Page 12

12

CONOR

I woke up to my nose being pinched.

Then my ear being tugged.

My hand wafted on the mattress as I attempted to stop whoever was gnawing at me while I slept.

My hair was snagged in a starfish hand, grabby fingers that gave me my first clue as to the identity of my attacker, but I stubbornly turned my head aside.

“He won’t quit,” Finn drawled. “He wants Uncle Kid.”

I groaned.

“Uncle Kid is tired, Jake. Very tired.”

Jake, ignoring me, started bouncing on the bed, singing, “Smell-ee, Unka Kid, smell-ee.” He extended the ‘ee’ sound until I was sure he was drilling into my eardrums with the syllable.

“You know you need to shower when a toddler says you stink,” Finn commented.

Blindly, I flipped him the bird as the bed jostled under Jake’s jumps. “The audacity. Jake, I’ve changed your diapers. You think I stink? You ain’t seen nothing, dude.”

Obviously unimpressed, a second later, I yowled when those little knees of his landed on my kidneys in payback.

“Stink-ee, stink-ee, Unka Kid!”

Finn snorted. “Be grateful it isn’t your junk. He’s got no respect for other men’s dicks.”

“Dick-uh. Dick-uh.”

“Ah, shit,” Finn complained under his breath as Jake started singing and giggling the word, making it two syllables and not one. “Jake!” Finn raised his voice to be heard over the song I didn’t need to hear. “Quit it before Mommy comes and tells me off for using bad words around you.”

Jake’s soft giggles told me he was well aware that Mommy would tell Daddy off for using bad words and Jake was here for it.

With a huff, I rolled over, and because his attention was elsewhere, I managed to scoop him up without him expecting it. He let loose a loud squeal that cascaded into more giggles as I tickled his belly and hefted him in the air until he’d forgotten about bad words.

Squinting at my brother, I asked, “Why are you here?”

“I’m not anywhere I’m not supposed to be.”

My squint deepened. “It’s too early for philosophical debates.”

“I’m not debating anything,” Finn retorted, amused. “I’m sitting in my guest suite where you passed out two goddamn days ago.” His head tipped to the side. “Jake was not happy about waiting for his Uncle Kid to wake up. Plus, I wanted to check in on you before Aoife did.”

“Why would Aoife check in on me?”

He hesitated. “Because she loves you?”

My lips twitched. “I love her too.”

“I’ll allow it.”

I dragged my middle finger along the length of my nose. “What else?”

“We were worried about you.”

Hauling my ass to the head of the bed, I snagged Jake into a bear hug then found myself surprised when he settled down too, face nuzzling against my throat, mumbling, “Unka Kid nap time.”

Only a kid wouldn’t mind that I hadn’t showered in four days.

“He’s been up since five,” Finn reasoned, but his smile was as genuine as it got as he watched his kid.

It was smiles like that I’d kill to protect.

No one had had it easy in my family.

We were rich as fuck but it came at a price.

Until Aoife had come along, I didn’t think any of my brothers had really known what happiness even looked like. Then, Aoife had started making that smile appear on Finn’s face on a regular basis and we’d realized that we didn’t just have to live in misery.

One by one, my brothers had found their women. One by one, those smiles had started becoming a recurring thing.

I was happy to see their happiness. Just… was it wrong to want some of that for myself?

“You don’t have to worry about me, Finn. I’m a grown-ass man,” I told him as I carefully settled my chin atop Jake’s head.

I loved my brothers. I’d go to the ends of the earth for them. But for Jake? None of them knew the hell I’d reap for him.

Shit, Shay too.

But Shay was different.

Shay was already formed into the man he’d be one day.

Aela had done a bang-up job with him.

“You’re my brother,” he stated calmly, the word seeming to slip with more ease off his tongue than usual.

“We’re blood,” I corrected, wanting to make the distinction.

He cleared his throat. “Yes. Naturally, we worry. Especially after these last couple of months.”

I’d lost my shit after Da died. I didn’t need him to tell me that. I knew they’d been concerned about me—no sleep, little food, and a lot of work. Grief for me was hectic. Violent.

They just didn’t realize I’d been mourning the loss of two people.

My da and Star.

“Things have been rough,” I agreed. “But this wasn’t about that.”

“No. It’s about the United Brotherhood and Prince Edward of Midlothian,” he mocked. “You have two goose eggs on your head. At least they’re symmetrical. You should appreciate that.”

My nose crinkled as I reached up to carefully prod them. “I think I might have had a concussion.”

He straightened. “And we let you rest? Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?”

“Because there was no way in hell I was going to be able to stay awake anyway. Damaged brain or not.” Yawning, I closed my eyes. “I’m still exhausted.”

“What happened?”

My throat bobbed. “You don’t want to know, Finn.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah. That bad,” I admitted with a sigh.

Silence settled between us as we studied a sleeping Jake.

It enabled me to relax some, to let my brain slowly start to stir to life. I hadn’t been firing on all cylinders since the moment Temper had tasered Reinier, had been reacting instead of thinking, but nothing, I slowly accepted, had changed.

Reinier was out of the picture, waiting in the wings for Star to deal with him when she was back in the country.

Temper’s position hadn’t been burned in the CIA.

