Page 512 of Lodestar

“What are you going to do with the women who are working in the brothel?”

“Rachel’s conferred with some women’s shelters to get them out of there, but it’s not going to be enough for long. We need our own shelters.

“We're planning the gala with that in mind now. She says that it isn’t sustainable for Lily Lancaster or me to fund everything.”

He grunted. “She has a point but that’s a lot slower route.”

“I know. She hasn’t turned our cash down yet, but we’re waiting for the facilities to get the appropriate licenses from the city.”

“Goddamn bureaucracy.”

“I’ve tried to grease the wheels as much as I can, but we’re to blame for how slow shit is right now. The government is whacked up on a local, state, and federal level because of our exposés.”

“Fuck.”

That about summed it up.

“She allowed Lily and me to fund the tip line. That was a battle but it was worth fighting.” Biting my lip, I asked, “Do you want me to sleep in another bedroom tonight?”

His gaze narrowed upon me. “Is that what you want?”

No. “I know I upset you.”

“I think that’s natural. Considering my past.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s hard to be frustrated with a loose cannon for being a loose cannon. Especially when I can imagine your mindset when you went through with this plan.”

“I did what I had to.”

“I know.” He blew out a breath. “Your resilience is something I love. Your strength too. But your propensity for utilizing collateral damage for your own gain is worrying.

“It’s not like you can say you’re a different woman now, not when this happened so recently, and it’s not as if I don’t fucking lovethiswoman.

“Aside from bringing me into your team, I don’t want you to change, Star. But I’m allowed to be mad, just as you are, and we can need space without it meaning that one of us has to sleep on the couch.”

When he tugged me onto the bed, I turned away from him and stared at the wall opposite where there was this weird piece of glass that, if you hit a button, would turn fogged or transparent so we could watch each other showering.

He had a lot of random shit in this apartment.

Anything from rooms that were thematic to interior design inspired by comics.

He was lucky I didn’t give a fuck what a room looked like so long as functionality was there.

“It also means that homemade soup won’t fix anything.”

“The soup wasn’t to butter you up,” I said flatly. “It was just to feed you. I don’t like it when you don’t eat or don’t sleep. It makes me worry.”

His hand smoothed down my arm and he grabbed my fingers, tugging me backward until we were lying flat, him down his half of the bed, me with my head resting on his abs.

Both of us stared at the ceiling for what was probably several lifetimes before the urge to make another confession hit me: “I can’t be ashamed of what I’ve done to destroy these bastards. I did what no one else could.Me. I worked on this when people thoughtsparrowswere just a breed of fucking birds.

“This was my fight. For years. I was alone. I had no one to rely on. Then I had you and you helped but I was still spearheading this. I had to use whatever resources were open to me to bring them down. I was incapable of doing anything else.

“Do I wish there’d been another way? Of course. But I had to fight fire with fire and the only kind of…” I decided to use his favorite word. “…atonementI can get is by doing whatever I can to bring the Sparrows’ victims home.

“I’m not going to change, Conor—whether you needed me to or not. I will always do whatever I have to for the people who matter to me. That includes you now.

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