I hated stonewalling.
Me: Even though I haven’t provided results yet?
Unknown: Results or not, they are scum and scum needs eradicating.
Me: Were you always going to create this department?
Unknown: It has been in the cards for the past two years. I saw little point when the public had no knowledge of the corruption in their governments, but now, it’s different.
Unknown: A department of this nature is costly. It’s only affordable if public outcry is strong.
Me: Which it is.
Unknown: Never been higher. Find me my granddaughter, Star. She lost her family, too, and she might be alone and has no need to be.
Me: I’m doing my best. I have to go.
Not wanting to accept that his words had worked their way into my conscience, I shoved my phone into my back pocket.
Seeing that Cin and Conor hadn’t returned from the armory yet, I headed through the family room and toward a smaller den where two teenagers and Katina were playingMario Kart.
Stepping over to her, I placed a hand on Kat’s shoulder. “Kat, I have to go out.”
“I don’t need to come, do I?”
My lips curved—she was back to being precocious. Thank God. “No. I’d hate to ruin your game.”
“I’m winning,” she preened.
“Keep at it, slugger,” I teased, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “I’ll be back later, okay? If they serve dinner without us, will you be all right?”
“She’ll be fine,” the girl, Victoria, assured me with a kind smile. “We already said we’re going to watch a movie after we’ve finished up here.”
Appreciating that they were including her, I returned the smile. “I hope you guys have fun.”
With a lingering look at Katina, who not once, had turned her gaze away from the screen, I left them to it, feeling better about abandoning her here when she’d already made friends with Seamus and Victoria. I knew she was more comfortable with older kids because of how many adults she spent her time with, and this just confirmed it for me.
Upon my return to the hallway, Cin was packing semi-automatics into one of two black duffel bags and Conor was slipping a gun into a holster on his shoulder.
My brows rose at the sight, mostly because that was hot as fuckandunexpected.
He smirked at me. “See something you like?”
“No, none of that,” Cin groused. “I’m too young for this kind of behavior.”
“You were talking about orgies earlier,” Conor grumbled.
“Yeah, I’m plenty old enough for that.”
Rolling my eyes at her, I ducked down and pulled open one of the bags, studying what we had. “We’re packing for war?”
“Prevention is better than the cure.”
“Not sure that works with weapons,” I mused.
“The Whistler’s here,” she prodded. “He’d be good to have on-site instead of hacker boy.”
“I want him guarding this place. Just in case. Plus, this isn’t his fight.”