Page 124 of Sins of Arrogance

“The only ques­tion that mat­ters right now, is: do you want to earn that skean?”

Wraith’s jaw flexes and he looks down at the knife again. “I was free­lance for a rea­son.”

“Be­cause you didn’t have broth­ers you could trust.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“That’s what train­ing and ini­ti­a­tion is for.” Trust has to be built both ways.

He slides the skean into its leather sheath and hands it to me. “I’ll earn it.”

“I never doubted it but re­mem­ber, when you fucked up in the Army, your CO made you do pushups un­til you puked or passed out. If you fuck up with us, that’ll feel like child’s play.”

He doesn’t look wor­ried. I’d be dis­ap­pointed if he did.

“And if you be­tray us, I’ll put a bul­let through your brain my­self.”

Wraith’s mouth twitches again. “I would ex­pect no less.”

“Tell me about Darakov,” I or­der.

Wraith is silent for sev­eral long sec­onds and I let him make up his mind.

Ei­ther he’s loyal to us, or he’s loyal to the man who paid for his ser­vices but re­fused him the dis­tinc­tion of brother.

“He wants the weapon pro­to­type. He thinks you got it af­ter a demo that went bad last year.”

“He’s right.”

“He found the as­sis­tant that worked with the en­gi­neer who de­signed it. Darakov thinks he can get the elec­tric gun work­ing.”

“That’s what he called it? An elec­tric gun?” Not a rail gun. Not a ghost gun.

“Yes. He said, it’s like a taser, but it shoots an elec­tric bul­let with enough charge to stop the heart.”

That is not the base de­sign of the whis­per gun, even be­fore Hex got her hands on the schemat­ics.

“That’s what the as­sis­tant told him?” It doesn’t sound like Darakov was at the demon­stra­tion.

“I guess.”

“What’s the as­sis­tant’s name?”

“De­nis.”

“No sur­name?” I press.

“He never used one in my hear­ing.” Wraith wipes his face with the bot­tom of his t-shirt. “The only other thing I know about the Rus­sian is that he’s try­ing to ar­range a mar­riage with the daugh­ter of one of the North­side Dublin Mob’s lead­ers, but she’s dis­ap­peared.”

“He doesn’t know where she is?” That could be use­ful.

“No. He tried to hire me to find her.”

“You re­fused.”

“If she ran, she had her rea­sons.”

Aye. Dier­dre wanted to come af­ter me.