3. Like Father, Like Son
Chapter three
Like Father, Like Son
KARA
We're working together in our office when Mick brings up what he and Fitz talked about.
"I never liked Kenny Jr." A year older than Fitz, he's always been sneaky and mean spirited.
And the little menace found fertile ground in Fitz's brain because our son has memories from the time before either I or Mick realized he loved me. It's been a few years, but Fitz used to need frequent confirmation that Mick loves me as much as he loves our son.
Something shifted after we renewed our vows in a surprise love story wedding Mick gave me for our eighth anniversary. Fitz stopped asking his da if he would always protect me, no matter what and he stopped asking me if I would stay with his da no matter what.
"No comment about my brother cheating?" Mick asks, his brow raised in inquiry.
"I imagine you'll have plenty of words for your brother, but you're the only Fitzgerald I care about being faithful." I like my in-laws.
Chivon and Brigid are two of my dearest friends despite the miles between us, but Adam and his wife have never thawed toward Mick.
Maybe because they're so icy toward each other?
But my husband and I have more in common than we ever realized. When it comes down to it, the only Fitzgerald male who really matters to me is him.
Mick moves into my personal space and pushes his hands up under my top. "And you know I'll never cheat."
"Even if you didn't love me, you wouldn't screw another woman." But Mick's brand of obsessive love means he doesn't even see other women as sexual beings.
I'm it for him.
Just like he's it for me.
"Fitz is worried you'll be disappointed in him if he deals with Kenny Jr. the way he wants to."
With violence. I don't have to ask.
My son is a Shaughnessy, but he's also a Fitzgerald and Mick has been training him in hand-to-hand combat since before Fitz started school. I didn't realize at first what he was doing. I thought Mick was playing games with Fitz to entertain him.
He was playing games, but they were meant to train our son's reflexes and situational thinking skills.
Fitz has been officially training in the gym with his father since his seventh birthday. It was a year longer than I thought Mick would give me, but my husband proved that training to fight and how to think like a leader in the mob didn't have to change our son completely.
Fitz is more serious now, but he's still loving toward his family. And that means that someday, he can love his partner.
At least that's what I tell myself.
I don't ask why my son can't ignore the other boy. Not after my experience with Mick's ex six years ago.
Words can wound.
Especially when they land on the fertile ground of insecurity. I'd like to believe that Fitz's formative years wouldn't influence his certainty that his parents love each other now, but I know better.
"He can never disappoint me." I smile at my husband, letting him see the depth of love I feel for him in my eyes. "Neither can you."
Because I know Mick will be talking with Kenneth Sr. I only hope my father doesn't lose one of his lieutenants from the confrontation. Mick is not a patient man…no, that's wrong. He can be infinitely patient. He's not tolerant.
He has no qualms about killing a soldier for a disloyalty and is apt to do it more quickly than another man might, which makes him seem impatient. But really? He's just decisive.
In a very deadly way.
The call from the school comes while Mick is at the Bunker, our secret underground stronghold, where the men train, our weapons development happens and other mob business that needs absolute discretion.
"Mrs. Fitzgerald, this is Alice Bryant from St. Patrick's Prepatory Academy."
"What can I do for you Miz Bryant?"
"There has been…" Her voice trails off. There's the sound of her sighing. "An altercation." She pauses again. "A serious altercation. Two of the boys involved have been taken to urgent care for treatment."
My heart skips a beat. "Fitz?"
"Is waiting for your arrival in the principal's office."
I let out the breath I've been holding. "I'll be right there."
Jumping up from my desk, I put my computer into secure standby and rush toward the door.
"Mrs. Fitzgerald…" Again the woman's voice trails off and then she clears her throat. "The authorities have been called."
Not bothering to answer, I end the call and fling open the door. "Get the car and a full security detail."
I call the lawyer and then Fiona, to cancel our lunch plans and ask her to let Hope know what's going on.
Hope watches the twins a couple of days a week for me while I work on things that require my full concentration. That's going to change when she moves to New Mexico though.
