Page 22 of Lodestar (Dark & Dirty Sinners’ MC)

22

CONOR

She was exactly how I knew she’d be.

Cautious.

Wary.

Feral.

Beautiful, even in sweats.

Cat-like in her movements.

Strong.

Powerful.

Furious.

Fuck, I hadn’t been messing around when I said my inner kid who’d been raised on comic books loved that about her.

She was a live wire, flaring and hissing, and me being a moron, I was just begging to be burned.

But maybe that was how we’d work—I didn’t need to dull that spark.

Who better to stand by her side than a man who loved playing with electricity?

“If you were trying to seduce him, then why did you try to kill him?”

Okay, it was hard saying that out loud, even if I understood why. I was possessive. That was a trait that had been bred into every O’Donnelly in our family tree. I couldn’t share her. Not in that way.

The thought made me grit my teeth.

Would she do that in the future? Try to use her body to get information?

No. I wouldn’t let it get that far. If she needed information, I’d crack the fucking Pentagon to get it so she never had to put herself in danger again.

I breathed easier at that game plan.

Being proactive was better than nothing.

She peered at me from beneath long lashes. “Because he pissed me off.”

I had to laugh. “That’s enough to kill someone?”

“He told me that it was my past that made me deadlier than my mother.”

My eyes bugged. “Well, damn, that was just asking for it.”

She made a gesture with her hand. “Who was I to disagree with him?”

I pondered her situation for a moment. “Temper is a Brother. Honestly. Whether you believe anything else I’ve said, believe that. She’s a fucking bitch too.”

Her nostrils flared. “I’ll deal with her later.”

That shouldn’t have filled me with satisfaction but it totally did.

“I told her that she’d regret betraying you.” My smile turned smug. “It was the only thing that shut her the hell up.”

She huffed. “She does like the sound of her own voice.”

“Affirmative,” I groused. “She said something, though, that made me question shit.”

“What?”

“It’s something Kuznetsov said later too. They stand for law and order. Or, at least, they believe they do.”

“Then why is there so much injustice?” she grumbled with a pout.

I didn’t have an answer and, to be honest, I was more focused on not touching her than anything else.

That pout .

I shoved my hands into my pockets.

Since the moment I’d walked through the goddamn door, I’d been fighting those urges.

Being attacked with a chair should not have led to an erection, but fuck if I could tell my cock that she wasn’t play-fighting.

Still, she looked at me expectantly.

“I never said that I don’t think they’re insane.”

She choked out a laugh but her amusement slowly faded as she mused, “He wants me on their side.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why else would I be here?”

“I don’t know. Temper said that Dead To Me wasn’t a Brother—” Her shoulders sagged in apparent relief at that. As someone who’d been betrayed by more friends and family in the past few years than was healthy, I got it. “—because of her side gig. So, and I hate to break it to you, Star, but you’re not squeaky clean, are you? Why would they want you but not her?”

“Because I’m his heir, aren’t I? And because you can believe you’re a good person but if you want to make a difference, blood always has to be spilled.

“No wars are won without soldiers.”

I knew she was right.

As depressing as that was.

“Maybe he doesn’t want a soldier.”

“He said he made my mom do whatever he wanted. She went where he sent her. She was cannon fodder.”

I pursed my lips. “He’s old now. It changes things.”

“I doubt it. I guarantee that everything he wants comes at a price.”

I thought about my conversation with Misha. “Sometimes that price is worth paying.”

Though she arched a brow at me, she tipped her chin down in agreement.

“Imagine if he could follow through on his promise. If he could take down the Sparrows… Temper said that James Garfield was a Brother?—”

“The president?” She scoffed, “And you believed her?”

“I don’t know to be honest. I don’t know what the hell I believe. I just know that we were standing in the CIA HQ at Langley with Reinier pissing himself because she’d tasered him in his boardroom and, out of nowhere, a team of soldiers appeared, further incapacitated him, then took him from the building and plunked him on a helipad.”

“The Sparrows have that power,” she remarked.

“The Sparrows are scum, granddaughter. I have told you this many times since our initial meeting; you just choose not to listen.”

Star immediately tensed at the old man’s voice, but when we whipped around to stare at the room, we were still alone.

