Conor: Gold doesn’t tarnish.
Finn: Pedantic pain in my ass. But even though you are, you deserve to have whatever you want. Do you want Star?
Conor: I do.
Finn: Then you should definitely go to her.
Finn: Tell me what happens?
Conor: I will.
Conor: How’s the house hunt going?
Finn: Fuck off.
Conor: Just thought I’d remind you that you ain’t perfect.
Finn: Didn’t need that reminder.
Finn: Look, you were the one who told me she’s yours. So why the fuck are you dicking around? Get on with it, Kid.
**Four days later**
Finn: Have you gone to see her yet?
Conor: I’m busy. I haven’t had the chance.
Finn: Bullshit.
Conor: It isn’t bullshit.
Finn: It is.
Conor: It isn’t! Didn’t you hear about those death threats Savannah received?
Finn: What? No!
Conor: It was bound to happen. She’s pissed a lot of people off. Junior’s going ape shit.
Finn: I’ll call him. I get that you’re busy, Con, but go to her. What do you have to lose?
Fifty-Eight
Conor
A week later
“Where the hell are you, Lodestar?” I grumbled under my breath as I tried to send her another message.
I knew she’d been working on dismantling the Sparrows’ massive funding network, and over the last few weeks, since Savannah’s initial press release which exposed Lodestar’s findings, bank accounts associated with the secret society had been handed over to the US Attorney.
But ever since our last video call when she’d opened her belated Christmas gift, she’d gone silent.
I’d scoured her usual hunting grounds, trying to see if I could find a trace of her, but she was quiet.
Stone-cold quiet.
She was a deadly weapon shaped like a female, but that didn’t mean she was bulletproof.
If Savannah was getting death threats, maybe she was too.
Maybe she was already dead.
My fear meant that I’d been less productive than I should be.
The program that was running double speed to filter through the thousands of hours of recordings from across the Five Points had targeted conversations that I needed to listen to, but I’d been ignoring them.
My concern was for Lodestar.
We hadn’t argued since before that video call, so I knew she wasn’t mad at me. She’d even said she liked the gift, so it wasn’t that.
All this was why I was making the drive to New Jersey.
Brennan and Declan were right.
She wasn’t on Angel One.
She was in West Orange.
Just a drive away.
And Finn was right too.
I deserved more.
I deserved to have a future with the woman I wanted without my past fucking shit up for me.
Approaching another faction’s territory wasn’t a smart move, but where Star made me stupid, I wasn’t smart. She did something to me, made my life easier somehow even though, case in point now, she made it harder too.
With her in my world, I worked harder and attained more. She kept me on my toes. Reminded me that you had to earn perfection.
She made me laugh; she got me mad.
She was my equal.
My balance.
Without her, everything was more difficult. Sleeping was harder. Eating was no fun.
Was this what love felt like?
It was inconvenient.
So far, I’d only experienced the good side. The bad hurt.
When I made it to West Orange, I knew I had two options.
I could go to the Satan’s Sinners’ MC clubhouse or I could go to Lily Lancaster’s home.
After the clubhouse was bombed, the incident in which Star had gotten her injuries, she and Kati had moved in with Lily—one of the brothers’ Old Ladies.
The clubhouse had been reconstructed, and the brothers had moved in back at the start of the year.
I knew she still lived with Lily so that Kati’s sister could be nearby, but it was the daytime. It was likely she’d be at the compound.
There’d be more politics if I went there first though.
Deciding Lily Lancaster’s house was the smart move, I pulled up her address in Google Maps and used the GPS to take me to her mansion.
Her father had been a Sparrow, and it seemed as if he and Da aspired to the same architectural tastes of overdone and gaudy because it was clearly an expensive property that stood out like a flashing lighthouse in the dark.
When I made it to the gates, my tricked out vintage Mini Clubman was scanned by the security systems, and then a voice sounded at the intercom.
“Who is this?”
“My name’s Conor. I’d like to speak with Lodestar.”
There was a hesitation, then a, “One moment, please.”
It was more than a moment. It was several. But I didn’t bitch about it, just waited, even as my phone suddenly lit up with a couple notifications.
Hoping it was Star, disappointment hit me when I saw it was from my program.
Three red alerts.
Slipping in an AirPod, I picked out the recordings that had triggered an alarm then frowned when I heard my father’s voice.
“Wondered when you’d deign to pick up the fucking phone, Elizabeth. Didn’t realize it would take nearly six goddamn months.”
“I have more important things to be doing than speaking with mobsters,” the woman sniped.
“So why did you decide to call me back?”
She hesitated a second. “You heard that Eamonn Keegan is out?”
“Old news. He’s been sighted in New York though. Your husband’s immigration policy really is as weak as they say it is.”
That was when I had confirmation exactly which Elizabeth he was talking to.
The First Lady.
A hiss escaped her at the insult. “Michael’s gone missing.”
She’d only just found that out?
Confused, I waited for Da’s reply.
It was a belligerent: “And?”
“What do you mean, ‘And?’” she snarled. “You’re supposed to protect him.”
I arched a brow at that revelation.
“How the hell am I supposed to save him from cancer? If the bastard discharged himself to go and slit his wrists in private, well, he did the world a favor, didn’t he?”
“You’re a heartless bastard, Aidan,” Elizabeth growled. “You didn’t have any men guarding him?”
“Not my job.”
“You made a deal.”
Just when shit was starting to get interesting, I heard the crackle of the intercom, and I pulled my AirPod away from my ear to stop the recording.
“Who is this?”
“My name’s Conor O’Donnelly.”
“Of the Five Points’ O’Donnellys?”
“Yes.”
I arched a brow at the formal question, but for whatever reason, that had the gates opening.
As I started the engine, I drove down a manicured lane that was obsessively neat and found myself approaching the house where a slender woman was waiting in the driveway. Her blonde hair bobbed around her shoulders as she stepped over to my car once I’d parked.
“I’m Lily Lancaster,” she greeted, leaning over to speak with me through the driver’s window.