Page 369 of Lodestar

That had me blinking. “What does the one-time head of the Sparrows dying have to do with you getting brownies for life from Finn?”

“We had a bet on when he’d die.”

“You should have said. I’d have asked Troy?—”

“Nah. We agreed we wouldn’t manipulate the outcome.” He stretched his arms out in front of him. “Feels good knowing that the bastard’s dead?”

I hummed. “Someone gave him a cyanide capsule. Wonder who was behind that.”

“How very Nazi Germany of them.”

My lips twitched at his dry humor. “You’d be surprised how many spies still carry them around.”

“Death before dishonor?”

“No. More like death before waterboarding. I didn’t mind waterboarding. Not my idea of a good time but?—”

He gaped at me. “You’ve been waterboarded?”

“Of course.”

“Of course?” he screeched.

“Part of training,” I tried to appease, seeing his distress was real.

“Wedid that to you?”

“Prepares you for the worst.”

“Yeah, sounds like it if agents are still carrying cyanide pills around with them.” He rolled his eyes. “I swear you’re going to give me a heart attack before we’re done.”

“When will that be?” I half-teased, but a wariness had filtered into the words which was a direct result of today’s interactions with Minerva.

Everyone left me, after all.

Why should he be any different?

“‘Til death do us part,” he murmured, the saying purposeful.Meaningful.

I swallowed. “I think I can handle that.”

“Good.”

And that was the end of that conversation.

24

CONOR

GETTING NOWHERE - JOHN LEGEND

A quick investigationinto Tryn Bowen let me know his poison of choice—guns.

In the Four Horsemen hierarchy, a gang that I’d heard of but had never bothered to learn more about as our ties weren’t UK-based, he was the Declan of the Four Horsemen family.

Azrael Shaw dealt drugs, Edwin Carsten handled their prostitutes, and Cole Flyn managed the protection racket.

Each ‘owned’ a quarter of London, separating the boroughs between them, though their umbrella corps—the guns, drugs, prostitutes, and protection racket—spanned the city.

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