I studied the ceiling, on the hunt for a speaker, and only relaxed when I found it and two others. A tiny glass-like bead told me we were being watched too—unsurprising that they’d been surveilling her.

He’d caged a tiger in one of his bedrooms…

What else did he expect other than carnage?

Star stared at the ceiling, right where I’d been looking, telling me she’d done her homework despite her outrage. “I doubt the Sparrows would classify themselves as scum. Does anyone really think they’re evil? Doesn’t every one of us have justifications for why we do what we do?”

Kuznetsov hummed under his breath. “How can I prove to you that we cannot be tarred with the same brush?”

“I don’t think you can,” I answered, silently shooting her a glance that asked her to confirm or deny my belief.

Her gaze was locked on mine as she said, “If you can take down the Sparrows, why haven’t you already?”

“A very good question, granddaughter.”

Her nostrils flared.

“I wouldn’t call her that yet.”

I made the choice not to call him by his name, even if it would further the conversation. It could indicate a relationship between us that would sow the seeds of distrust between Star and me.

She was all that mattered here.

Not whatever purpose Kuznetsov had for her.

“Yet? You mean never,” she muttered under her breath.

If she’d been a cat, she’d have been spitting and hissing.

It made me want to stroke her. Soothe her. I could appreciate her strength and could even be fascinated by it, but her many facets were what repeatedly drew me in.

For the first time in my life, I understood why Declan could study a portrait for hours on end and not get bored.

Code had been my raison d’être for so long, and that was an art form in and of itself, but there was nothing on this earth that I found more magnetizing than Star Sullivan.

Kuznetsov clipped, “We can discuss this like rational human beings if you’d like, Star. You must be hungry.”

I nudged her in the side with my arm. “I haven’t eaten in hours.”

“Hours? You weren’t made for action, Conor, were you?”

I grinned at her. “I was. Just not the kind of action you’re talking about.”

Her mouth rounded at my blasé tone. Not that I could blame her. I’d gone from spitting fire at her to joking around, but that was how I rolled. Quick to temper, quick to calm. Quicker still to react accordingly and to adapt. She was still bristling. If we were going to get anywhere, I needed to help bring her down from this high-stress plateau she was subsisting on.

That chair she’d been slamming into the ground wasn’t a forty-buck special from IKEA. It was a goddamn antique. Mahogany. Velvet horsehair cushion. Heavy . I’d tossed it across the room with half of its weight missing. She’d been throwing it around like she’d been taking the same supplements the Hulk did.

No, she needed gentling.

I was prepared to be mauled to allow that to happen.

Da might have taught the shittiest life lessons, but how he’d been with Ma was rich with wisdom.

A man burned so his woman didn’t have to, and pissed at her or not, she was that—mine.

We were standing in the same room, breathing the same oxygen. At last. She was there. Anything else in the long list of troubles we shared could be fixed at a later date.

I just had to ensure there was a later date.

“Are you really hungry?” she grouched.

I shrugged. “Temperance pissed me off. I barely ate on the plane over here.”

She ran a finger down her nose—it wasn’t the middle finger. “Fine.” To the ceiling, she growled, “If you drug my food, we’re back to square one.”

God, did she know how exhausted she sounded?

“I haven’t drugged your food at any point, Star,” Anton said with a sigh. “I’m not going to start now. I’ve gone to a lot of effort to bring Mr. O’Donnelly over here to help you. You needn’t persist in seeing me as the enemy.”

She pursed her lips. “So I can just walk out of this room, huh?”

“Yes.”

“No guards?”

“None. Unless you attempt to take my life again.”

“They’ll probably kill me before they kill you.”

Her eyes widened at my quip. “What?”

“I’m expendable here,” I said easily, watching as that news settled in her bones and rattled her.

Well, that was a relief.

She did care.

“I’d better behave then.” Something flickered in her eyes, something that warned me I needed to get better at interpreting those looks. Her face, after all, was blank. Utterly expressionless. Even when she grated out, “Or protect you before they can get to you.”

“I’m willing to be saved,” I teased.

The tiniest of smiles curved her lips—I’d take that as a win. “Why am I surprised you’re like this?”

