LatinX woman in her late 30s in glasses, her dark hair in a tight bun and wearing a lab coat. Her expression is guarded, but there is banked rage in her gaze.

The picture is from the moment when her male colleague was being awarded a medal of excellence from DARPA for the work he stole from her and published as his own.

“Dr. Ximena Morales. She should be the head of experimental ballistics for a NATO defense initiative but her less talented male colleague was given the job over her.”

“Let me guess. She’s not coming over for the pension plan,” Brogan says in a dry tone.

“No.” Not even close. “She’s coming for $1.5 million upfront and the opportunity to kit out a lab to her specification, no red-tape involved.”

But more importantly to Hex, she’s coming because I offered respect and recognition of her intelligence and work. I made it clear to Dr. Morales that she wasn’t in the running, but the only physicist/weapons systems engineer I wanted on this project.

Brogan raises his eyebrows. “I presume the signing bonus is only part of her hiring package.”

“We’ll pay her half a mil a year to stay. Add another $2 million annually for her handpicked team of four weapons engineers, two materials chemists, and a robotics tech.”

Brogan grunts. “Two-point-five million a year, just for staff?”

“They’re not staff,” I say coldly. “They’re the reason no one will be able to match what we’re building. We hire the best and not only do we get the prototype faster, we know they aren’t out there somewhere working for somebody else.”

“Let’s say we fund it,” Brogan says. “How long before we see a return?”

I flip to the final screen. The whisper gun mockup appears. A sleek, unassuming matte-black shape surrounded by a glowing field of numbers.

“Base cost per unit: $5,000–$7,000, depending on material fluctuations. That’s graphene-lined barrels, neodymium-magnet rail propulsion, and phase-shifting gel lined grips.”

Conor whistles this time, not tonelessly though. He whistles The Foggy Dew.

Brice rolls his eyes at his fellow lieutenant. “And sale price?”

“Conservative estimate? Fifty grand. That’s black market. If we go bespoke, offer to elite buyers, private militaries, states looking for deniable assets, we can easily push into the six-figure range. Each.” I let that sink in. “We sell a thousand units in a mix of base price and bespoke, and our initial investment is returned.”

“With a working prototype, we can sell a thousand guns like that before we’re even in production,” Brice muses.

Rory nods. “Our problem will be limiting our output and buyers.”

“And that’s the primary reason we need to do this,” I say.

Brogan leans back in his chair. “Explain.”

“It’s about dominance,” I say, voice low. “No striations. No muzzle flash. No GSR. A gun that doesn’t make a sound and leaves no trace. That makes us untouchable. Everyone else fights for scraps. We set the rules.”

Brogan exhales through his nose. “How much, total?”

“$75 million with access to an additional ten percent for necessary budget adjustments.”

My boss doesn’t flinch. It’s not even the biggest investment we’ll make this year, but it is the most important.

Brogan drums his fingers on the tabletop while he thinks. “Developing these whisper guns is going to put a huge assed target on our backs.”

He’s right. This is the kind of technology everyone is going to want a piece of. “If word gets out. It won’t.”

“You think it’s a risk worth taking?”

“I think someone is going to take that risk. Protecting the mob…” And more importantly, my wife and son “Means we’re the ones that have to do it first.”

Chapter 2: Tattooed Husbands, Tankinis, & Trouble

The Present

 

 

KARA

 

“Come on, Fitzy. You can do it!” I give my son an encouraging smile and beckon him to me.

He looks from me to his father, standing a few feet to my left in the deeper water off the shore. Fitz peers suspiciously into the water shimmering in the mid-August sun.

Only deep enough to reach my ribcage, he can see all the way to the bottom, but his sturdy little body remains firmly on the dock.

“Here, Fitz. I’ll catch you.” Mick’s soft Irish lilt still makes my heart flutter after seven years of marriage.

But that’s nothing compared to the way my nether regions react to his muscular, tattooed body covered in nothing but board shorts, the barbell through his right nipple on display. Even the frigid waters of the bay can’t cool my ladybits.

You’d think that after this long, I’d be immune. I’m not.

I’ve learned to accept that regardless of what my heart may feel, and my mind might think, my body will always respond this way to Mick.

It’s the one area of our marriage we are on an entirely level playing field.

My husband craves my body as much as I pine after his nonexistent love.

No matter what time he comes to bed at night, he always initiates sex. Do I make sure I get to sleep early enough to take advantage of that when the time comes without being tired and sluggish?

