That guy had not been there to freak her out.
He was there to do a lot worse to her.
Boone felt his skin begin to itch.
“Ryn is not your sister or your attorney,” he said in a voice he barely recognized, it was vibrating audibly, and he could feel that in his throat as the words came out. “She’s nothing to you.”
Cisco shook his head and Boone didn’t miss the fact that he did not agree that Ryn was nothing to him.
He said, “I’ve given you what you need. You know what’s happening. You know how desperate men like this can get. Now you need to run with it.”
“Are you saying that man was at Ryn’s today to kill her?” Boone asked.
“I’m saying, after what they did to Corinne, I’m not taking any chances.”
Boone sucked in a breath.
Hawk moved in. “Now that you’ve said all that, tell us what you aren’t saying.”
“You have what you need.” Cisco leaned forward. “Run with it.”
“Is it just Mueller and Bogart?” Hawk asked.
Cisco looked to Mamá.
Everyone looked to Mamá.
“I am not in this,” she said.
“Mamá,” Hawk rumbled.
She leveled her eyes at him. “I’m not in this, Cabe. I don’t need the attention of bad cops.”
“What do you know?” Hawk pressed.
“I won’t repeat myself, vato,” she replied.
“It’s bigger than Mueller and Bogart,” Hawk surmised.
She shrugged.
It was bigger.
Mamá Nana was scared of nothing.
Untouchable.
It wasn’t just her bodyguards and the loyalty of her community that made her that way.
It was people like Hawk, who was hers by circumstance of birth. Or Kane Allen, the ex-president of the Chaos MC, who was hers because she did him a massive solid, the kind of marker that could never be repaid. Not to mention the dozens like them she’d collected along the way.
And bottom line, the woman simply had huge balls.
But she was scared of this.
“Right then, you,” Hawk said to Cisco. “Are there more? How many are there? And who are they?”
Before Cisco could reply, Mamá broke in.
“I took a risk, having this meeting,” she stated.
Fucking fuck.
“If they find out you were here, and Brett was here, their target would be me,” she finished. “You need peace amongst you, Cabito, so Brett can clear his name and you can hold safe this girl you protect.”
“My boys and I cannot do our work without knowing the full picture, Mamá,” Hawk told her, and Boone could tell by the tone of his voice he was losing patience.
“And do you think Brett is keeping this information to himself because he wishes to be difficult, or perhaps remain in hiding for a longer period of time?” she shot back. “There are things you must find for yourself, mijo. It cannot come from me and it cannot come from Brett. If it does, they’ll know and Brett will no longer be wanted for a crime he didn’t commit, he’ll be hunted to be put down. And I will lose everything.”
Hawk had no reply to that.
Though everyone in the room knew that Mamá Nana losing everything not only meant a good woman being pulled down, but a lot of other people losing hope and that could not happen.
And Boone felt his gut sinking because this was clearly a fuckload bigger than they thought it was and it wasn’t good to start with.
“Brett should not have kidnapped your women, though he could not know that would put them in the line of fire.” She turned to Cisco. “Apologize for that, querido.”
And it sucked, but Boone had to give it to the man.
Cisco didn’t hesitate before he said, “You know I’m sorry about that. Now, more than I was before. But I was in a bind.”
“Ryn isn’t a fan of sleeping alone, especially now this shit is going down, because you were in a bind that got her into a firefight in the parking lot of a mall,” Boone reminded him.
“And I’m sorry about that too,” Brett said, and the look on his face said those words were no lie.
Fuck.
When someone apologized, and meant it, like this guy just did, you were screwed.
Even if he couldn’t push that, he pointed out, “And she was holding it together when I left, but a man was shot dead when she was hiding in the bathroom, so my guess is, she’s not gonna be good with sleeping alone for a long fuckin’ time.”
Cisco flinched before he muttered, “I’ve been wanting to ask how she’s taking things.”
“You’re not the only shit she has to deal with in her life, just that, today, you’re the worst of it and we can say her morning didn’t start off real great.”
He nodded knowingly. “Her brother and his ex.”
Jesus, how much did Ryn share with this guy?
And now Boone was getting a new sinking feeling.
Because maybe she was something to him.
But the only people who could know that were…
Before Boone could finish that thought, Mamá cut in.
“In all of this, you’re missing something, Cabe,” Mamá noted.
“I’m not,” Hawk replied. “They left his brother alone.”
She inclined her head.
Hawk hadn’t missed that.
But Boone did.
Fuck!
They were going after women.
They didn’t go after Cisco’s brother.
They went after his sister.