“I don’t know. What am I like?”

“A joker.”

I was with the people I trusted. She hadn’t earned that admission yet, even if it was the truth, so I just said, “I’m the middle child. We have to stand apart from the crowd.”

Though she snorted as I intended, I saw her unease start to drift back into her expression. I half-hoped she’d share her concerns with me, but whatever progress I’d made over months and months of text chats had been stalled by our time apart.

The irony was, of course, that if anyone should be pissed here, it was me.

Her chin angled up and she inhaled briskly through her nose as if coming to a decision she didn’t let me in on, one that had nothing to do with purple soup... “If he feeds us borscht, I expect you to eat it.”

“I’m not Katina,” I retorted.

“I’m only breaking bread with the man because you’re hungry, so if he serves beet soup, you’d better start eating.”

I hid a smile of my own. “You eat it; I’ll eat it.”

Though she sniffed, her hand reached out. I stared at it, unsure of what she was doing, then her fingers curled in on themselves before she could make contact with me.

Fuck, I wished she had touched me.

“I’m sorry Maverick hurt you.”

Ah, the bruises.

“Don’t be.” I meant it too. Everyone needed a support system like the Sinners’ MC. “It means Katina is in safe hands.”

Her eyes tangled with mine. Just when I thought I could drown in them, she told me, “I wouldn’t have left if I didn’t think she was safe.”

At first, I thought she was being antagonistic for the sake of it, but then I realized she wanted me to believe her.

I gave her a nod. “She’s with family but she wants her mom.”

Agony flooded her eyes, but she didn’t answer, just straightened her shoulders and started toward the door.

How she edged around the corner let me know she was on red alert.

I guessed, as miserable as it sounded, I’d grown used to Eoghan behaving similarly—ever prepared. Ready to face anything—a bullet to the face or to the heart, whichever struck first.

I didn’t realize that it would destroy something in me to see her share the same mannerisms.

Because I thought Kuznetsov was telling the truth, even if that truth was another person’s insanity, I didn’t fear for my life as I stepped into the hallway.

I was, however, surprised to find that she’d waited for me, but I noticed that the hand closest to me was balled into a fist and I wondered if she wanted me to take it. To slide my fingers around hers as I’d done in her pretty, battered prison.

She was in fight mode—I didn’t think Lodestar had a flight mode to be fair—so it didn’t make sense for her to want tenderness from me. Support, yes. Gentleness? Affection? No.

If anyone understood that she had to play harder, faster, and stronger than a man in this situation, it was me. I had no desire to undermine her. So instead, I moved alongside and, very carefully, let my pinkie connect with her knuckles.

Though we were both staring straight ahead, I heard her quick inhalation. Then, I hid another smile when she bounced pinkies with me too.

My fingers flexed with the desire to reach out but I kept myself under control, fortuitous considering a man appeared at the end of the corridor.

Her tension was immediate, and I knew she expected him to be a guard, but I thought it was a servant. Something the stranger confirmed by nodding at us, his arms fixed at his side, his back to us as he descended the same staircase I’d used to get up here.

The edifice itself was constructed like a fortress, but inside, it was more of a five-star hotel than anything else. It was strange that Kuznetsov had used his home as a prison, but everyone had a different way of dealing with family, I guessed.

Her gaze darted around as we traversed different hallways, and I knew she was marking exits. Much as I permitted Eoghan to do the same thing wherever we were, like I’d let him sit with his back to the wall so he was looking out onto any given room, I stayed quiet as she found her bearings.

When we reached a large set of doors that opened up into a dining room, that was where we discovered her grandfather. Standing at the head of the table, one that ran the length of the thirty feet-long room, he remained behind his chair, clearly waiting for us.

The man was old. His skin was more papery than Da’s had been. But his back was straight, his shoulders weren’t hunched, and he appeared to be as sharp as ever from the intensity of his study during our walk over to him.

The state of the room she’d been kept in was proof enough of what her grandfather had said—she’d been like a caged wild animal. But it was the number of guards in the dining room that confirmed what I already knew—how deadly she was.

Nine of them.

Nine fucking guards all hovering in place around Kuznetsov because of one woman.

