Chapter 27 Lodestar
LODESTAR
The world had the annoyingly irritating habit of continuing to spin even when, beneath my feet, it felt as if the ground had been demolished.
Climbing to the top of that goddamn skyscraper had been a two-pronged delight—I’d caught a cold as well as killed a murderer.
“Yo, you there?”
I grimaced. “I’m here, Cyn.”
Cyn, AKA ‘Dead To Me,’ was one of my closest friends.
If a woman like me could have friends…
“You sure you want me to keep on giving Laker a hard time?”
My grimace twisted into a grin. “I sure as fuck do.”
“Why?”
“Since when do we gossip about our jobs?”
“Since you asked me to do you a favor?”
“So I’m in your debt?”
“Forever and ever until kingdom come.”
“With the state of the world, who fucking knows when that’ll be. Hell, that’d just be the cherry on the cake, wouldn’t it? Going to all this fucking effort for nothing?”
“Sounds like the story of our lives.” Cyn paused. “You sound… shitty.”
“Snotty. That’s what I sound like. I caught a fucking cold doing your job.”
“Couldn’t be in two goddamn places at once, now could I?”
I huffed because that was her fault, not mine.
We all had a process, and part of hers was to send a goddamn gift bag with balloons tied to it, ‘Sucks To Be You’ embossed on the front. She’d gotten such a fucking rep now, though, that she had to deliver the shit herself.
The first couple delivery guys she’d used hadn’t been able to identify the real Cyn, but she’d burned a false ID in the process and the threat of being caught wasn’t a mistake she’d made again.
“You sure you got him?”
“I might not be the talent you are, but I’m still a fucking crack shot. Of course I got him. It’s not fucking right, sending snipers after snipers. It’s like a pig eating bacon.”
“It’s nothing like a pig eating bacon.”
“Yeah, it is,” I argued. “Cannibalism combined with that whole ‘no honor amongst thieves’ spiel.”
“Well, we can agree on that. My only consolation is that some of the fuckers I’ve been sent to take out are nasty pricks.”
“You’re certain you’re dealing with Eoghan O’Donnelly?”
“Sure as shit. He’s the Whistler. As for Eagle Eyes—”
“Yeah. I know. He’s with the Hells’ Rebels. He interests me less.”
“Why?”
“Because I have an active desire to keep most O’Donnellys alive?”
“Why?”
“What the fuck is this? Jeopardy?”
“You’re doing weird shit, Star. Weirder than usual. Illogical—”
“Nothing I do is illogical. I like to keep people on their toes. If they aren’t smart enough to figure that out, then that’s on them. Not me. And since when did you care about my illogical games, huh?” I muttered even as I sent out a text to Amara.
Me: Here’s Liliana’s location. Have fun.
Amara: This joke?
Me: I’m not laughing.
Amara: I will bring you back present.
Me: I don’t need a gift. Just give the cunt what she deserves. That’s gift enough.
Amara: Thank you, Star. I will never forget this.
My lips quirked. Amara might be a lunatic, but she was honest about her lunacy. I appreciated that in a person.
“Why do you want Hunter Lachlan to think he has a hit out on him?”
“To keep him contained.” I tutted. “Surely that was obvious?”
I checked my GPS tracker on Rachel’s car. She was heading to a meeting with O’Donnelly Sr. with a couple of the brothers. I was curious how that’d play out and intended on listening in.
I felt like a spider, spinning silk, turning small webs into bigger ones. Webs that spanned a nation.
That, given time, would span the world.
I took a hit of coffee from my mug as Cyn derided, “Nothing’s obvious with you. I just trust your intentions. Not your methods.”
“Why, Cyn, that might just be the kindest thing you’ve ever said to me,” I teased.
She made a barfing sound. “How am I supposed to help if I don’t know what’s involved in the plan?”
“The plan is convoluted.”
“The best ones are.”
I heard a soft shushing sound and realized she was rubbing her hands together.
That was the difference between her and me. She still enjoyed the subterfuge, the espionage. I didn’t. I was fucking tired. Of everything. The bitch of it was, my work wasn’t even halfway done.
Exhausted, I switched off my screen, wanting to take a break from the glare. With her in my ears, I tipped my head back and rocked in my desk chair.
The house was quiet for once; Kat was in school, Lily was out on her mission to make galas great again, Link was at his shop, and Tiff’s mom, the cunt, had gone to a doctor’s appointment.
As the silence sank into my bones, I visualized the plan.
Walking into Bear’s motel room had come as a hell of a shock to me. Not because some of the information wasn’t shit I’d learned a while back, but because he’d created a physical web that reminded me of my mental one.
His room conjured up the image of those kid’s outdoor play areas. The kind that were shaped like a pyramid, and ropes were tangled together to create a climbing frame for them to reach the top.
“Hunter Lachlan has to stay out of sight for the next month at least,” I mused. “Maybe longer.”
“Why?”
“The DA got one of the Camorra to turn rat. They’ll be making raids—”
“You’re saving him from arrest?” Cyn sounded disappointed that my maneuverings were for so basic a reason.
