Sins of Arrogance

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.

Tattooed Husbands, Tankinis, and Trouble

KARA

A Few Weeks Before

“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 six 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. 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.

Today, I’m just trying to stay positive 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 suddenly, 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. Terrified our enemies would hurt my son, or take him from me, I grabbed Fitz and rushed to get out of the water.

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?

Aversion 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 ye or 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 ye 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 five-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.

“Mickey!” 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.

“Deidre Kelly.”

Kelly, as in the other family that leads the Northies 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, “Mickey, 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 six 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 Mickey?

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 da 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?”

“Mickey’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.

Deidre’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.” Deirdre 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.