And after she was out of reach, they went after Corinne, not the brother.
They didn’t kill Corinne Morton’s husband as a message to Corinne, and through her Cisco.
They killed Corinne.
Now with Corinne gone, they were after Ryn.
Not the brother.
“Why are they targeting women?” Hawk pushed.
“Maybe because a man like Brett will think another man can handle himself, but he’ll do quite a bit to protect a woman,” Mamá answered.
It was whacked, but now Boone was beginning to like this guy.
Mamá continued, “But more likely it’s because they don’t like women. Especially not ones who hold power, influence or know their own minds. Men like that, I don’t understand how they work. I also don’t want to. And neither does Brett. At this point, it’s important to point out, Brett is not instigating. He’s responding. Take that into account, Cabe.”
Hawk gave her a chin lift then asked, “We’re not going to get any more, are we?”
She slowly shook her head.
Hawk (and Boone) looked to Cisco.
He shook his head too.
“Then we’re gone,” Hawk murmured.
On that, Hawk went to Mamá and bent to kiss her cheek.
When he pulled away, she lifted both hands and patted him on his cheeks.
Boone wished the circumstances were different, because as it was, he couldn’t give Hawk shit about that.
There was a lot of shifting around to get out of her little kitchen, but once they were on the back stoop, Hawk ordered, “Rendezvous at the office.”
“I need to get back to Ryn,” he told his boss.
“Mo’s got her. Rendezvous at the office,” Hawk said. “You can go to her after we debrief.”
They all had shit to do that day, and Hawk had clients that were paying them to do it.
But in that moment, they went to their vehicles in order to drive to the office, doing it on the lookout. They did this even though Mamá’s soldiers would be stationed in a way that no one would see them, but if someone was there watching that shouldn’t be, Mamá would have known before they walked out the back door.
As Boone drove, he debated who to call to check in on Ryn, Mo…or Ryn.
He picked Ryn.
She answered the phone on the first ring.
“Hey.”
“How you hangin’ in?” he asked.
<
br /> “Lottie’s here. So’s Pepper and Hattie.”
Her girls were there.
Good.
“You call off for Smithie?” he asked.
“Why would I do that?” she asked back.
Boone didn’t know how to answer considering the answer was obvious.
“Boone, I need money to flip that house,” she reminded him.
He could share that she also needed to be breathing to flip that house, but he did not.
As far as she knew, Cisco’s shitstorm had meant that she’d had an attempted intruder.
Not something worse.
He had to figure out if he was going to share that and flip her out more, but she’d be safe because she’d be cautious, or be double cautious for her and keep her safe from that information.
He let the Smithie thing go and said, “We’re done with Cisco and I gotta meet with Hawk. Then I’ll come to your place.”
“What did Brett say?”
“I’ll fill you in when I see you,” he evaded. “Now, I gotta go, sweetheart.”
“Okay, be safe.”
“You too. Later.”
“Later.”
They hung up and Boone turned the conversation with Cisco and Mamá around in his head the rest of the way to the office.
He thought he had something by the time he got through the door and was keen to talk it out with Hawk and do that immediately, because if he was right, they had another problem.
A big one.
And what he meant in that “they” included Cisco.
And now, Mamá Nana.
But mostly, it involved Kathryn.
However, he did not talk it out immediately with Hawk.
This was because Mag and Auggie were already there, he knew Axl was right behind him, caught at a light that Boone made, but also Jorge was huddled with them standing outside the conference room.
And so were Hank Nightingale and Eddie Chavez.
This wasn’t bad, as such.
What was bad was that expressions weren’t annoyed, frustrated and alert.
They were annoyed, frustrated, alert, wary, troubled.
And pissed.
“What’s happening?” he asked, joining the huddle.
Hawk, as usual, didn’t sugarcoat it.
“We got bad news and no good news.”
Boone nodded and did it bracing.
“They got an ID on the dead guy. Sex offender. A collar of Mueller and Bogart when they were partnering for the DPD,” Hawk said. “Paroled two months ago.”
Boone heard the door open behind him but didn’t turn to look at Axl as he walked in.
Sex offender.
They hadn’t picked someone to go in and scare her or beat her or even kill her.
They’d picked someone to go in and rape her.
Boone had tripped Bogart’s trigger, and maybe Ryn had too.
This was payback.
“Boone.”
Boone didn’t move because now his skin wasn’t itching, it was so tight all over his body, it felt like if he moved, he’d shatter.
“Boone!” Hawk clipped.
He came to and focused on his boss.
“Keep your shit,” Hawk ordered.
“I’m keeping my shit,” Boone lied.
