Page 31 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

MICK

I tase my prisoner after the second attempt to run and he finally settles down.

There's a flicker of confusion in his eyes that he quickly douses.

Interesting.

Tasing him a second time, I strip him down to his skivvies and secure him while his neurons are still too scrambled to make him a problem.

I strap his wrists first. Tight. Leather-lined, steel-core restraints that bite down like teeth. Then his ankles. Then the chest harness. I leave the head brace off – for now.

Pain makes most men stupid. I prefer mine just smart enough to be useful.

The stubborn set of my captive's jaw now that he's coming back to himself says it's going to take more than pain to get anything out of him.

Sweat beads at his temples but there's no fear. No anger. Nothing to clue me into how to break him.

Nonverbal interrogation first it is then. Let him sit in silence, the cuffs biting into his wrists, muscles twitching as the last of the taser sting fades from his system.

I crouch beside the pile of his gear and start going through it, slow and methodical. Feels like I’m cataloguing items in a tradeshow display titled How Not to Die When You Pick the Wrong Bunker .

His shirt is black tactical weave. Military issue, but not standard U.S. Army. No tags. No logos. Even the seams have been torched – deliberately frayed to remove identifying marks. Someone taught him well.

I pull a ceramic dagger from the boot sheath, holding it to the light. "You always pack this pretty, Boy Scout?"

Barely used. Edge clean enough to split air molecules. The handle’s been rewrapped in paracord. Tight and sweat-stained, like he actually trains with it, not just wears it for the look.

"Custom job. Not off the shelf," I mutter to myself, then glance over at him. "You make this yourself, or did Daddy's Black Ops credit card cover it?"

And what the hell is a black ops trained soldier doing on my patch?

No answer. No twitch.

His pants yield a microburner zippered behind a hidden panel in the waistband. The pocket is lined with fine mesh wire. A Faraday cage. Smart.

"Don't want anyone tracking your porn history?" I taunt.

Still nothing. I'd be disappointed at this point if he reacted.

I'm starting to like this guy.

I reach for his wristwatch next, unclip the strap and flip it over. Garmin Tactix Delta. The kind with GPS scrub. Nice, but the next gen is better.

My crew's tactical smart watches were designed by our blackgloves for superior performance on every level.

Under the tongue of his boot, I’m not surprised to find a folded SERE patch with Kevlar cord, lockpick set, handcuff shim, and a razor edge barely the size of a fingernail.

He didn't expect to be caught, but if he was, he came prepared to disappear. Or endure.

"A real prepper, aren’t you, Ranger Rick?"

That gets a tiny twitch at the corner of Ranger Rick's eyes. Considering his total lack of reaction so far, it's practically a screaming admission that I hit a nerve.

"Not a fan of that one?" I mock. "Tough. You look like the recruiting poster for the Army. Be all you can be."

Nothing.

I almost smile. "Keep that jaw clenched and righteous long enough, it’s gonna crack."

Standing, I cross to him, and hold up the laminated card I pulled from his wallet. It's a prayer to St. Michael, the Archangel, the plastic edges worn. This isn't tactical gear and it's the only personal thing on Ranger Rick.

"You got a prayer to the saint of soldiers, but not a dog tag to your name. I’ve seen cleaner ghosts, but not many. Tell me..." I bend in close, voice dropping low. "How much did they pay you to forget who you are?"

His pulse ticks in his neck, steady but tight. Eyes open just enough to track me. Waiting. Calculating.

I'm impressed in spite of myself.

"I'm bettin' your pals'll be a bleedin' fount of information." Both men were too easy to take down to be trained like Ranger Rick here.

My watch vibrates against my wrist and I check it. Conor and Brice are on their way with the other intruders.

Time to set the stage.

I grab my slap jack and give Ranger Rick's abs a good going over so they glow bright red. He doesn't so much as grunt.

I nod to myself. Then I grab his ceramic knife. Nothing like marking a man with his own weapon.

Digging the tip under his pinky finger, I get it loose and pull. That gets a gusted out breath at least. And a good amount of blood spatter.

Not enough though. I slice a shallow line down Ranger Rick's left thigh. If he lives, it won't take more than a couple of days to heal, but it's bleeding like I want it to.

I do the same to his right bicep and then step back, admiring my handiwork.

He looks tortured good and proper. Ninety percent of interrogation is psychology. And a sociopath who has spent his entire life studying people to mirror, is feckin' aces at psychology.