When I checked my laptop, I’d know if I had any missed calls from Riggs, but the doors to Finn and Aoife’s house hadn’t been blown off in a raid while I slept and I hadn’t been arrested under the PATRIOT Act, so I had to assume my position as a governmental asset was still in play and I wasn’t a wanted man.

That meant I could still go to Moscow—I had permission.

I could see if Star had anything to do with that bombing in Petrovsky Park.

I could pin down my woman at long fucking last because the government had already owed me a goddamn break before they tried to assassinate me for being too good at my job.

It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was a start.

Wading around in the mud wasn’t enough. I’d made a promise to Katina that I’d find her foster mother, and after the past week, I wasn’t going to keep on doing this on my own.

“Don’t you want to talk about it?”

Lost in my thoughts, I frowned at him. “About what?”

“The United Brotherhood?”

“No.”

“Tough because I have questions. Why did you bring them up with Aoife on Saturday?”

“You ever heard the saying, ‘In our Brothers we trust?’”

“No.”

So he hadn’t gotten in too deeply with them if he didn’t know the code Brothers used as a greeting among their own.

For his sake, I was glad.

A knock sounded on the door.

“Come in, babe,” Finn called out quietly.

Aoife peered inside, and that same happy smile danced about her lips as she took in the picture of me and Jake together.

I wasn’t sure what I’d done to earn Jake’s trust, but I treasured it. Always.

A kid’s trust was so precious.

I, better than anyone, knew that.

“I have to take a picture,” she whispered, stepping over to the bed, phone out, and snapping us before I had a chance to grimace. She moved nearer and passed me her cell. I grinned at the sight even as I wanted to groan at the state of me.

Those goose eggs weren’t symmetrical. My brother was a goddamn liar.

“Let’s not frame that one, huh?”

She snickered. “It’s cute. You have matching bedhead which makes sense seeing as he’s run screaming from me every time I go near him with a brush. Want me to take him?”

“Nah. It’s good.”

Her gaze softened. “He loves his Uncle Kid. He did not appreciate being kept away from you.”

“And I love him.”

When Aoife approached Finn and settled herself on his lap, my brother’s grin was both smug and contented. As his hands curved around her waist, the deepest, bittersweet, most excruciating dose of envy stirred to life inside me.

It made it easier to say, “I’m going to be leaving the US soon.”

Finn stiffened. “What?”

Aoife placed her hand on his shoulder. “Where are you heading? On a vacation at long last?” she teased.

Lying, I nodded.

“What’s going on?” Finn griped, clearly not believing that story.

He knew me too well.

“I’m taking your advice, Finn.”

“What advice? And why are you taking it on this occasion when you usually ignore me?”

I arched a brow at his agitation. “Why are you so stressed? You weren’t this freaked out when Aidan went to Florida for Thanksgiving. Declan’s heading to Europe soon?—”

“They’re them. You’re you.”

“What does that mean?” I grumbled. “I’m perfectly capable of traveling on my own. I’m not a child.”

His unease was annoying, but its source was genuine. “You don’t leave.”

His words had me blinking. “Huh?”

“You don’t leave.”

Aoife sensed the rawness in his voice, too, because she cuddled into him. “It’s okay, Finn. Conor needs a vacation.”

“He's not going on vacation. Conor’s a workaholic,” he argued, still stiff with tension. “And I didn’t advise him to go away. I advised him to go after what belongs to him.”

“Which is?” Aoife queried, darting a wary glance between us.

“Lodestar,” I said simply.

“That was when I thought she was in goddamn New Jersey! Not fuck knows where,” Finn sniped, raking a hand through his hair.

“She’s in Russia.” I cleared my throat. “I think.”

“Russia,” he yelled. “You want to go to motherfucking Russia?”

Jake stirred, but he only nuzzled his face deeper into my throat. Finn grimaced apologetically as Aoife tutted him, but even she was starting to appear anxious.

“I don’t want to go. I have to go. I’m sure she’s involved in that bombing in Moscow.”

His eyes flared wide then immediately shuttered. His fingers raked through his hair again before he started drumming them on Aoife’s knee. “Maxim Lyanov is in and out of Moscow.”

“You’ve been watching him?”

“Of course. He has influence over there. Maybe if your ass gets locked up in a gulag in Siberia, I can put pressure on him to have you released.”

My lips twitched. “Finn, I didn’t know you cared.”

His cheeks flushed with color. “Fuck off.”

Still smiling, I pressed a kiss to Jake’s forehead and gave him a gentle hug.

“Conor?” Aoife asked, her voice quiet.

“Yes, sis?”

“Y-You are coming home, aren’t you?”

Finn stiffened. “What are you talking about? Of course, he is.”

Ignoring him, I locked my eyes on hers. “Not until I bring Star back with me. She’s my penguin,” I said simply. “You’ve all got yours. I want mine so I’m not going to stop until she’s here. With me. Understand?”

Her nod was slow in coming but I knew she understood.

A glance at Finn told me he did too.

Begrudgingly.

After the last couple years they’d endured together, how couldn’t they understand the importance of being with the right person?

But I was an adult. I didn’t need to ask permission to do dick in my life.

Star was mine.

She’d gotten me involved in no less than three conspiracies with repercussions I didn’t even want to imagine right now, and I wasn’t about to do this on my own.

We were a team. She might have forgotten that because she was an only child and I had brothers coming out of the woodwork, but it was about time that she was reminded of that fact.

Whether she liked it or not.