"They took my social media profiles away from me, but they were tied to the show anyway, and I already had my personal ones, so I’ve been using them as a platform. Trying to trigger change."
Sure, I sounded like every other Manhattan socialite at that moment, but when the chips were down, you had a choice to stand up and be counted or to lie down and die.
Which, surprise surprise, wasn't something I was ready to do just yet.
"Star, I mean you called her Lodestar, and I grew up together on the road..."
"What do you mean? Grew up together?" Aidan queried, frowning at me. He cast a glance at Conor. "Star is related to somebody from noxxious?"
I snorted. "Her dad was Gerard Sullivan. As much as I love my dad, everybody knows Gerry was noxxious. That’s why they changed their name after he died. Dad says the world is a shittier place for having lost him, so the group has to be as well."
"Why didn’t they just split up then?" Brennan asked, his brows high.
"They love the road too much. Love the life." I shrugged. "It’s not for everybody, but it’s all they know. All they’ve really done their whole lives. Anyway, the fans still want them. Dad played to a packed out crowd in the Hard Rock Stadium last Wednesday. Ninety thousand fans were there." I shrugged again. "They're still big."
Conor whistled under his breath. "Shit, I wish I’d been able to get tickets."
"I think if you help me, Dad will set up in that corner over there and play you any song you want if you ask him to."
The brothers chuckled when Conor staggered back and plunked himself down in an armchair opposite me. I had to smile, because he looked both shell-shocked and exhilarated. It was a bizarrely childlike expression on such a handsome mobster's face.
"I’m surprised your dad didn’t go apeshit at TVGM for firing you," Finn commented.
"He wanted to, but I stopped him." I sighed. "There have been rumors about him for years, how he treated groupies and things like that. I’m not defending him, and I’m certain he wouldn’t want me to. I think he knows there was a long time, when he was younger, that he was a jackass. Things changed after he met Mom. Had kids." I hitched a shoulder. "The second he says something, that’s the second one of his old groupies comes out and calls him a hypocrite.
"There is no advantage to him getting involved, especially as it wouldn’t have saved my job. Anyway, I’m a grown woman. I can handle these things on my own."
Brennan grunted as he folded his arms across his chest. "Yeah, it really looks like you’re handling things so well."
I squinted at him, and because I was feeling woozy, that was the only reason I didn’t jump to my feet, stalk toward him, finger proudly prostate as I prodded him in the chest.
"I saved myself tonight. Nobody else. An intruder not only managed to get into my secured building, but all the way into my apartment. I’m standing here, buddy. Maybe bruised and with a few cuts and sprains and a headache sent from hell, but I’m alive. Because I thought fast, because I can handle myself."
"Then what are you doing here?" Brennan retorted, wearing a smirk that I wanted to slap away.
Jackass.
"Brennan," Aidan growled, and even though it was ridiculous, I smirked at Brennan, oddly secure now that Aidan was sticking up for me.
Jesus, I guess I could’ve just blown a raspberry at him.
It wasn’t that Brennan was visibly affected by Aidan's comment, just that he was sticking up for me.
"I can handle my shit, but I know when things are over my head," I retorted. "Dealing with misogyny in the workplace is a little different than exposing a secret society to the world and fending off a murder attempt from a ninja assassin with a scar from here to here–" I pointed at the corner of my mouth and let my finger drift up to my eye.
Brennan scowled. "What did you say?" he demanded, his tone borderline angry.
What the hell?
Maybe another person would have been intimidated but I'd been raised on the road. Had seen rockstars blowing coke as well as each other before I hit the age of ten, and had been around a bunch of high motherfuckers who'd made Ozzy Osborne look tame.
That in mind, and headache as well as body aches be damned, I scowled at him, and as aggressively as him, snarked, "Are you hard of hearing?"
The brother beside him, Declan, snickered. "Yeah, Brennan, are you deaf?"
Brennan flipped him the bird, then to me, reiterated, "A scar from the corner of his mouth to his eyes. As in, a knife traveled the entire distance?"
I thought about the thick ridging and scars along my attacker's jawline, and slowly nodded. Now that I thought about it, I had no idea how that was even possible unless the knife was curved or something.
I'd seen crazier shit in my years, though. Had reported it too.
People were capable of horrendous things. Seemed like every year, the world just grew worse.
Because Brennan expected an answer, I told him, "Oddly specific, but, yes. I think so."
"What is it, Brennan?"
It was only when Aidan looked at his brother that I realized it was the first time he'd taken his eyes off me.
I felt the loss of his focus as if it were a whisper-like caress along the back of my neck.
"I'm coming across that more and more. Not scarred, though. They're fresh. They've never brushed up against our territory so I've kept an eye on them. To me, it was a case of ‘Not my monkey, not my circus.’ Plus, I knew they weren't in cahoots with the Famiglia so any dissent among the Italians was a bonus."
"Who are you talking about?" Conor sniped.
Brennan cast me a glance. "Should we talk in front of her?"
I almost scoffed at the derogatory way he said, 'her,' but Aidan replied before I could, "She knows far worse shit than you can imagine and has never gone to the cops. Have you, Savannah?"
It sounded like there was a smidgen of pride to his declaration, but if anything, it was a source of shame to me that I'd caved in to his demands.
I liked my legs attached and my brain not in a coma though... That was why I'd never gone to the cops.
"I haven't said dick to anyone."
Aidan tipped up his chin and when we stared at each other, I recognized something else.
Apology.
In the soft, rueful slant to his mouth.
Regret.
In the way he rubbed his forehead.
He'd used something I was ashamed of to instill a sense of trust in his brothers...
And he was sorry for it.
That shouldn't have impressed me as much as it did.
"You've met before?"
"Jesus, Declan, how fucking slow are you?" Eoghan groused. "Of course they know each other."
Declan gritted his teeth. "Fuck off, Eoghan. Can't you tell? They ain't—" His brow puckered. "Were you friends?"
Because that was so alien a concept?
Then, of course, I looked at Aidan and had to sigh.
Of course, it was.
Men like Aidan didn't befriend women.
They fucked them. Sneaked out in the middle of the night. Never called them again.
Men like Aidan were pricks.
Why did God have to make them so pretty?