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CONOR

FURIOUS ANGELS - ROB DOUGAN

WINTER - PRESENT DAY

“Conor.”

“You’re the only person who says my name that way, Riggs. Did you know that? I don’t need Caller ID for you.”

“You say the sweetest things,” she cooed in my ear, making my lips twitch.

“I work hard to be charming,” I agreed, scratching my temple where there was an ever-present itch since the fist that had collided with my face a few days earlier had cut skin.

“I remember that conversation.”

Agitated, I crossed my arms over my chest. “The one where you told me that people wouldn’t like me if I remained a robot?”

“That’s the one. It’s a life lesson you should have learned before you reached seventeen. With your family, I’m surprised they didn’t point it out sooner.”

My brow puckered, pulling on the dissolvable stitches on my forehead. “Did you call just to insult me? Because I have enough on my plate as it is.”

Her chuckle was infectious enough that it made the corners of my lips tug into a smile. Riggs, when the urge struck, always laughed from her belly. I wasn’t sure she knew any other way.

“I have a job for you,” she said lightly once she’d finished finding amusement at my expense.

“I’m busy.”

“You’re always busy. But this is Uncle Sam,” she reminded me—as if I’d forget my deal with that devil. “You can’t be too busy for him.”

“I’ve done Sammy Boy enough favors for him to leave me alone for the rest of my damn life. You owe me for finding that bug in the NSA servers. You were begging hackers to come in and explore.”

She tutted. “You know how it works.”

“I do, but I think it’s time to renegotiate.”

“You don’t renegotiate with the United States,” she retorted, tutting for a second time. “Do I need to remind you of what happened when you were seventeen? The reason I told you that you needed a personality transplant?”

I huffed.

“You were the one who decided to go exploring NASA. You were the one who decided that a single visit to a top-secret agency’s database wasn’t enough.”

I grimaced at the memory. At the time, I’d needed to access a satellite. A now obsolete satellite . It so wasn’t worth the punishment.

Deciding to play hardball, I stated, “I need to leave the country.”

Her voice grew sharp. “Why?”

“Not for good. Just for a short period. Maybe a few weeks.”

“You know you’re not allowed to leave the continental US—” She sighed. “Ah. You want to do a deal.”

“You catch on quickly.” I rocked back in my seat and stared at the footage one of my monitors played on repeat.

Star sitting right where I was.

In my home.

It was the nearest I’d ever gotten to her. The nearest, sometimes, it felt like I’d ever be.

“For a woman?” she guessed, sounding bored by the idea.

“ The woman,” I corrected.

“They always are,” she dismissed.

“Not with me. You know that.”

“Do you even date?” She sighed. “Never mind. I’ll see what I can do. Where do you need to go?”

“Russia.”

I waited for the explosion. It came in the form of a growl. “Why the fuck do you want to go to Russia?”

Riggs, a church-going Evangelist, never swore. That meant I enjoyed it all the more when I made her do it.

As much as we were friendly, she was my handler. Granted, she didn’t ‘handle’ me much anymore. Once every four or so years I tended to hear from her. It was both bad and good luck that she’d called today.

Bad because I had other shit I needed to do.

Good because I needed to get to Star and I hadn’t been sure if I’d be able to leave the country without being stopped by TSA first.

A private jet was always an option, and I’d sneaked in and out of our borders via that method of transport in the past, but something about what was going down told me I needed to stay on the good side of the US government.

If that meant doing their bidding for a little while, jumping through some hoops, and dancing to their tune, then I’d do it.

“Well?” she snarled. “Why Russia?”

“I need to retrieve someone from there.”

“Retrieve?” She paused. “An evacuation?”

That was the problem; I didn’t know. Hell, I didn’t know if Star was even in Russia. I was going off a bombing in Petrovsky Park and what felt like a wing and a fucking prayer.

I scrubbed a hand over my face then winced when I caught on the tear in the skin on my forehead.

Nothing about the last couple of days had gone according to plan.

Ever since Star Sullivan had entered my life, shit routinely went down the shitter, but these past few months had been worse than ever.

This whole crap fest had started with Katina, Star’s foster daughter, who had come to visit me, running away from her home in West Orange, New Jersey, to find my apartment building so she could tell me that her foster mother hadn’t been in contact with her and had skipped a call when she never did that.

I’d promised her I’d bring her home, then I’d taken Katina back to the Satan’s Sinners’ MC compound where I’d been greeted by the man who was dating Katina’s older sister—Maverick. It was only after his fist met my face that I remembered he was the one who was a Green Beret.

The prick might have been retired, but that didn’t mean he packed less of a punch.

The fact that I woke up in the hospital with an apologetic MC Prez sitting at my bedside told me that Katina had informed Rex, the Prez, and the rest of the Sinners’ MC that I hadn’t abducted her and had, in fact, been in the process of returning her to her family.

I was still dealing with the migraine that came from my head being bounced off the driveway like a basketball, so this shit with the government was the last thing I needed to be juggling.

That was the problem though—it wasn’t like they asked me. Riggs didn’t call with requests.

She ordered.

