Page 546 of Lodestar

“No. We were a big team back in those days and it was constantly fluctuating. Looking back, I figure that’s how they stayed under the radar. It’s only because I’m so paranoid that I realized something was going on.”

“What would be the gain for a double agent?”

“The Taliban was looting their own artifacts and there were foreigners stationed there during the war that smuggled them out of the country. That added up to alotof money being made.”

“Funding the war,” I stated, folding my arms across my chest.

“Partly.”

“And the two-timing fucker was a Sparrow?”

She flung her hands wide. “Why wouldn’t they be? Seems to me like you get any semblance of power in this fucking world and you get a choice—you wanna suck Brother or Sparrow ass?”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, I chuckled. “At least the Brothers are?—”

“What?” she demanded before I could finish that sentence. “What are they? For all we know they’re as bad as the Sparrows.”

My brows lifted. “Star, come on. I thought you accepted?—”

“I did,” she muttered, interrupting again. “But I’m telling you something’s not right, Conor. This organ trafficking shit…” She sucked in a breath. “Never mind what Reinier said about Anton.”

I tensed. “Reinier was dying. He’d have said anything to get under your skin.”

“He said I’d be a fool to trust my grandfather. He said he had information about him.”

“Where?”

“His estate in Florida. He claimed it was a secret. I thought he was lying to save his ass.”

“And now you don’t? I thought you trusted Anton.”

“Do you want to know what has never sat right with me?” she rasped.

“What?”

“A couple of things. Firstly, Mom.”

“What about her?”

“That she died. That he was powerful and she died and that he didn’t try to take me away from Dad, that he didn’t try to groom me as his next-in-line. He’s already offered me his position once he’s gone.”

“He had Aleks at that point,” I said cautiously. “Maybe he wanted a son as his heir.”

“See, your da was insane and the shit he did was bad, but I can’t deny that he was, in his way, a family man.

“If anyone had targeted his kids, they’d have died. Horribly. If they’d succeeded in killing his kids, then they’d probably have lived longer just to be tortured.

“I can get behind that mentality. It’s what I’d do for Kat. Anton had to know Dagda killed Mom. He had to know it was a Jorgmundgander sting.” She rubbed her chin. “I just can’t help but feel as if he led us down a gnarly path and because we were so busy being stuck in the middle of it, we couldn’t see past the noses on our faces.

“Why didn’t he stop it? Why didn’t he do something to save her?”

Wishing I had an answer for her, I rasped, “I don’t know, Star.”

And I didn’t, but that didn’t take away from the sorry truth of the situation—she was right.

Everything intensified from the center of a crisis. Looking outward and gaining perspective when bullets were being fired was next to impossible.

Even, it seemed, for someone of her experience.

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