Page 358 of Lodestar

Ma smiled but it was Paddy who explained, “Quite literally. Back in the old country, the Donnghals were Robin Hoods of what’s now County Kilkenny.” He raised his wine glass to his lipsand took a deep sip. “That comes from the hand of some English noblewoman that our ancestors held up on the road to Dublin.”

Star grinned. “So I’m wearing stolen loot? Why does that make it a hundred times better?”

“Because you’re weird,” I told her with a wink.

"So, the cameo isn't an O'Donnelly?"

"Nope. One of our victims," I mocked.

“Aidan made our family as rich as it is, but we always had good jewels from those days. It’s how our great-grandfather started the property empire. He sold them off as collateral for loans until we started being able to pay them in… other ways.”

“What you’re saying is you’ve always been crooks?”

Aidan agreed with a chuckle, “I think that’s what Paddy’s saying, Star.”

“The question is whether you’re okay with that,” Brennan rumbled, his voice deep with suspicion. “Seeing as you were an alphabet.”

“Iaman alphabet,” Eoghan retorted, stabbing his fork into a piece of chicken with more force than was necessary for a breast as succulent as what Ma roasted. “You got a problem with my loyalties,deartháir?”

Brennan narrowed his eyes. “That’s different.”

“Is it?”

As Eoghan and Brennan engaged in a battle of wills, Ma murmured, “Which agency were you with, dear?”

I grimaced at the term of endearment but Star merely replied, “I was with the CIA. Recruited from the Army and sold into slavery by the same alphabet agency, so you can rest assured that I owe them no loyalties.”

Ma’s mouth gaped a little, but it was Brennan who cut her a look. “This could be a double-blind.”

“Would you like to see my scars, Brennan?” Star quipped, and warily, I studied the fork in her hand.

“Brennan,” I warned, but it was too late.

The fork was there, buried in the antique mahogany between Brennan’s pointer and middle finger. The metal quivered in place from the kinetic energy thrumming through it.

Eoghan chuckled. “You deserved that.”

Victoria croaked, “Did you miss on purpose?”

“Star rarely does things without purpose,” I informed her with a smile that I hoped was soothing.

“Is that supposed to reassure me that you’re trustworthy?” Brennan drawled, moving his fingers out of the way of the makeshift weapon.

“It is actually. You should see what she did to her grandfather.”

Ma released a shocked gasp that morphed into a bark of laughter. She slapped a hand to her mouth to cover it up, but it was too late for that—I’d already seenandheard it.

“You did that to your grandfather?”

Inessa’s question was drowned out by Savannah’s, “Who the fuck is your grandfather and why have I never met him?”

Somehow, that set the tone for the rest of the meal.

Brennan, less suspicious than before but still wary, had even laughed a few times at Savannah and Star’s bickering.

Later, when we were leaving—everyone apart from Paddy, of course—Ma grabbed my hand. “I like her.”

“I could tell.”

---