Upon our approach, I braced for Star to hurl herself at him, for her to pick up a spoon from the table and to use it to stab him. I knew the guards who were standing nearby did the same, but she didn’t mistreat the silver cutlery. No, she retained her composure, casting me a knowing glance as she calmly sank into the chair the servant held out for her.

Kuznetsov and I withdrew our own seats and took our places, sandwiching her between us.

Her spine would make a ruler seem curved. Her shoulders weren’t high, but her tension was so fierce that she was practically vibrating.

It was only at that moment that I really got a chance to study her.

Sure, I’d been looking at her before, but in the silence that settled among us, I took in the almond eyes that missed nothing, the gentle lines of a mouth that had a tendency to angle downwards at the corners—her inherent discontent visible in the flesh.

Fuck, I wanted to change that.

I also wanted to kiss her more than I wanted my heart to take its next beat because her upper lip was full, the bottom fuller. I just knew kissing her would feel like heaven.

Her nose was strong, and there was the tiniest of breaks at the bridge. Her brows were arched and they led to the faintest of widow’s peaks that sank into rich brown hair that was just a couple of shades lighter than mine.

Her body was strong. Compact. A weapon.

I didn’t want that to turn me on, but it did.

She was more than a weapon. She was a woman. She needed to be respected as such because, until now, that had been her worth—her ability to kill.

My body didn’t understand the nuance even if my mind did.

Three servants appeared out of the woodwork to disturb the awkward silence. They brought soup, but I thanked God that it wasn’t purple. Even starving, beet soup wasn’t my jam despite my Russian sisters-in-law trying to tempt us with it.

Give me a goddamn steak any day of the week.

Star tensed at the sight. What had offended her about cheesy soup, I didn’t know, but her fingers bled white around the spoon in her hand.

“French onion soup was her favorite dish,” Kuznetsov said demurely.

“You turned your daughter into a weapon,” was her flat response. “Don’t think I’m impressed that you remember her favorite foods.”

“I never asked for you to be impressed,” he countered, but his voice contained no ire.

From the corner of my eye, I studied them both, well aware that Star was still vibrating like I’d hooked her up to that prototype toy I was building for her and that Kuznetsov eyed her warily, as if she were about to strike.

His guards remained on red alert which also spoke louder than words…

But she stayed quiet.

Her spoon dipped into the gooey mass of bread and cheese and she placed it between her lips with a grace that came as a surprise.

Not that I figured she’d eat like a Viking or anything but there was a demureness about her actions that took me aback.

A quick glance at her lap showed me how her legs were pressed together, the toes of one foot neatly tucked behind the other ankle.

This wasn’t a brat who’d been raised on tour buses. This was?—

“Did you attend a boarding school?”

Star arched a brow at the astonishment in my tone. “Why would that come as a surprise considering how rich my father was and how fucked up everything was after Mother died?”

Mother. Not Mom.

I winced for her hurt but still questioned, “Where?”

“Switzerland, of course. Only the best for Gerry Sullivan’s daughter who needed ‘structure’ to overcome her mother’s death.” Her sneer told me what she thought about that ‘structure’ before it morphed into a smug grin. “I got expelled before I could graduate though.” It was almost a relief to hear her sounding more like the woman I knew—cocky.

I’d take that over bitter.

“How long were you there?” Kuznetsov asked politely, but I got the feeling he already knew the answer.

“Four months.”

“What got you expelled?” I quipped.

Soup forgotten, I turned into her, my curiosity so absolute that it was easy to forget we were in the middle of a conspiracy with a previously unknown grandfather who was currently existing on tenterhooks just in case she tried to attack him again.

“I hacked into their database.” She winked at me, knowing full well I’d enjoy this story. Hackers loved sharing their wins with people they trusted, people who understood and appreciated their skills. “Found the good shit on the girls and sent it to a gossip rag in London.”

My mouth rounded. “They pinned it on you?”

She chuckled. “I made sure they knew it was me behind the job.”

“Jesus.”

“Got myself established with some dollars and began the emancipation process from my dad.”

If I’d been gaping before, that was nothing to now. “What?! You divorced Gerry Sullivan?”

