“It isn’t as easy as that,” Conor claimed.
“I’m not saying find out her motives, I’m saying trace her steps. See where’s she’s been. According to you and the bullshit you spew, once it’s on the net, there’s no escaping it. It will always come back to bite you on the ass.”
Conor rolled his eyes. “Unless you have a very skilled brother who can hide things for you.”
“Yeah? Shame we don’t have one of those then, huh?” Brennan countered, but his eyes danced. He was the hardest on us, to be fair, but if there was a brother who always had our backs? It was Bren.
My lips twitched, but I didn’t follow through with the laugh.
“Okay, less of the arguing,” Aidan groused, rubbing his temple. “I ain’t got the patience for it.”
“Leave you fuckers alone for ten minutes and you get beer and start bitching?”
I shot Finn a look as he strolled over with Jacob on his hip and a beer in the other hand. “Like you weren’t taking advantage of Ma watching Jacob.”
His lips cocked up in a smirk. “Trust me, you have to make the time when they’re this young.”
I grimaced. “I hate kids.”
“Ignore him, Jacob,” Finn told his kid as he hitched a leg, kicked it over the bench and took a seat on the picnic table with us. “He’ll like you when you can shit autonomously.”
“I make no promises.”
Finn rolled his eyes, took a sip of beer, then asked, “What are we moaning about?”
“The hacker I was telling you about, Finn.”
Conor and Finn worked together. Both of them were heavy into the Five Points’ finances, and bounced off one another on a daily basis.
Finn pulled a face. “What’s she called again? Lonestar?”
“Lodestar,” Conor corrected. “She’s a pain in the ass. Brennan wants to see what she’s been doing up until she decided to target Eoghan.”
“What made me the lucky one, huh?” I groused, but I didn’t really care. No one could touch us, not with as many Feds, cops, politicians, and attorneys on our payroll.
We altered reality, and no one would question it.
“Must be that ugly face of yours,” Finn retorted, but he shot Conor a considering look. “Did you talk about what you wanted to do?”
“No.” Conor shrugged his shoulders. “These fuckers were too busy griping at me—”
“Get on with it,” Aidan snapped, and his tone wasn’t the least bit playful.
We all stared at him, long enough for his pasty features to blanch a little more. “Headache,” he muttered.
“And we know why,” Brennan retorted. “Fucker. When are you going to admit—”
“Don’t go there,” Aidan growled, his arms bunching like he was getting ready to start swinging his fists. “I don’t need your shit.”
“Don’t you? Who the fuck did you call when you were puking—”
I slammed a hand on the picnic table. “Enough. Aidan, we all know you’re suffering, man. But the only way we can help you is when you decide to stop being so fucking stubborn. Now, Conor, what did you have in mind?”
Conor, while my elder brother, usually deferred to me on this shit, and he hunched his shoulders after glancing at Aidan, and mumbled, “That we bring her in.”
“You know where she is?” Declan asked, brow cocked, even as he switched his gaze between Conor and Aidan. Our eldest brother looked like a deflated balloon.
Not because of the confrontation, but because, evidently, by the end of the day, whatever he’d used to prop himself up to get through the meal was starting to wear off.