Page 123 of Sins of Arrogance

He’ll ei­ther be part of the mob, or dead by De­cem­ber 31st.

“That means if you die on a job, we bury you. Prop­erly. If you’re cap­tured, we come for you. If you’re be­trayed—”

His head comes up at that, his eyes burn­ing.

“You are your own in­stru­ment of jus­tice and if you can’t be, your broth­ers take the job on for you.”

“Luan be­lieved my mom be­trayed her hus­band.” Wraith is test­ing me like I’m test­ing him.

“If that had hap­pened to the wife of one of my men when he was in prison, I would have sent Rory to set­tle it.”

“Rory?”

“He’s our best stealth as­sas­sin.”

Wraith doesn’t blink. “What about the child she car­ried?”

“Would have been raised to serve the mob like the other sons of our clan.”

“That’s not how it is in The Al­ba­nian Boys. Pure blood­lines are prized.”

And his wasn’t con­sid­ered pure. “The mob has al­ways re­cruited from out­side the clan. Keeps those blood­lines healthy.”

Wraith al­most cracks a smile at that. “They looked down on my mom be­fore she got preg­nant with me, be­cause her mother wasn’t Al­ba­nian.”

“Your Irish blood is not some­thing you have to be ashamed of,” I growl.

“What about my Ital­ian and Al­ba­nian blood?”

“You’re in Amer­ica, boyo. This coun­try is filled with peo­ple whose blood­lines scat­ter to the four cor­ners of the world.”

“Not yours. You’re Irish through and through.”

“Don’t you be­lieve it. My great-grand­fa­ther was a Scot. You go back far enough and you’ll find a Viking.”

“So, you’re say­ing it doesn’t mat­ter?”

“The only thing that mat­ters, is if you are will­ing to bleed for your own.”

Wraith in­clines his head.

“Be­ing one of ours isn’t about blood­lines, it’s about broth­er­hood. Know­ing some­one has your six in a fire­fight, that you won’t be hung out to dry when the feckin’ feds or the Rus­sians come call­ing.”

“The Rangers was a broth­er­hood.”

“But then they loaned you to covert ops for one of the al­pha­bets. Those feck­ers left you for dead in a coun­try ours de­nied send­ing you to.”

“Ours?” he asks.

“I’m a U.S. cit­i­zen.” I still have my Irish cit­i­zen­ship too.

“I won’t ask how you know all that.”

“Even if you were al­ready mobbed up, I wouldn’t tell you.” It’s a warn­ing.

We keep se­crets for the good of the clan. There are things I know that even Bro­gan doesn’t.

He thinks there are things he knows that I don’t. I let him live with his il­lu­sions.