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Whatever I’d expected her to say, it wasn’t that. “Everything I talked about on the ride over, it wasn’t to make you feel bad.”
“The truth hurts,” was her only comment.
“It does,” I agreed. “But it wasn’t to make you feel shitty. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do. I think that’s what brought me to that realization though. If I were you, I’d have me in your crosshairs by now. I wouldn’t be kissing you.”
“Then we’re fortunate that I’m a more generous person than you, aren’t we?”
She huffed and angled her head to the side, disconnecting us. “Stop joking around.”
“I’m not,” I countered calmly.
“I-I think I know what you want when you talk about atonement.” She bit her lip. “And it makes me feel weird.”
I let our foreheads kiss again. “What makes you feel weird?”
“I know that I could have lost you.” Her chin trembled and that vulnerable gesture paved a path directly to my heart. Star wasn’t one for emotional displays like that, small as it might be. “I-I never want to lose you, Conor,” she repeated, and I believed her.
I really, genuinely did.
I fought the urge to make everything better, to soft-soap this so she didn’t worry, and, instead, went with the truth. “Why didn’t you just come to me, Star? We could have worked things out together.”
She released a heavy breath and I knew, knew, that she truly did understand what I meant when I talked about atonement.
It wasn’t something as simple as her saying ‘I’m sorry.’ Nor was it a matter of time healing all wounds.
It was an attitude shift for her.
That was the only apology I’d accept.
No more acting like she was an island. No more making decisions on her own without conferring with me.
We were a team.
Nothing less would do.
“I needed to draw Dagda out. Only prime bait would work. I knew you’d make me choose a different path and I…” She scrunched up her eyes. “God, I wanted him gone, Conor. I had blinders on.
“My to-kill list is a mile long, and no matter what happened to me, once I knew he was behind her death, he was always at the top of my most-wanted list.
"After you killed Michael, I realized what part the First Lady played in everything and I knew I had an in. Your father was collateral damage, I guess.
“I didn’t like him, didn’t like what he did to you, didn’t even approve of how he treated your brothers, so I guess I just reasoned it in my head that none of you would care that much.” She swallowed. “Then I saw you in the graveyard.”
I tensed. “You were still watching?”
“Cin tried to get me to leave, but… I just couldn’t.” She closed her eyes. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again and I couldn’t go, not when…”
I thought back to that day and the memory alone was enough to make me lock down.
I’d been the one to alert my brothers to a meeting between the First Lady and our da in Green-Wood Cemetery. I’d been in Jersey, West Orange to be precise, trying to find more intel on Star’s disappearance, but even though I’d raced to Brooklyn, I’d been too late.
He’d died with my brothers around him, but I had been too fucking late.
“I’ll never understand why you do the things you do,” I rasped. “But I got an insight into it today because of Troy.”
After what her soldier buddy had shared, I believed I knew her better. Understood her more than ever before.