She snorted. “You know it’s weird when you do that, don’t you? He wasn’t Gerry Sullivan to me.” Her gaze dropped to her soup. “I was his daughter, and I was trying to shake some sense into him by being a rebellious brat.”

Guilt hit me. “Sorry, Star. You know I—” I grimaced. There was no excuse, not when she was hurting. “What happened?”

“The record company swept it under the rug. It never got pushed through.”

“So you didn’t get emancipated?”

“No. I’m glad now that I didn’t, but back then I was furious.”

“I’d gather he was too?”

“No. I think he knew I was attention-seeking. I’m pretty sure that’s why Savannah’s Mom has a problem with me still.”

I frowned. “She had to recognize that you wouldn’t do something so drastic unless there were… issues.”

Her gaze found mine and, beneath my fascinated study, a blush bloomed to life on the arcs of those high cheekbones I really wanted to press my lips to. “Not everyone has as much faith in me as you do, and not everyone believes all sins can be atoned for.”

“It’s the Catholic in me,” I teased her softly, sensing that my words had meant a lot to her.

I was glad they had but I was also confused. I didn’t understand how anyone could be around her, never mind watch her grow into the woman standing here today, and not understand how she worked.

Star was loyal.

It just wasn’t a loyalty that most were accustomed to.

She made the tough decisions, the hard ones that would leave her being hated, but that would protect those she considered her family.

As someone who’d been impacted by that negatively, if her MO registered with me, I didn’t understand why it wouldn’t with people who’d known her for decades.

I’d met Savannah’s parents a couple times, and I found it hard to reconcile this with those meetings. It was evident to me that family meant everything to them, so how could they have let Star down so badly?

In the aftermath of that short conversation, she returned her focus to the soup and continued eating. While my mind ping-ponged around with this new knowledge, I shot Kuznetsov a glance he interpreted correctly— don’t disturb her when she’s eating.

His gaze drifted over her pallor, and he nodded his agreement.

Now that the color of exertion and then embarrassment had faded, she looked pale, but the soup appeared to help.

We all needed fuel, but Star probably burned through calories like a Mack truck sucked up gas.

When she’d finished her appetizer, I asked, “Do you feel better?”

She reached for her napkin, picked it up, and gently prodded the corners of her mouth.

With a smile that fooled me, she half-turned toward me.

It was misdirection at its simplest.

In those moments, while her focus seemed to be directed at me, that was when she snagged the fork beside her glass of water, reached over, and stabbed the hand Kuznetsov had rested on the table as he ate.

Guards poured toward us as Anton screamed in pain, but Star merely sat back in her seat and drawled, “Now, we can talk.”

Men roughly grabbed her and dragged her arms behind her back, needing two for a one-man job because this was Star, and I watched as they cuffed her.

“Do you go out of your way to be difficult?” I grumbled, but when she made a slight moue as they jerked her shoulder and locked her in place, I snarled, “You’re hurting her.”

That was when I saw the guard’s temple was discolored…

Using his distraction against him, I seized his hand and rolled it backward, not stopping until the bone in his wrist snapped and he was yowling.

“You learned Krav Maga,” Star stated, her eyes wide in surprise and…

Now wasn’t the time to enjoy her appreciation.

Ignoring her, I grated out at the other guard, “You do not hurt her.” Then, to Kuznetsov, I demanded, “Get them to back the fuck down.”

Though he was breathing hard through the pain, Kuznetsov did groan something at them in that dialect he’d used with Edgar, which was when the guard cradling his wrist traipsed off with a glower at me, while the other loosened her cuffs and she relaxed some.

Now that she was free, I shot her a disapproving glance. “He’s old, Star. That’ll take ages to heal.”

Her sniff could only be described as dismissive. “He locked me in a bedroom like I was thirteen, Conor?—”

“You were trying to kill him,” I countered.

“I’ve stopped trying. I won’t kill you,” she shouted over her grandfather’s wails as he cupped his bleeding hand to his chest. “But you turned my mother, the only person who never betrayed me, into a liar. That required punishment.”

Kuznetsov spat something at her in that dialect I couldn’t understand again, but Star surprised me by retorting, “If you thought I wouldn’t try anything, you’re an idiot and that means you’re too much of a moron to be able to help me as you promised Conor.”