If I excel at the violence that makes up the other ten percent too, that just makes me well rounded.

Leaving my handiwork to congeal on the floor around Ranger Rick, I go to the cabinet where we keep our compounds.

There's a mix to lower inhibitions. One to increase nerve sensitivity and therefore the impact of pain. I hear the Greeks on the West Coast have something even better. Note to self, contact the Greek mafia and see if we can't do business.

We have drugs to knock our guests out. Some with amnesiac properties like Special K, others that let our victims remember every moment they spent in my company.

I grab a bottle labeled in Chinese Hanzi, a benzo compound developed by one of our arms clients. Preparing it for use, I insert two drops into the aerosol dispensing system attached to a breathing mask.

One drop lowers inhibitions, but two will knock Ranger Rick out. Administered as an aerosol it will have immediate effect.

When he wakes up, he'll still be under the influence of the drug. Telling him what I learn from his cohorts should be the final trigger to relax his own tongue.

No use hiding what is no longer a secret.

Humming, I turn back to Ranger Rick.

When I move to slip the breathing mask over his face, he jerks his head away. It takes me a few seconds longer than I want to get it on him and release the aerosol.

But he's slumped forward in the chair, his breathing so shallow, his chest barely moves when the lock disengages on the door.

His pals will have to get a real good look to figure out if he's dead, or not. I'm not giving them the chance.

Conor shoves the man whose arm I broke into the room. He cries out in pain.

"Fuck off y—" His voice cuts off abruptly when he sees Ranger Rick. "Is he dead?"

The color leaches from the dickhead's face as he takes in the scene I set for him.

"Wraith is indestructible," the other intruder says as Brice shoves him into the room too.

Then he sees Ranger Rick and curses. In Albanian.

"Yiz are from Besnik's crew." Just saying the smarmy bastard's name leaves a foul taste on my tongue.

They could be from one of the other Albanian crews, but these two have a tinge of the Gheg dialect to their words, even when they're speaking English.

Besnik's gang is the only local one from Norther Albania.

The man limping on a foot tightly wound with a bandage to stop him bleeding out, looks away from Ranger Rick, then back again and swallows. "Our boss will pay to get us back."

"Not before I get the answers I want." Giving them hope that I might ransom them back to Besnik, gives them incentive to talk in order to live.

But I make no pretense at giving them hope I will show mercy when I string up the guy with the broken arm from the ceiling. By his wrists.

"Take his friend to holding." The cell he's going to is another psychological move.

Smelling like piss, shite and blood, it's soaked in despair. A good setting for him to think about how cooperative, or uncooperative he wants to be with me when it's his turn to talk.

I focus on my now sniveling captive. "Let's start with something easy. Your name?"

If he's foolish, he'll believe me asking is a good thing. It humanizes him and makes me less likely to kill him.

He's wrong.

What I'm really doing is taking away control bit by bit, starting with his identity.

When he doesn't answer right away, I punch him in the kidney.

"Aagh! It's Gjon."

"Who sent you here, Gjon?" I ask, almost friendly.

It only takes two more punches to get him to say Besnik's name.

"How is Besnik's crew getting so much business with weaklings like him working for him?" Brice asks in Gaeilge .

"No clue. But Ranger Rick took worse in total silence," I reply in the same language.

"Ranger Rick?"

"If he wasn't an Army Ranger, Wraith was some kind of elite soldier. But he's been trained in black ops too."

"He must be freelance."

"I hope so."

"Why?"

"Because if he's part of Besnik's crew I have to kill him and that would be a waste of a good soldier."

"You think you can recruit him?"

"You think I can't?" My morning just got more interesting. "Care to wager a bottle of Midleton's 40 th Anniversary Ruby Edition?"

"You know I'm saving that whiskey for a special occasion."

"I've got just the one. You losing this wager."

"You're a bleedin' pain in my arse." Brice gives me a gimlet stare. "But to win, you can't just convince him to be inducted into the mob, he has to do it."

Brice knows I'll only induct Wraith if I believe he'll be loyal. And that's always an iffy proposition when turning someone.

But my instincts haven't been wrong yet.

"Done." I spit on my hand and offer it to Brice.

He wrinkles his nose, the princess, but spits on his own before shaking.

He's at the sink washing away our combined spit three seconds later, returning to hand me a paper towel to wipe my palm. I consider refusing the paper towel just to mess with him.

But I want to be at the end of my interrogation with the maggot hanging from my ceiling before Ranger Rick comes to.