Page 575 of Lodestar

“It all hurts, Star,” I tried to reassure her. “You were starting to trust him.”

“Maybe I was to a certain extent. I wouldn’t have introduced him to Lyra if I didn’t think he was on our side, but when you’re undercover in the CIA, you pick up different levels of trust. He breached a few of those levels, sure, but I was always wary.”

“Sure you were,” I scoffed.

“No, I mean it,” she stated, not even a hint to her tone that she was being argumentative. “There’s a reason he hasn’t met Kat yet. So much didn’t add up but this does.” She sucked in a breath. “What hurts the most is that I’ll probably never find out what happened to my mom. Why did she have to die? Why didn’t he save her?”

“Why didn’t he save Aleks too?” I tacked on gently.

“Heirs usually matter,” she muttered, bewilderment coating the words. “I don’t understand his logic.”

“We don’t have to. We just need to take him down.”

I wanted to comfort her, but I knew in this there was no comfort to be found. The only thing that would make any of this better for her were answers. That was always her cure-all.

We were birds of a feather in that.

“What do you think we’ll find here?”

“Bear’s packet of information revealed enough to confirm that Temper needs to die, the Brothersareengaged in everything he said they were, and that I was right to kill Princes Edward and Ludwig and Ke Jintao.

“But I’m hoping that, here, we’ll find the means of bringing down the Brotherhood. Reinier said he had billions of dollars’ worth of blackmail material on clients, friends, and politicians.

"Everyone he came into contact with.

"It’s not enough just to eradicate the world of the remaining Kuznetsov. We need to tear down his empire too.” As the heavy nature of her words tumbled around us, she released a sad sigh then tucked her hand in my own. “Thank you, Conor.”

“What for?”

“This. Being here. I don’t have to be alone again.”

I squeezed her fingers. “You think I don’t feel the same way?”

“We’re birds of a feather, aren’t we?” she whispered, unknowingly mirroring my thoughts.

Tugging her closer, I rested my chin on the crown of her head for a couple of seconds. “We are.”

Ten minutes later, we found Reinier’s office.

That was when she got a text message.

Cin: The bitch died earlier than planned.

Star: You wanted to draw it out?

Cin: Wanted to keep at her with the questions. No success. I think she had a heart attack.

Star: Likely. Eagle Eyes used sodium thiopental on her.

Cin: That explains it. Shit.

Star: Did she answer any of your questions?

Cin: Said that she’d prefer to die than serve under you.

Star: She knew Anton wanted me for his heir?

Cin: Apparently. I got angry when she started talking about how she was the one who told Reinier you were suspicious of her. Thought you were going to rat her out as the double agent.

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