“He’s important.”
“Why is he?”
“The Camorra owns Vegas and a good chunk of the West Coast. His grandfather has more senators in his back pocket than the president. If De Laurentiis goes down for his crimes, Hunter will be the natural heir.”
“So you want a strong Camorra?”
“I do.”
“Okay. You really think they’ll be able to take down the Camorra Don?”
“I’ve listened to their interviews with the rat. There’s enough to Capone him, but the ADA on his case has a grudge against the family and he wants to bring him down on a host of charges. His hubris will bite him in the ass. A good defense will stop that from happening.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am. Hunter Lachlan’s footprints are mostly virtual, but this rat found out about a murder fifteen, sixteen years ago. Hunter was behind it.”
“Who’d he kill?”
I thought about Rachel. I thought about her fears and her hopes; shit she’d laid out for us all to see around that table in Lily’s pink room.
“The brother of the ADA leading the case.”
Cyn whistled under her breath. “So it’s personal.”
“Sure as fuck is.”
“Right, so, keep Hunter safe. Check.”
“More than that, keep him under the radar. He’s still in his apartment, right?”
“Apartment, more like a fucking stronghold,” she grumbled. “If the evidence is there, then it’s there, Star. You can’t save him from that.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Keeping him under the radar won’t stop that, either.”
“No, but De Laurentiis will work out a deal to spare Hunter. I can feel it in my bones. He’ll go down and sacrifice himself for his grandkid.”
“So… wait… the end goal you actually want is for Hunter Lachlan to be the next head of the Camorra?”
“Yup.”
She whistled again. “That way, you’re entangled with most of the East Coast Mob families and the West too?”
“Exactly.”
Cyn snorted. “You’re a shrewd bitch.”
“Aren’t you glad you know me?”
“Most of the time. Not always. You’re fucking mean with your intel.”
“Always here when you need me,” I demurred.
“Yeah, right. That’s why I had to find out from Rachel Laker that the First Lady’s in the fucking ECD.”
My nose crinkled. “I didn’t want you to know yet.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t want to compromise your loyalties.”
“She’s a fucking terrorist, Star.”
“Aren’t we all?”
She huffed. “My shit’s technically sanctioned by the government.”
I scoffed, “Which government?”
When she fell silent, I smirked.
Cyn double-crossed the double-crossers like a pro.
“That’s why you wanted to keep The Whistler safe? Because it would destabilize the Irish Mob?”
“Partly.”
Partly because a strong Five Points was a strong East Coast network, and partly because it’d have broken Conor’s fucking heart if his kid brother was killed.
The second I’d heard from Cyn what was going down, random jobs, each with snipers at the other end of her rifle, I’d been on red alert.
Going so far as to overcome my fear of goddamn heights to take out the threat when Cyn got stuck at Harry Reid because an unattended bag in Departures had housed an incendiary device.
“Star?”
“What?”
“You sound sick.”
“Going up that skyscraper didn’t help.”
“You should get some rest.”
“How can I? Got a lot of shit to do.”
I rubbed at my tired eyes but rest was for the weak. I needed to listen into the meeting between the Five Points and the Sinners, then I had to monitor the situation in Edgewater.
That bag of bones that had once been Kevin Sisson had disappeared then reappeared a week later.
The records had been tampered with, but whoever had made their moves had made it look like human error about which fridge the corpse had been stored in.
So, no, I didn’t have time to rest.
All that shit was at the top of my to-do list but the rest of that list made Everest look tiny.
Yawning, I mumbled, “Just keep Laker on her toes, okay?”
“I will. Anything in particular you want me to have her investigate?”
I shrugged even though she couldn’t see me. “Whatever you feel like throwing at her, throw at her. Just remember that she’s pregnant. Keep her stressed, but not enough to harm the baby.”
I was still pissed at her for threatening Kat. I had to punish her somehow.
Cyn snickered. “Star, are you turning soft in your old age?”
“Fuck off,” I grumbled.
“I will, I will,” she mockingly sang, making me roll my eyes.
“Are you in Vegas now?”
“Yeah, it’s hell. You owe me for this alone.”
I smirked. “I always repay my favors.”
“That’s the only reason I always come when you call,” she said with a sniff, then her tone turned somber. “I’m seriously starting to think that someone in the CIA wants the First Lady dead, Star.”
I was counting on it.
Just not yet.
I grunted. “Wouldn’t be much of a loss. The president though… I like him.”
“You would.” She heaved a sigh. “I gotta go.”
“Keep in touch.”
“Will do.”
As she ended the call, I thought about all the pieces I had out there on my great big chess board. Each of them was vital, and each could only be sacrificed or played in a particular order for my end game to be successful.
Hunter Lachlan at the head of the Camorra.
The head of the CIA disgraced.
Eamonn Keegan dead.
And, most important of all, the complete annihilation of the New World Sparrows, Old World Sparrows, and the Eastern Sparrows.
Only then would I have any peace.
Only then would I be able to have something I didn’t even know I’d needed five years ago when I’d set off on this journey—a certain Fecker in my life.