Rubbing my eyes, I muttered, “I’m not sure if it’s an evacuation or not. Someone important to me has gotten herself into some trouble over there. I just need to get her back here. I’m not a flight risk. You know that.”

“I know that your family situation has changed,” was Riggs’ cool answer.

I mocked, “Thanks for the flowers.”

“Your father was lucky that you are a governmental asset, Conor. It’s not a bad thing that he can’t create more chaos in the city streets.”

The bitch of it was I didn’t disagree with her.

My da had used me.

Riggs was just the same.

Everyone used me.

I was a tool.

Some days it was easier to embrace that than others.

Pursing my lips, I argued, “Da didn’t keep me here. My brothers are everything to me. You know that.”

She harrumphed.

Tired of this conversation, I changed the subject to what really mattered: “What does the government need from me this time?”

“The Secret Service had an internal breach a few months ago.” No shit . “Our engineers have created a communication platform that we’d like you to test.”

I arched a brow she couldn’t see and called her out on her BS. “Does this ‘breach’ have something to do with the First Lady’s death?”

“What do you know about that?” Riggs clipped.

“Just what the rest of the country does.”

“I’m sure,” she scoffed. “When I found out her killer was Irish American, I looked into his ties… His past was scraped clean.”

“You can’t prove that was me,” I taunted.

“No, otherwise I’d have hauled your ass into HQ sooner.” She sighed. “Why do you make shit so difficult for me, Conor?”

“I’m not like my baby bro, Riggs. I don’t live to serve at America’s pleasure. Anyway, I’ll gladly test your new communication platform.” I’d get my kicks then expose it to that beast of a worm Lodestar had gifted me, one that the Green Beret who’d punched me had crafted from scratch. That would fuck it up in no time. Malware and punches—Maverick’s skill set was far-reaching. “But after the testing, I want the okay to head to Russia.”

“How do we know you’ll return?”

I laughed. “I’m not as self-sacrificing as Snowden. The same rules apply as always, don’t they?”

“They do,” she confirmed bitterly. “You know, when I started in this game, I never thought I’d be doing deals with criminals to protect them and their families from the arm of the law.”

It was my turn to tut. “You said it yourself, Riggs. I’m not a criminal. I’m an asset. Pick me up when you have the okay.”

With that, I cut the call.

Though she’d pissed me off with that final rejoinder, I got to my feet and twisted around to stare at the city skyline in the distance.

This penthouse had been a gift from Da, but his gifts always came after I danced to his tune.

I figured with him gone, that wouldn’t be an issue anymore.

I’d practically been begging for karma to kick me in the nuts.

Moving over to the window, I watched the city that never slept, trying to find comfort in the hive of activity even at this time in the morning, but it wasn’t there.

Turning back to my desk, I stared at the files I’d been combing through for the past couple of weeks. Anything from the politicians the Five Points were setting up to die in ‘accidents’ to the folder I’d been building on Star—her profile.

Lips pursing when my cell buzzed, I reached for it again and stared at the screen as a message notification flashed up.

Riggs: A car will be there in five.

I smirked.

She hated how much her bosses needed me.

I didn’t know if I was as special as they thought I was. Hackers had egos and, sure, I had one too, but from how the US government treated me, I had to be the second coming.

Knowing that I’d be busy for the next few hours at least, I set some programs running and shut others off. I grabbed my main rig, which housed original copies of the worm Star had gifted me—“Best goddamn gift ever,” I muttered under my breath—and I set it up in its case.

With that done, I collected my phone and checked my messages.

My brothers were shooting the shit about a hockey match our newly-discovered cousin, Liam Donnghal, was playing in—apparently, he was doing a good imitation of a toddler on the ice.

Then, I saw one from Aaron Goldstein.

Goldstein: McClure took me to a cigar club tonight.

Me: Hope you enjoyed your first date.

My lips twitched as I strode from my office and headed for the bedroom.

Goldstein: How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t swing that way.

That wasn’t what I remembered from my short stint in college, but if he had memory issues, then that was his problem and not mine.

Me: Does he?

Goldstein: Not sure. Maybe? He’s creepy, and not only because he’s a zealot and a Sparrow.

Me: You’ve got your in though? He wouldn’t have invited you to the cigar club otherwise, I assume?

Goldstein: You assume right. Gaining his confidence to the point he encourages me to become a Sparrow won’t be easy, but I’m in this for the long haul.

Me: Good. Keep me updated.

Goldstein: Will do.

Having known Goldstein since college, I’d gotten friendly with him while he was an annoying jock who drank too much but who always got his assignments in on time and managed to pass his finals even with a hangover.

As a ‘grown-up,’ he was a dedicated police officer, one who had a skewed sense of justice—my favorite kind—as well as a man who had big enough balls to go deep undercover while taking a sabbatical from Interpol because he saw the potential here…

A potential not just for promotion but to make the world a better place too.

I had to figure that he knew he could ruin his career by doing this unsanctioned, but I also realized that he was as concerned as I was—who in Interpol was a Sparrow?

Who wasn’t one of those dirty bastards?

