Page 268 of Lodestar

“No, it isn’t. But I didn’t take you for a professor in philosophy, Star. You have found Aleks’ killer, I assume, and you know them?”

“I know that her hands were tied.”

Once again, silence sounded down the line, but this time, it was loaded.

“Jorgmundgander,” he drawled eventually.

“Yes.”

“And you know her?”

“She’s a massive pain in the ass, but I do know her, and she’s good people.”

“Jorgmundgander only recruited criminals.”

“Most people in the life are half-criminal. Depends on who you ask. You speak with the average citizen, me going around killing people shouldn’t be legal, yet here we are.”

He grunted. “What happened?”

“It took uncovering the details of Belyaev’s death to learn the truth about your son’s. Through Belyaev’s, the operatives in question told us who worked on Aleks’ and we were able to track her down.

“The sniper in question lived in Stamford. We approached her because we had intel that suggested Lyra escaped her father’s car after the crash and then waded into traffic. We wanted to know if she had any idea where the child had gone.”

“She wasn’t in the system?”

“The source of our intel claimed that Jorgmundgander tried to clean house and uncovered nothing.”

“They wanted the child dead?” A throb of anger rippled through his words. A throb that gave me hope for the next phase in our plan.

“They did,” I confirmed.

A rumble of Russian was snarled into my ear, one that spoke of outrage and grief and disgust.

“No better than animals. Lives mean nothing to the Sparrows. They never have. That is why they are at odds with us?—”

Because I didn’t need to hear the Union’s manifesto, I interrupted, “Jorgmundgander isn’t as neutral as you thought.”

“No, it would appear not if the Sparrows are using them as a personal army.”

“I have a favor to ask.”

“A favor when you are already attempting to deny me justice in the form of my son’s killer’s death?”

My mouth tightened. “This is a form of vengeance. A form of justice.”

“What is?”

“Jorgmundgander needs to be shut down.”

“On this, we can agree. I will see that it is.”

Conor’s head whipped to the side and the look he sent me was of pure gratitude.

He knew why I’d done it. Not because of justice. Not even for Kuznetsov’s vengeance. But for Eoghan.

“Thank you,” he mouthed, the rawness in his eyes making me duck my head away while resting my hand on his lap so our fingers could knot together.

I was coming to realize that that wasourthing.

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