It might be time to hire a nanny.
Not to raise my children, but to be on hand for times like this. I can depend on the security detail in a pinch, but their job is to watch out for my children, not watch over them.
"Fitz got into a fight?" Fiona asks, stress pitching in her voice.
"Yes."
"And they called the cops?" Anxiety wars with disbelief in my sister's voice.
"They did." I'm worried about more than the cops getting called though.
My son knows how to control both his temper and the power of his strikes. If he hurt two boys enough to send them to urgent care, there's more going on here than his distant cousin baiting our son about his parents' contract marriage.
"Have you called Mick?" Fiona asks.
"Not yet. I'll text him from the car." And maybe, just maybe, I'll manage to reach the school at the same time, or before he does.
Putting off texting Mick until the convoy leaves the estate doesn't work. My husband's car and driver are stationed outside the school when we arrive.
Darn it.
I unclip my seatbelt and wait on the edge of my seat as I wait for my bodyguard to give the all clear. If I leapt from the SUV like I want to, my bodyguard would pay in bruises from my husband's fists for my impatience.
Obsessive, possessive love comes with a heavy side of over-the-top protectiveness from my sociopath.
But once I get it, I'm out of the SUV like a shot and rushing inside the school.
The security guard in the hall wipes his brow and breathes a sigh of relief as I rush by him with my entourage. "They're all in the principal's office, Mrs. Fitzgerald, that way."
Like I need directions. I've been there many times before, though this is the first time I've been called for Fitz fighting. I'm usually here to discuss much more mundane matters, like library donations.
The private Catholic school has a large banned books section in their physical, digital and audiobook libraries courtesy of my family.
"Did one of you text Mick before I got a chance to?" I demand of my security detail as we rush down the hall.
If my husband had just arrived, I don't think the security guard would have looked so stressed.
"You didn't give instructions not to," one of them says.
Another adds, "And we have standing instructions to inform him any time you decide to leave the mansion."
Gritting my teeth, I increase my pace, my heels clicking along the tiled floors like a drum riff.
There is a uniformed police officer standing in the outer office with two of Mick's men between him and the door to the principal's inner sanctum.
"If you would just take a seat, Mr. Shaughnessy." Alice Bryant's agitated voice reaches me as Kieran Lleshi, also known as Wraith, opens the door to allow me entrance.
I wince and am not at all surprised to hear my husband remind her in a deadly tone, "My name is Fitzgerald."
"Oh, yes, of course! I didn't mean any offence."
"I find your threat to expel my son for defending a classmate offensive. Your inability to remember my surname is merely indicative of your unsuitability in your role."
Oh, crap. When my husband starts sounding like the COO I teased him about being last night, everybody is in trouble.
Rushing past my security, I take in the tableau that meets me. His school tie askew and hair mussed, Fitz stands protectively in front of a dark-haired girl who looks miserable and embarrassed. Doing her best to blink back tears, she flicks a gaze at me and then looks down without meeting my eyes.
She started at St. Patrick's when Fitz was still in elementary school and I've seen her a few times, but I didn't realize she and my son were friends.
Mick looms over the principal's desk, threat emanating off him in waves. Mark Bentley is attempting to look professional and unaffected. However, he's leaning back in his chair like he wants to create distance between himself and my mob underboss husband.
Alice Bryant, the school secretary, is standing to the right side of the desk, aligning herself with him.
JoAnn Young, the vice principal, is standing to the left, making herself a second body between the upset girl and the other school administrators.
We should be meeting in JoAnn's office as student behavior and discipline is under her purview.
The fact we are not is no doubt due to who the parents of the children involved are. Namely, us and if I don't miss my guess, at least one other family linked to the Shaughnessy name.
"Yes, please let's all calm down. I'm sure it won't be necessary to withdraw Fitzgerald from the Academy." Mark's eyes light with relief when he sees me. "Ah, Mrs. Shaugh—Fitzgerald, I mean." He gives Mick a worried glance. "So glad you could join us."
