Page 1 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

MICK

Brogan, boss of the Shaughnessy Mob and my father-in-law, follows me into the strategy room.

This is not a conversation I want to have at the mansion, regardless of the new security measures I employed after a recent breach.

My top three lieutenants follow close behind. Brice shuts the door when we're all inside and leans against it.

"Okay, I'm here. What's this about, Mick?" Brogan plants himself in the chair at the head of the long conference table, arms crossed.

I put my finger up in a sign for him to wait while Conor scans the room for listening and video recording devices and Rory sets up the portable signal jammer.

Overkill? Maybe.

But that's the way I lean when it comes to security. Especially after discovering not one, but two different infiltrations by other organizations into our mob in less than two years.

Conor gives me a thumbs up and takes out his earbuds. "Clean."

"We're secure." Rory steps away from the device placed in the southwest corner of the room.

Building joists, pipes and vents affect the jammer's performance and he tested for the ideal spot before we had our first meeting in here.

This is the first time I'm looping my father-in-law into my plans.

"What do you know about whisper guns?" I ask Brogan.

"What the hell is a whisper gun?"

And that's my answer. He knows nothing. Which means we start from the beginning.

"Imagine a firearm that doesn’t leave a trace." I cross to the table where I lay out the mockup schematics in front of him. "No sound signature. No powder residue. No rifling marks on the bullet." The electromagnetic charge causes the spin for accuracy. "No casing left behind."

Brogan frowns. "Sounds like sci-fi bullshit."

"It’s not." I tap the printout of the internal barrel design. "This is real. Magnetic rail propulsion using neodymium magnets instead of explosive force. The projectile moves fast enough to kill, but silent. Close-range only."

For now. But the plan is for that to change once we get the initial tech perfected.

Brice steps away from the door. "Think of it like a cross between a railgun and a ghost. No bark. No footprint. Just a body hitting the floor."

The six-foot tall Black man came with me from Ireland and is my top lieutenant. So did Conor. Five-feet-eight inches of deadly accuracy with a rifle, he's our sharpshooter.

Rory was born here. Worked on the docks, connected to the Shaughnessy Mob, but not a soldier. He wanted something different though. We met over a pint and a dead body.

He kills up close and with a knack for keeping the scene clean.

All three run crews under me. Our ranks are the deadliest in the Shaughnessy Mob.

Which is not a coincidence. Like draws like.

My men all have a code of honor they know I'll kill them for breaking, but none of us feels guilt about doing the things we need to in order to protect the mob and our interests.

Brogan leans forward, interest sharpening. "And this is your idea?"

"Not originally," I admit easily.

I don't have to be the first to the table, I only care about being the best when I get there.

My father-in-law makes a "continue" motion with his hand.

"I saw a weapons prototype at an arms showcase in Istanbul two months ago. Off-the-books presentation. Russian engineer, desperate for backers, acting the maggot fired too many shots to impress his protentional clients. Sloppy build, it overheated after four."

Brogan will understand my Irish slang. The man was a total fool.

"Totally banjaxed," Conor says with disgust. "And it was his only prototype."

"Practically melted the demonstrator's hand off too." Rory's eyes gleam with gratification from the memory.

The engineer had been so desperate for cash that he'd stuck around to bargain for the schematics of the nonfunctioning gun. It had fired two shots with non-lethal force and enough accuracy to hit the target, if not the center of it.

The third shot had gone completely wild and the fourth had given him third-degree burns and lost any chance for him to get backers on his project.

Once we had the schematics and all the research documentation, we torched his lab and put the engineer out of his misery.

I was going to offer him a job – not running the project, because he'd already shown his inadequacies for that – but his knowledge of the tech would have made him an asset to the research team.

However, while Rory was scrubbing the hard drives, he came across some sick shite and we ended up killing the engineer instead.

"Mick saw the potential." Even after nearly eight years in New York, Brice's deep voice still has a hint of a Dublin accent.

"The concept is game changing," I say. "Zero noise." Unlike gun suppressors that cannot dampen all the noise from a shot. "No forensic trail other than the unique character of the ammo itself."

Instead of gunpowder, the bullets have to have a ferromagnetic core to work with the magnetic acceleration of the firing mechanism and barrel.

We have a supplier, but I'm looking into building our own refinement facility to decrease the chances of the ammo tracing back to us through a third party.

But without barrel striations, the bullets cannot be matched to an individual gun, or person pulling the trigger. And the heat of the firing propulsion burns any residual DNA on the ammo itself.

I let that settle. Let Brogan consider what a gun like that would mean for hits and close-range protection.

It has taken me two months to figure out and source the necessary pieces for research and development without tipping anyone off to my interest in the field. With my most recent hire, I've got everyone I need on board.

Except Brogan.

"Forensic-proof. AI-detection proof." The zeal in Rory's voice makes Brogan sit back a little. "So quiet even the most sensitive monitoring equipment isn't going to read the shots for what they are."

Some men watch porn. Rory watches videos of weapons being fired. He probably gets just as turned on doing it too.

"It's the kind of weapons tech that changes how syndicates can operate." These weapons won't just make us money, they'll make the Shaughnessy Mob and its allies virtually untouchable.

Brogan whistles low. "So, you want me to believe this isn't sci-fi bullshit. That it's something we can actually build?"

I lock eyes with him. "We’re not going to build one. We’re going to build hundreds ."

And they won't burn away the flesh from the hands firing the guns.

"But first we have to develop one," Brogan says, showing why the Shaughnessy businesses have thrived under his leadership. "What kind of investment are we talking here?"