Yes, yes I do.

On the rare occasions he’s around during the day and our son is otherwise occupied, Mick turns on the seduction then too. There’s no question he wants me.

However, the heated passion and sensual touches stay tucked safely behind our bedroom door.

What can I expect when I got married as part of a deal between two powerful mob families?

That’s what I tell myself anyway. Only, some days, my heart is feeling salty and tells me that I deserve more. Like when we spent our seventh anniversary apart last month. Mob business.

He sent me seven dozen white roses and a diamond tennis bracelet. No card.

Which is not what I need to be dwelling on. Because today, I’m doing my best to give off nothing but positive vibes for Fitz.

Three weeks ago, Fitz and I were playing together in the water with my sister, while our cousin sat on the dock, soaking in the summer sun.

Then without warning, Róise was jerked into the water by a diver and kidnapped right in front of us. None of us could reach her in time.

I didn’t even try. I love my cousin like a sister, but my son comes first, last and always. Heart pounding in terror that our enemies would hurt my son, or take him from me, I grabbed Fitz and rushed to get out of the water.

It felt like treacle slowing my limbs, but we made it to the shore as men tore across the yard, trying to reach the water in time.

They didn’t reach Róise, but her mafioso fiancé followed and got her back.

Róise’s fine now, but my son? Not so much.

Fitz has been clingy and terrified of swimming in the bay ever since that day.

Micks answer?

Exposure therapy. Not what he calls it of course. “He’s going to be mobbed up one day. He has to learn to overcome his fears.”

So, in an attempt to get our son past his trauma response, we’re swimming together as a family. Or at least we’re trying to.

Fitz is still dry and on the dock.

He’ll let us carry him into the water, but this is the first time he’s ventured onto the dock. And he’s a lot closer to the shore than the spot where Róise was yanked into the bay.

“Mommy, you should come up here with me.” Green eyes so like his dad’s entreat me.

“Fitz,” Mick says in the tone our son never ignores. “Ye need to come to me.”

“But what if the bad men come and take mommy?” Fitz demands, his little fists against his hips.

“I’ll kill them,” Mick replies without a second’s hesitation.

“But what if they get away fast like the bad man with Róise?”

Fitz has started showing more of the Shaughnessy temper over the past six months, but this defiance toward his dad is something new.

“I increased underwater security and the number of guards patrolling our water access.” Mick speaks to our son with an adult frankness that Fitz finds less jarring than I do. “Your mam is safe and so are you.”

Fitz glares at his father. “But what if we’re not?”

Unperturbed by our son’s defiance – thank goodness – Mick puts his arms up. “Come to me now, a mhac.”

The Irish endearment that literally just means son, sounds different in Mick’s voice than it does in mine. I speak Gaeilge, but my accent reveals my American roots.

Mick’s is pure Dublin.

With one last wary look at the water, Fitz leaps toward his father.

Mick catches the small body easily and swings him toward me. “Your mam said you learned a new swimming stroke. Are you ready to show me?”

Worry wars with the need to impress his dad in Fitz’s gaze.

“I can swim across the pool,” Fitz says, clearly angling to shift our location.

He’s proud of his new skills, but even that pride won’t make him let go of his father.

Mick lifts our son until their faces are parallel. “Look at me, Fitz.”

Identical green eyes stare back at each other.

“I will never let any harm come to yiz, not your nor your mam. You will always be safe when you are with me.” It’s more reassurance than I expect from my husband.

I’m not sure why. He’s a good dad and has always shown an affection and patience for Fitz that he doesn’t show anyone else.

Our son’s shoulders lower and his body relaxes in his dad’s hold. “What about when you’re not here?”

“Then you have to trust me that I’ve taken the precautions necessary to keep yiz safe.”

One thing about the way Mick speaks to Fitz: our son has a truly impressive vocabulary for a newly turned six-year-old.

Fitz nods and then looks at me. “You’re not scared, are you, mommy?”

“No, mo stórín. I’m not.”

Fitz won’t like being called my little treasure for many more years, but he hasn’t decided he’s too big for the endearment yet. And I’m using it until I can’t anymore.

His little brow furrows as Fitz considers my answer.

What Mick hasn’t mentioned to our little boy, is that it’s not just a matter of increased security. The man who betrayed us by looking away from the sonar monitoring system at the opportune time (on purpose) is no longer on our payroll.