The New World Sparrows were everywhere and had infiltrated every organization. Nowhere was safe. Not the mafia, the government, the media, or the fucking church.

For all those reasons, that was why he was one of the first people I’d gotten in touch with when Aidan, my oldest brother, had come up with the notion we needed to start bringing officials into the Sparrows—infiltrating to tear the fuckers down from the inside out.

He was the perfect candidate—US-born and patriot-bred— but he’d left the US after college thanks to a British grandmother from whom he’d inherited a home in the UK’s version of the Hamptons—Sandbanks.

He’d moved to Europe shortly after, gained a job in Interpol, and hadn’t returned stateside since.

I forged him a new identity, one based on his old credentials, and he was a shoo-in for a senator’s aide with majors in American history and psychology and minors in marketing and politics.

The only reason I knew he wasn’t a Sparrow? That skewed sense of justice he had…

Attending college with him had been interesting.

A thought occurred to me as I picked out a button-down shirt.

Me: May go quiet.

Goldstein: Why?

Me: Somewhere I need to be.

Me: If I do, my brothers will be in touch.

Goldstein: Should I contact them?

Me: No. They’ll communicate with you when/if the time comes.

Goldstein: What’s going on?

Me: Nothing. Just hedging my bets.

Ignoring his other messages, I dragged on a suit after I used the bathroom. My doorbell was buzzing as I zipped up my fly, and I ignored it to continue with my preparations.

Two squirts of aftershave to the left side of my throat and two squirts to the right.

An old vintage Rolex that had been battered years ago was on my left wrist, a new smartwatch on my right that was of my own making because I already had the government sniffing between my ass cheeks; I didn’t need to invite them into my life with a mass-produced gadget that was nothing more than a tracker.

With that done, I sketched out a note on my bedroom dresser.

Aidan,

If you see this note, I’m probably dead.

It’s okay. It was a long time coming anyway. They always say you can rest when you’re dead, and fuck, if I don’t deserve a rest.

Anyway, love you, deartháir.

Kid

PS. Don’t try to look for me. I don’t want you ending up in a body bag too.

My nose crinkled at the short but not exactly sweet message as the buzzer sounded again.

It was always maudlin to write these goodbye notes but I did it just in case. In the past, I’d tossed each in the trash can, but who knew with the state of the world?

I shrugged into a winter coat, rolled up the cuffs twice on each arm, then strode out of the bedroom, collecting my laptop bag on the way and hitting the intercom as it buzzed once more.

“I get the message,” I growled. “I’m coming now.”

As usual, there was no response.

Yanking two strands of hair off my head, I bit down on one and held it in place between my teeth and kept a hold of the other as I shut the door, jamming the first lock at the top of the jamb, above eye level.

If someone tried to open it after I left, the hair would fall.

As I locked the door, I heard the multilevel pins spin into place, then I jimmied the handle twice to make sure it was closed. After, I retrieved the remaining piece of hair from between my teeth and rested it on the doorknob.

That done, I walked over to the elevator.

Once upon a time, this had been an open space, but I’d had an entranceway built so that I didn’t walk straight into my apartment from the elevator anymore.

Over the past year, I’d learned that giving home invaders an extra workout, even if it only took ten minutes for them to get through the door, was ten minutes in my favor to either arm up, aim for the safe room, or to head to the helicopter pad and leave the building via the fire exit.

A short ride later and I was in the lobby when I saw the car idling outside.

The doorman greeted me softly, to which I nodded without making eye contact. The last thing Denny needed was the US government looking at him askance because I’d been friendly with him.

Knowing their incompetence, they’d try to figure out if I was using Morse code with my eyelashes to give him a message or something.

Making a mental note to apologize for being rude if I made it back home, and figuring Denny would forgive me if I disappeared forever, I headed for the back seat and climbed in.

As the doors locked around me, I merely faced straight ahead as the car pulled from the curb and eased into traffic.

“Don’t you want to know where we’re heading, Mr. O’Donnelly?”

The query came ten minutes into the ride from the gloomy shadows beside me.

The voice was younger than Riggs’. Female. Accent-less and uninteresting with it, aside from the soft trace of amusement in her words.

My brow furrowed. “Why would I be interested? It’ll be another beige-on-beige room in a beige-on-beige office space in a random skyscraper in the city.”

“Not tonight, Mr. O’Donnelly,” the woman informed me, her tone sly. A croon almost.

“I guess I’ll find out when I get there,” I dismissed, but I turned my face to stare into the darkness where she was sitting. “Do I know you?”

A soft chuckle was her only answer. A glow from the streetlights flashed into the backseat, illuminating a part of her face.

As she turned to look at me, I got more of a glimpse of her features, but I didn’t recognize them. I did, however, see that she’d held out her hand for me to shake.

When I reached out, she murmured, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. O’Donnelly.”

“The pleasure’s mine, Agent…?”

“Black.”

“Agent Black,” I repeated. “And where are we heading if it isn’t some innocuous building the NSA has set up for me tonight?”

More of that odd humor laced her words as she drawled, “Langley.”