"First, we need to rehaul the Bunker for security and usability and then we have to outfit and staff the research lab."

Brogan looks around the room we're in. "This place is secure. Built like a Cold War panic room. And we've already got a weapons development lab. What else do you think you need?"

"A facility built for today's warfare, not what we faced in the last century." I press the button on a remote and the large screen taking up most of one wall comes to life. "And a clean lab designed for the kind of projectile technology we'll be testing."

Financial line items and figures I’ve memorized fill the screen, including subtotals for the different stages of the project and an overall projection of total cost.

Brogan's indrawn breath says there's nothing wrong with his eyesight.

"This kind of ghost tech doesn't exist. Yet." I pause, letting that one word sink in. "But I'm not the only one who saw that demonstration."

"Just the one smart enough to lay hands on the research and failed prototypes before anyone else could," Brice adds.

I meet my father-in-law's gaze. "The first weapons manufacturers to the table will control the market. That advantage doesn’t come cheap."

Brogan's eyes narrow, but he nods. "I'm listening."

"Initial facility expansion, clean lab conversion, full electromagnetic shielding, airflow partitioning.

" I point to a number on the screen. "We’re looking at a baseline of $20 million, just to make designated space in the Bunker safe for development.

Security retrofits will push that to $35–$40 million. "

Rory whistles. "For a bunker that already exists?"

Doling out information on a need-to-know basis, I haven't walked my guys through the numbers. I trust them, but only a foolish man doesn't take precautions to protect an endeavor of this magnitude.

I might be a sociopath, but I'm no muppet.

"Not like this," I say. "I’m talking independent air systems, laser-coded hall locks, neural-gated access points. The same shite they use to protect experimental defense labs in Nevada. Only better. Because no one, and I feckin' mean no one can know it’s here."

Brogan rubs his chin thoughtfully. "I assume the original engineer is in a holding cell."

"Dead," Rory says with satisfaction.

He really hated what he found on the Russian's hard drive.

"And the other potential backers?" Brogan asks.

I shrug. "Neutralizing all of them would have drawn attention to our interest in the whisper gun technology."

My risk assessment said that was more problematic than the fact other people knew about the failed demonstration. Magnetic propulsion gun technology is not entirely new, only undeveloped for close range, personal weapons.

Brogan grunts approval and I switch to the second slide. "Then there’s the talent."

A photo pops up of a LatinX woman in her late 30s in glasses, her dark hair in a tight bun and wearing a lab coat. Her expression is guarded, but there is banked rage in her gaze.

The picture is from the moment when her male colleague was being awarded a medal of excellence from DARPA for the work he stole from her and published as his own.

"Dr. Ximena Morales. She should be the head of experimental ballistics for a NATO defense initiative but her less talented male colleague was given the job over her."

"Let me guess. She’s not coming over for the pension plan," Brogan says in a dry tone.

"No." Not even close. "She’s coming for $1.5 million upfront and the opportunity to kit out a lab to her specification, no red-tape involved."

But more importantly to Hex, she's coming because I offered respect and recognition of her intelligence and work. I made it clear to Dr. Morales that she wasn't in the running, but the only physicist/weapons systems engineer I wanted on this project.

Brogan raises his eyebrows. "I presume the signing bonus is only part of her hiring package."

"We’ll pay her half a mil a year to stay. Add another $2 million annually for her handpicked team of four weapons engineers, two materials chemists, and a robotics tech."

Brogan grunts. "Two-point-five million a year, just for staff?"

"They’re not staff," I say coldly. "They’re the reason no one will be able to match what we’re building. We hire the best and not only do we get the prototype faster, we know they aren't out there somewhere working for somebody else."

"Let’s say we fund it," Brogan says. "How long before we see a return?"

I flip to the final screen. The whisper gun mockup appears. A sleek, unassuming matte-black shape surrounded by a glowing field of numbers.

"Base cost per unit: $5,000–$7,000, depending on material fluctuations. That’s graphene-lined barrels, neodymium-magnet rail propulsion, and phase-shifting gel lined grips."

Conor whistles this time, not tonelessly though. He whistles The Foggy Dew .

Brice rolls his eyes at his fellow lieutenant. "And sale price?"

"Conservative estimate? Fifty grand. That’s black market.

If we go bespoke, offer to elite buyers, private militaries, states looking for deniable assets, we can easily push into the six-figure range.

Each. " I let that sink in. "We sell a thousand units in a mix of base price and bespoke, and our initial investment is returned. "

"With a working prototype, we can sell a thousand guns like that before we're even in production," Brice muses.

Rory nods. "Our problem will be limiting our output and buyers."

"And that's the primary reason we need to do this," I say.

Brogan leans back in his chair. "Explain."

"It’s about dominance," I say, voice low. "No striations. No muzzle flash. No GSR. A gun that doesn’t make a sound and leaves no trace. That makes us untouchable. Everyone else fights for scraps. We set the rules."

Brogan exhales through his nose. "How much, total?"

"$75 million with access to an additional ten percent for necessary budget adjustments."

My boss doesn't flinch. It's not even the biggest investment we'll make this year, but it is the most important.

Brogan drums his fingers on the tabletop while he thinks. "Developing these whisper guns is going to put a huge assed target on our backs."

He's right. This is the kind of technology everyone is going to want a piece of. "If word gets out. It won't."

"You think it's a risk worth taking?"

"I think someone is going to take that risk. Protecting the mob…" And more importantly, my wife and son. "Means we're the ones that have to do it first."