Withdraw Fitz from school? I knew Mick getting here first was a bad idea.
He turns to face me, his green eyes warming for just a moment. "Kara."
"You got here fast," I chide my husband.
Because even if my security texted him the second I ordered the car, he would have had to ignore speed limits to already have gotten enough of the story to decide to withdraw Fitz from the school.
A soft sob catches my attention and shifts my focus from my husband to Sadie. Her tears have spilled over and are now tracking down her cheeks.
Fitz spins to face her too, "It's gonna be okay, Sadie. My da will make sure it doesn't happen again."
Mick's head snaps around to look at our son and suddenly there's a dangerous stillness in the principal's office.
Because Fitz’s words imply three things:
Something happened today to Sadie.
It was bad enough for Fitz to send two boys to A& E over it.
He doesn't believe his actions are enough to stop it happening again.
Regardless of his lack of emotions with others, my husband has a deep sense of honor. He's not the dinosaur where women are concerned that my father can sometimes be, but Mick believes absolutely that we are to be protected.
He broke the arm of an older boy when he was a mere eight years old when that boy shoved his sister, Brigid, from the monkey bars. He did much worse to the men who stood by and did nothing when Chivon's husband hurt her physically.
Sadie hugs herself, drawing my attention to the missing buttons at the top of her white school uniform blouse.
My stomach tightens and my ire rises.
I fix Mark Bentley with a gimlet stare. "I am going to assume that the police officer is here to take Sadie's statement and that others have been dispatched to take the miscreants into custody once they have had medical treatment."
"You would think so, wouldn't you?" JoAnn Young says with clear dissatisfaction.
"I…well…the issue here is Fitzgerald's violent attack on his classmates."
A little moan comes from Sadie and my ire turns to pure rage. "The issue at hand is the safety of your students, Mr. Bentley, and it is clear that Sadie was not safe and my son stepped in to fix that."
"You haven't even heard—"
I put my hand up, cutting the man off. "I don't have to hear the details to know that Fitz would not have acted as he did without provocation commensurate to his actions."
"There is no justification for—" the man splutters before I cut him off again.
"Have Sadie's parents been contacted?" I ask JoAnn.
She shakes her head grimly. "Mr. Bentley did not believe it was necessary."
"It's just my mom," Sadie says, her voice low and ashamed.
Why ashamed? Because of what those miscreants tried to do to her?
"Is she at home?" I ask the traumatized girl.
Sadie shakes her head. "She works for Mr. Shaughnessy."
"Which Mr. Shaughnessy?" I know she doesn't mean my father.
"Kenny's dad," my son answers before Sadie can. "It's not good. I don't think Mrs. Gallagher is safe there, mom."
The repressed rage in Fitz's voice tells me he's a long way from calm over this situation.
"I'll take care of it," I promise him.
I retrace my steps and peek my head out the door, catching Kieran's eye. "Please collect Sadie's mother, Mrs. Gallagher, from Kenneth Shaughnessy's home and bring her to the mansion."
Sadie might prefer returning to her own home, but there's no way Mick is going to allow me and Fitz to go to an unsecured location. And neither my son, or I, are going to leave the girl to fend for herself right now.
Kieran nods and indicates one of my security team should take his place at the door before he leaves.
I turn and walk to stand beside Mick, his silent strength giving me a measure of calm despite my anger at this situation.
"It is obvious that the protocols in place to handle an issue of this nature are not adequate," I tell the principal scathingly.
"I will be contacting the president of the school board and requesting an emergency board meeting so that an immediate investigation into the handling of similar past and present occurrences can be gotten underway. "
JoAnn says, "Tell him he'll have my full cooperation."
Nodding to her, I put my hand out toward the kids. "Come on. I believe my husband has some things he wants to discuss with your former principal."
This time the sound of distress comes from the school administrator
I'm not withdrawing my son from St. Patrick's. Fitz has friends here and he likes his teachers.
But Mark Bentley will be resigning.
One way or another.