Page 104 of Sins of Arrogance

Oth­er­wise, none of his anger would have shown and I doubt a sin­gle word would have passed the man’s lips.

“You still work for him. My men don’t take out­side con­tracts or have loy­alty to any syn­di­cate but ours.”

“Your men?” Wraith shakes his head again.

“Aye. Ranger Rick, you’ve got the right mak­ings for a good Irish mob­ster.”

“Not Irish.”

“You know more about who your fa­ther is than this piece of shite?”

Wraith’s face closes like a vault’s door and I have my an­swer.

“If there’s no strong Irish­man in your an­ces­try, I’ll be sur­prised. But Irish blood or not, you’ve got more in com­mon with a strong Irish­man than you do the mag­gots you’ve been keep­ing com­pany with.”

Luan squawks out a protest.

But Wraith? Spits in his di­rec­tion. “You’ve got that right.”

Chap­ter 26: Bond­ing through Tor­ture

A Very Mick Style Re­cruit­ing Tech­nique

WRAITH

“You want to kill him then?” the crazy Irish­man asks me in the same tone he’d use to ask what I want for din­ner.

I don’t know what all this talk about me hav­ing an Irish an­ces­tor is about. But as woozy as my head is, I un­der­stand he just of­fered to let me kill Luan.

The bas­tard.

I might be one by birth, but Luan is one by choice.

“I want to cut out his tongue and watch him choke to death on his blood.” Like my mom choked to death on hers af­ter one of her johns beat the hell out of her.

“No. You can’t let him do that. I’m a valu­able as­set to Besnik. He’ll go to war if you kill me.”

It’s my turn to laugh.

I haven’t done that in a long damn time. It’s these fuck­ing drugs Mick Fitzger­ald, Un­der­boss to the Shaugh­nessy Mob, gassed me with.

“He might go to war over Gjon, but you’re as ex­pend­able as any other man on his pay­roll.” I refuse to call the gang mem­bers sol­diers.

They lack the dis­ci­pline and train­ing nec­es­sary for the ti­tle. I know what it means to be a sol­dier and it’s not those ass­holes.

The un­der­boss flicks his head to­ward me and the big black man that wasn’t here when I went un­der comes over and un­does the straps on my wrists.

Doesn’t he re­al­ize how dan­ger­ous I am? I don’t need my weapons to take on these men, but I got caught didn’t I.

We breached on bad in­tel, but I should have been pre­pared for the gas in the cor­ri­dor and the flash­bang.

Mick hands me my knife, hilt first. “Be my guest.”

Af­ter Luan dies chok­ing on his own blood pour­ing down his throat from where his tongue used to be, Mick gives me a nod of ap­proval.

“Why aren’t you in­ducted into one of the syn­di­cates?” he asks me, like that’s a nor­mal ques­tion too.

I’ve got my rea­sons, but all I say is, “I’m not join­ing the fuck­ing Cosa Nos­tra.”