Page 573 of Lodestar

D choked out a bitter laugh. “You’re trash. That’s what you are.”

Before they could start arguing, I rumbled, “Bear wrote me a letter.” She stiffened. “Said he had reason to believe that you fucked with a bunch of Chinooks so there was no support for the battle of Kembesh.”

I didn’t even need her to answer—I saw it in her expression.

Shehad.

I stormed over to her and kicked her in the head. “Youwere the double agent. I fucking knew someone was over there, screwing shit up, but I didn’t know it was you.”

“You’d be amazed how much you failed to notice,” she jeered even as she tried to shield herself from my attack.

Twisting her arm behind her back, I hauled her next to Reinier’s corpse and shoved her face into his guts which were split open from cuts and sores that had festered and torn apart.

“Why would you betray our brothers-in-arms like that? Is it because of Dost Mohamet Khan? Is that why?” She shrieked and heaved and retched until I dragged her away from the mess of empty pupae from the coffin flies in Reinier’s putrefying flesh so that I could hurl at her, “Answer me!”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Bullshit!” I rammed her face back into the corpse. “Tell me, Temperance. Fucking tell me.”

“YES,” she screamed, spitting out gore and pupae. “The Brotherhood was sending arms across the Pakistani border into Afghanistan. Dost Mohamet Khan was the only one who knew about our involvement. He was the go-between?—”

“All these years, I believed you were a fucking zealot. A patriot so short-sighted that…” D’s mouth worked. “How could you, Temper? How fucking could you?”

“Because sheisa zealot,” Conor growled. “But her morals are for hire.”

With that, I shoved her face back into Reinier’s guts. As she passed out with a mouthful and a noseful of Reinier’s rotting flesh, I turned to Conor who asked, “We head to the Floridian estate, then what?”

I sucked in a breath that was soaked with the flavor of death. “Then we make moves to take over the Brotherhood.”

“You make it sound so simple,” D drawled.

“He’s an old man. How hard can he be to kill?”

She fist-bumped me. “You deal with one treacherous old fuck and I’ll deal with this young one. Then we meet in the middle?”

“No.” I swiped at my hands with a wet wipe I retrieved from my go bag. “I think I’ll need you over in Europe.”

I reached for my cell as a thought occurred to me.

Me: What drug did you use on her?

Eagle Eyes: Sodium thiopental. You’re welcome lol.

Truth serum.

Mostly bullshit, but the anestheticdidlower inhibitions and made people chatty. That explained a lot.

“Star?”

I blinked at D. “What?”

“Europe?”

“Europe,” I confirmed.

She huffed. “Informative.”

“D?”

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