At her words, Kuznetsov sagged into his chair, and, out of nowhere, a medic rushed in, an old-fashioned doctor’s bag in her hand.

Used to chaos around the table, I carried on finishing my soup, watching as a couple men popped up from out of nowhere, bringing what appeared to be a type of mobile scanner of some variation.

Within a few moments, the healer was peering at Star with surprise then down at her boss. “She missed every joint, artery, and nerve.”

Star’s smirk was cocky enough that I rolled my eyes. “Only you,” I muttered under my breath.

Kuznetsov hissed at the doctor who, right at the dinner table, sewed him up, cleaned the wounds, then bandaged his hand. She dosed him with what I assumed were pain pills and antibiotics, then the medical team darted away as swiftly as they’d rushed in.

“Granddaughter, you are a fool,” Kuznetsov snarled. His anger fired him up but he remained slouched and slumped over in his chair.

“You can’t expect deadly weapons not to fulfill their purpose,” I defended, using his own words against him. “Star usually doesn’t say anything she doesn’t mean. She won’t attack you again.”

“You expect me to believe that? I brought you here to calm her down?—”

“Hey,” I argued. “I’m many things but I’m not human Valium. Star is Star. You don’t like what she turned into, well, hell, I figure you could have helped out along the way instead of living in your own bat cave on the Adriatic.”

Kuznetsov spat in that dialect again, but Star hitched a shoulder. “He’s right.”

“I helped where I could,” he grated out.

“Sounds like you were really helping her when she sought emancipation from a father who was fully jacked up on heroin for days at a time and put her in unsafe situations,” I sniped.

Still cradling his now-bandaged hand, Kuznetsov growled something at the guard stationed behind Star and, a moment later, she was released from her cuffs.

She curled her fingers inward, stretching her wrists back and forth and rubbing the flesh where the restraints had been too tight and had bitten into her skin.

Annoyed at the sight, I grumbled, “Fine way to treat your granddaughter.”

Before he could answer, she reached up and rubbed the balls of her shoulders, rotating them carefully as she mocked, “I’m not a granddaughter to him. I’m a tool.”

“That’s not true,” was Kuznetsov’s retort.

“No?” Star cocked a brow at him. “I don’t doubt you will require payment for bringing down the Sparrows. No matter what bullshit you fed Conor.”

“Payment is a harsh word.”

She smirked. “You don’t deny it.”

“You don’t,” I pointed out with a scowl.

Kuznetsov’s jaw worked a moment before he hissed something at his men—I was definitely going to have to learn that dialect.

As I wondered how Star had picked it up and where it came from, I watched as his men drifted away from the edges of the room and disappeared through the doors I assumed led to the kitchen as that was the exit the servers had used earlier.

When we were alone, Lodestar pinned her grandfather with another look. “I don’t like being manipulated. You want something from me, you tell me. We can come to some arrangement.

“The moment Conor opened that damn door, I knew something had to be going on. At first, I thought he had to be a Brother, but then, Conor told me Temperance Black was a part of your little Illuminati crew and it hit me.

“ She was the one who told you about Conor and me working together, and you reunited us not because he could talk me down from killing you—that was a bonus. You brought two of the most powerful hackers in the world together. That wasn’t out of the kindness of your black heart.

“So,” she drawled on. “Let’s cut to the chase. What is it you actually want from us?”

Kuznetsov reached for his wine glass with his good hand. Eyes locked on his granddaughter as much as hers was on him, he took an unhurried sip.

As if they were playing an invisible game of chess, he eventually said, “It was unexpected, you teaming up with Conor O’Donnelly.”

“An advantage?”

He nodded. “How could it not be? The great aCooooig and Lodestar, working as a unit, making history together...” His smile was too cheerful for the conversation we were having. “You’ve made a lot of friends along the way, haven’t you, child?”

“Some are better than others.” She stunned me by gently pressing the backs of her fingers to my knee under the table. “If you know who has earned that label from me, you’ll also know the lengths I’ll go to to protect them. So, tread carefully, old man. I’m not afraid to bite.”