Page 47 of Sins of Innocence

"She thought she was protecting her family. That's not the same thing as hiding her new squeeze from her best girl," McLaren snaps. "Hell, she probably thought she was protecting me too. Áine has no idea I'm mobbed up."

"Did you know about Troy?" McLaren came into the mob two years after Troy's death, so she might not.

When the stories go around about how Mick deals with traitors, Troy's name isn't usually mentioned. Only what happened to him.

"I figured out he was one of the rats everyone talks about last year. Áine never talked about him being in the mob, so I figured she didn't know."

"There's a lot you didn't know."

"Yeah, and all of it about keeping the people she loves safe. Again, not the same as withholding the deets on a man she was getting serious with. I knew about Dan."

"Who the fuck is Dan?" I bark.

McLaren gives me a superior look. "If you'd been dating Áine for a few months, you'd know about him too, even if Mamma Mo didn't."

Mamma Mo? It clicks. Maureen.

"Why didn't Maureen know about him?" I hear myself asking.

And how does that fit with Áine's genuine upset last night about hurting her mom's feelings by supposedly not telling her about me.

"After the first couple of dates, Áine decided she wouldn't tell her mom about any more of them until things got serious with a guy."

"Why?"

"Mamma Mo can be a lot. She insisted on meeting Áine's first couple of dates and grilling them. My girl wasn't putting herself or any more men through that unless she thought they'd be sticking around a while."

And if we had been dating, she'd have brought me home before this for the grilling. Or at least told her mom she was dating someone.

"Now, explain what the hell is going on, Wraith. Áine wasn't dating you yesterday and today you say you're going to Vegas with her and the girls."

Trusting a member of my crew is easier than trusting an outsider with the truth. And McLaren knows a lot of it now anyway.

When I'm done explaining how the quick marriage will protect Áine and her girls and going to Vegas will protect her mom's feelings about the wedding happening so fast, McLaren is looking at me like I'm a book with a few chapters missing.

"Áine is going along with this?" she demands.

I nod.

"She's got to be out of her mind with worry not to have seen the pitfalls in this plan of yours. I bet Kara wasn't there when you told Mick about it, was she?"

"No." Not sure why that matters though.

"If she had been, she'd have told you the Vegas plan was bound to fail. No way is Mamma Mo going to believe the spontaneous wedding thing, much less let Áine get away with it. What you need is a preemptive strike."

Then McLaren outlines a much more romantic and even I can see a more believable plan that includes a surprise trip to Disneyland followed by the even bigger surprise proposal and wedding. She makes the very good points that California is also one day wedding license state and Anaheim is more temperate than Las Vegas this time of year.

"Don't tell Áine that you plan to propose and surprise her with the wedding. Let her think you're sticking with the spontaneous wedding idea, but changing the location. Her reaction will be more natural that way when you drop to one knee."

The idea of taking the girls to the iconic adventure park makes me feel weird. Like sort of warm in my chest.

Not bad. But different.

"I also think you should bring me along."

"You want to ride a roller coaster?" I ask, sardonically.

McLaren just shakes her head at me. "My presence will sell the legitimacy of your relationship to Mamma Mo and the girls. There's no way you don't know about me if you two have been dating longer than a week. In fact, saying you met through me will save you having to make up some lame story about matching on a lonely-hearts dating app."