He’s no longer breathing either, but that’s beside the point.

Or maybe that’s the only point? Hopefully the method of his demise will discourage other soldiers from selling out the Shaughnessy family.

I don’t know the details, but I do know that even though it’s been a couple of weeks since it happened, several soldiers who witnessed the execution are jumpy when my husband is around.

Some even avoid him altogether if they can.

Mick begins moving away from the dock, parallel to the shore. “Your mam can stay near the dock and you can swim to her.”

Fitz’s body bows like he’s trying to throw himself from Mick’s hold. “No! Mommy, come with us! The dock’s not safe!”

That’s it. My son is going to start seeing a children’s therapist. No matter what my husband or father says.

Mick pulls Fitz close and speaks quietly in his ear. After a few seconds, our son’s rigid body relaxes and he nods.

My husband raises his head, so our gazes meet. For once, I can easily read the concern in his usually inscrutable emerald gaze. “Fitz will swim toward you from the dock and I will keep pace with him.”

I nod and dive into the water to swim past them. When I’m about thirty feet away, I stop and turn to face the two males I love most in the world.

Even if one of them doesn’t love me back.

Fitz is smiling, obviously relaxed now. Clearly, he identifies the danger with the dock and not just the water in the bay. Which is good to know, but no less concerning.

He leaps from his father’s hold and starts swimming a butterfly stroke toward me.

Mick calls encouragement, moving more swiftly through the water than I ever can unless I’m swimming, staying in easy to reach distance with our son.

Fitz stops in front of me and treads water, too short for his feet to reach the bottom. “Did you see mommy? I’m fast. Just like a dolphin.”

The way the swimming technique resembles that marine mammal is the biggest reason Fitz wanted to learn it. “You looked just like a dolphin, mo stórín.”

“Ye did well.” Mick’s voice is laced with approval for our son’s swimming feat. “That’s not an easy stroke to learn.”

“Mommy taught me.” Fitz grins at me.

And my heart warms.

The look of heated approval Mick gives me is less joyous but no less impactful to my foolish heart.

My husband swoops our son up into the air. At six-one he can easily stand in water that is only chest-deep for him, while it’s almost up to my chin.

Fitz whoops and Mick laughs like he hardly ever does, the sound real and happy. My mobbed up husband smiles a lot because he has the charming Irishman thing down pat, but it almost never reaches his eyes.

And his affability act does not stretch to frequent laughter either.

When we were first married, I thought all those smiles were genuine. Now, I know better. My husband is not the genial Irishman everyone believes him to be. I’m not really sure who he is, only that I wish he would let me in so I can find out.

“Micky!” A woman’s voice calls from the shore.

A voice I don’t recognize. I turn to look.

Standing next to my father on the lawn is a woman, her willowy frame encased in a well-tailored, designer suit-dress. Black hair cut in a stylish bob frames an almost ethereally beautiful face.

“Who is that?” I ask the back of my already moving husband’s head.

“Dierdre Kelly.”

Kelly, as in the other family that leads the Northside Dublin Syndicate in Dublin along with Mick’s family, the Fitzgeralds? What the heck is she doing here?

“You never mentioned her before.” I would remember.

My husband doesn’t bother to answer. He doesn’t stop to put on his slides either when he steps onto the shore either. It takes me a few seconds longer to step out of the surf, but I still take a moment to slip my feet into sandals.

The white sand is too hot from the summer sun to walk barefoot. Reaching down, I scoop up Fitz’s shoes as well.

When they reach the grass, Mick lets a squirming Fitz down to run toward his grandfather. Brogan Shaughnessy, Boss of the largest Irish mob in New York, is a more doting grandfather than he ever was as a dad.

I reach the small group just in time to hear Diedre say, “Micky, I have to admit that of all the places I expected to find you, having a family swim with your sweet wee boy and innocent young wife wasn’t one of them. How terribly domestic of you.”

There’s so much to unpack in that statement. Not least of which is how she makes innocent sounds synonymous with stupid. And her emphasis on the word young makes it sound like Mick is twenty years older than me, not a mere eight.

That’s not even a decade. Although that eight-year gap was intimidating to an 18-year-old bride, it’s seven years on. Our difference in ages hardly registers anymore. I’m a wife and a mother. Hardly innocent.

And seriously, what is up with her calling him Micky?

Suddenly the buzz of conversation around me stops and I realize three sets of eyes are fixed on me expectantly. Fitz is staring in fascination at Dierdre Kelly, but she, my husband and my father are all looking at me.

