Page 402 of Lodestar

“That’s why it’s impressive. The NSA are a bunch of robots.”

Thinking about Riggs made me grimace. “I can’t argue with that.” I cleared my throat. “Star’s given me access to your worm.”

Maverick snorted. “She likes that bit of kit.”

“Can’t blame her. It’s fucking effective.”

His lips twitched. “Not totally useless.”

“Useless?” I choked. “It’s the most destructive malware I’ve come across in years!”

Maverick went inside after ninety or so minutes of me praising his beautiful piece of coding and sharing the various ways in which I’d used it.

Afterward, I was left hovering around the edges of Lily Lancaster’s living room. I didn’t mind, not when Kat was enjoying herself and Star was having fun too—arguing with Rex’s Old Lady Rachel about only the fuck knew what.

As I stood there, looking over the house that had been bought and paid for with Sparrow blood money and ancestral funds from Lily’s mother’s family who was an American blue blood, I had to chuckle to myself at how full circle things had become.

The Sinners had only cropped up on the Five Points’ radar when Mary Catherine, my cousin and Sin’s half-sister, had fled her dipshit father’s notions of an arranged marriage with an older Pointer.

When her father had declared the Sinners had ‘kidnapped’ his daughter, Da had waded into the fray and had promised to bring her back.

That was when he’d learned she was married to a brother already—Digger.

They both lived in Ohio now, but they’d been the start of the ties that bound the Irish Mob to Jersey’s most notorious MC.

It seemed fitting that Star and I would tie all that shit together with a fancy bow.

“Star says only crazy people talk to themselves.”

I blinked down at Kat. “She talks to herself all the time.”

“She says sheiscrazy and that the best kinds of folk are.”That sounded like her variation of logic.She entwined a strand of hair around her finger. “Conor?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you braid my hair, please?”

Though I stared at the rat’s nest on her head, I only answered, “I’ve never done anything like that before, Kat.”

“Would you learn how to do it?”

Ah, Jesus Christ. “Now?”

“Star’s fell out already. One little cartwheel and it was in my face.” She leaned into me. “I don’t want to hurt her feelings though.”

“Since when?” I teased, knowing that bickering was their love language.

She giggled, and that sound warmed up a part of my heart that I didn’t even know was stone cold until she came along.

Inwardly wincing, I curved my arm around her shoulders. “I’ll learn but not to?—”

“Yay! I’ll go and borrow Alessa’s hairbrush!”

Before I could finish the ‘tonight’ part of that sentence, I heaved a sigh as she raced off to steal a hairbrush from her sister.

Sitting down on one of the benches in the hallway, I waited there, picking up my cell to find a ‘how to’ on YouTube.

As I watched, I inadvertently overheard a conversation between Star and Rachel, the MC’s First Lady.

---