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“True.”
“I’d do anything to make sure she never goes through even an inch of what I have.”
“Same.” She cleared her throat. “I appreciate you saying that though. It… concerns me.”
“Understandable.” With my eyes locked on Conor’s ass, I asked, “Who was your partner?”
“In Ohio? Useless piece of shit. Shot him myself afterward. Was worth getting an extra year added to my sentence.”
Typical Troy. “Who was he? A hacker?”
“I could hack better than him. His name was Dazzy.”
My brow puckered. “Never heard of him.”
“Not surprised. He was useless. I swear, half the trouble I got into in Ohio was his fault. Still, when I picked up Lyra, she stole my heart. Dazzy had to die. Didn’t matter if he was hot shit at hacking or a pile of crap. To save her, he had to go.”
If I’d needed proof of how much Troy loved her daughter, I had it. “How did you get out of Jorgmundgander?” was all I said.
“You don’t. You finish your time, know that they could call you up at any moment, and you deal with it. It helps that I’m not as good of a shot as I used to be because of my eye.” She grunted. “You can tell he doesn’t do this often, can’t you?”
I had to laugh.
Conor was taking an inordinately long time in filling up the SUV’s tank.
“Hates driving.”
“That’s why you made him take the wheel?”
My lips twitched. “It’s good to do things you hate sometimes.”
She snickered. “Life lessons according to Mrs. Lodestar.”
“I should have been a teacher,” I agreed.
A scoff was her only answer to that. Then… “You know who Belyaev was?”
I cast her a glance. Her expression was hidden by the depths of the backseat, but her tone was ominous, to say the least. “Conor looked into him. Said he was a front. You know differently?”
“He was a front. In a sense.”
“Meaning?”
“Remember the Romanovs?”
“I have a preteen daughter, Troy. I’ve seen Anastasia.”
“Yeah, well, good thing, seeing as Belyaev believed he was a direct descendant of the Romanovs.”
I hooted out a laugh. “So, he was a stoner, then?”
She chuckled with me. “Whatever we think, he believed it and he had others believing it too. He was a nasty fucker though. I wished I’d gotten his hit. Your…” Her tone sobered. “Your uncle seemed decent. It didn’t make sense that he was a Sparrow in all honesty.”
“Because he wasn’t. He was there for me. My grandfather told me that he was friends with Belyaev. Aleks knew that Belyaev had killed his wife and used that as a bargaining chip to further his ties with the Sparrows so they could find me.”
“Interesting.”
“Fascinating,” I drawled.