“Sorry. Did I miss something?” I ask.

My father’s lips flatten with irritation. “Kara, this is Dierdre Kelly. Dierdre, this is my daughter, Kara.”

Oh, introductions were made while I was lost in my thoughts. There was a time not so long ago that it would have sent my stress skyrocketing to think I messed up.

But I’m working on the perfectionism that plagues me with the help of my secret online therapist. She’s not the only online secret I have. I’m also attending university through distance learning courses.

My father would tell me I don’t need either a therapist or higher education.

I don’t know how Mick would react. I’ve never asked him, but keeping him in the dark so he doesn’t tell my father feels like the safest course of action to me.

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Kelly.” I reach my hand out to shake the Irish beauty’s.

She barely touches my fingertips before pulling hers back, her carmine painted lips twisted in a moue of disapproval. “Wet.”

“That happens when you’re swimming.” Do I sound as unimpressed by the prima donna as I feel?

“It’s Dierdre, please,” she says, ignoring my comment. “We’re practically family, after all.”

“We are?” I ask, nonplused. “How?”

“Micky’s family and mine are very close.” She gives Mick an appreciative once over. “Though we aren’t actually related. We’ve been friends since I was a wee lass in pigtails.”

I can’t imagine this sophisticated woman wearing pigtails, even as a little girl.

And the way she looks with a little too much interest at my husband in his board shorts, his tattoo covered muscles glistening with water from the bay, makes it clear she definitely doesn’t see him like a brother.

Whoever this woman is to my husband, she and I are not going to be besties.

The coolly assessing look Dierdre turns on me makes me wish I had stopped to put on my swim wrap and not just my sandals.

My wet tankini doesn’t hide any of my body’s imperfections. Well, except the faded stretch marks on my stomach from my pregnancy. They’re the reason I wear a tankini instead of a bikini.

I’m rarely uncomfortable in my own skin though. I like my curves, even if I’m too rounded and jiggly to be mistaken for a gym bunny.

But right now, standing before the perfectly coiffed woman almost as tall as my dad in her heels, it’s hard not to feel short and pudgy.

“What are you doing here?” Mick asks Dierdre.

Dierdre’s mouth turns down in a pout. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Of course,” Mick replies with a smile.

I draw comfort from the fact it’s his charming persona smile, not a genuine one. I didn’t used to be able to tell the difference.

When we were first married, I mistook Mick’s charm for some kind of affection for me. After our son was born, I learned the difference between the façade and real affection.

Mick adores our son.

Which makes it impossible to lie to myself about him adoring me. He doesn’t.

But sometimes when he smiles at me, it reaches his eyes. So, I know he likes me. Maybe even holds some affection for me.

Like my dad.

Not love.

Casual affection that doesn’t impact either of their thoughts when I’m not directly in front of them.

My therapist is helping me work through that too.

“Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you all about it.” Dierdre shoots a significant glance my way. “It’s not something for the ears of a stranger.”

If my sister were here, she’d be rolling her eyes at the drama queen. I’m tempted, but the six years between me and Fiona means I have to control the urge.

I’m a mature woman with a child.

Sometimes that reminder isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Mick jerks his head in acknowledgment and heads toward the house without another word. Or a look back at me to see if I have Fitz in hand.

Why would he? Our son is my responsibility during Mick’s work hours.

And I never shirk my responsibilities.

FML

I grit my teeth in frustration. I can’t even say the F-word inside my own head. Just the acronym. Because I’m the good girl. The obedient one.

I willingly sacrificed my life and dreams in marriage for the good of the mob at the age of 18.

But I resurrected those dreams, didn’t I?

I might be a good girl who can’t curse inside her own head, but I’m also the woman who is attending online university in secret and is only nine months from getting my degree in computer science.

Not that I’ll ever be allowed to do anything with it, not in the Shaughnessy Mob anyway. My father’s firmly stuck in the Dark Ages in his views on the role of women in the family business.

But maybe outside it. My specialty is programming and well…hacking, but I don’t want to make a career out of that outside the mob. Too risky considering who I am.

But lots of programmers work remotely and with Fitz starting first grade in the fall, what’s to stop me from filling my days with something more challenging than shopping and coffee dates with other mob wives?

Maybe I’ll have a secret career to go with the rest of my secret life.

The parts of life I choose, not the pieces thrust on me because I was born a mob princess.