“No, you’re not,” Hawk returned.
No, he wasn’t.
He wanted to kill somebody.
And he had two targets.
Boone stared into the man’s eyes and he did this for several long beats.
When he got his shit together, he jerked up his chin.
Hawk relaxed.
He heard Aug getting Axl up to date, but he kept his eyes on Hawk because he sensed his boss wasn’t done.
So he prompted, “And?”
“And Eddie and Hank went to go talk to Tony Crowley’s widow. She’s a vise.”
Slowly, Boone’s gaze went to Eddie and Hank.
“They got to her,” Eddie said. “She’s got kids. She was twitchy as fuck. Terrified we were there. Terrified we were asking about Tony. Terrified we were asking about Tony maybe investigating someone off the books.”
Hank picked it up. “Hawk called it in on his way from Mamá’s, and we made a call too. Cisco’s sister described her stalker to a sketch artist. Fits to a T a con Bogart nailed, but he alibied out on every incident she reported. So they couldn’t do anything.”
“Or the cops investigating didn’t want anything done,” Boone offered an alternate scenario.
Hank’s lips thinned.
“This doesn’t seem smart to me,” Mag stated. “Something’s wrong with it, because if they keep picking perps that Mueller and Bogart brought down, somewhere along the line, someone is going to connect the dots, say, like we just did.”
“It’d be a good way for the higher-ups to keep them in line,” Hawk noted.
“But they’re fools to allow it,” Boone replied.
“They might have no choice,” Hawk said. “It might not be them making those selections. It might be others making those selections, so in turn, Mueller and Bogart are puppets.”
That was true.
Boone decided to share what he put together on the way there because if he was right, it was crucial steps were taken…now.
“I think Cisco has a rat in his crew,” he stated.
“Worked that out, did you?” Hawk muttered.
And yeah.
Of course Hawk had already come to that conclusion.
“I called Mamá on the way here too,” Hawk shared. “She was pondering this same situation, how Ryn was suddenly a target, and the only person we know who knew Cisco spoke to her, how long he spoke to her, and how that might have gone down was Corinne Morton, and guys from his crew. It could have been Corinne who shared. But from what you reported happened when Mueller and Bogart questioned Ryn, they wouldn’t have jumped to that conclusion.”
Boone nodded.
Hawk continued, “Mamá is going to have a chat with Cisco.”
Mag had told him that when Ryn left Cisco after he’d kidnapped her, Cisco had hugged her.
And the wrong eyes saw it.
Boone was really going to have to have a talk with Ryn about befriending bad guys.
But this wasn’t the end to that, Mamá having a chat with Cisco.
He just couldn’t push it with Hank and Eddie standing there.
“What next?” Auggie asked.
“Slim and Mitch are trying to create a list of cops that might have been close to Crowley who he might have shared with,” Hank said. “Problem with that is that Crowley didn’t have a lot of friends, and considering what it’s become clear he was looking into, he probably was so paranoid, he didn’t share dick with anybody.”
“And if whoever is behind all this didn’t know already, they know now because they instigated it, they’re on my radar. So we can move a lot freer in looking into shit,” Hawk said.
No one asked how they were going to move a lot freer, mostly because Eddie and Hank were there.
Both cops understood this, probably dealt with this kind of thing with Lee Nightingale and his crew all the time, so they didn’t waste a lot of time saying good-bye and taking off.
When they were gone, Boone didn’t waste any time re-huddling with Hawk and the boys.
“I just shared in front of two of Cisco’s crew that Ryn got a call from Cisco admitting to conspiracy to commit murder,” he reminded Hawk. “Someone tells a cop that, a dirty one or other, they get a warrant from a judge to look into her cell records, she’s fucked.”
“Her cell records have already been altered,” Hawk said. “Any record of that call was erased.”
Boone felt his brows go up. “That was fast.”
“Hawk phoned me too, muchacho,” Jorge said on a grin.
Another reason all the guys depended on Jorge.
When he was given an order, he did not fuck around.
“Thanks, bud,” Boone replied.
“Don’t me
ntion it,” Jorge said.
“Now, assignments,” Hawk decreed. “We got business to see to and we also got this business to see to. I’m assuming you’re all in for overtime?”
Overtime didn’t mean money. They were all salaried.
Hawk meant they could tap out if they didn’t want to wade in.
The responses were immediate.
“Yep.”
“Yeah.”
“Yup.”
“Absolutely.”
The “absolutely” came from Mag.
Boone was seeing he was going to be paying for rounds probably for the next six months.
He didn’t mind.
And anyway, it wasn’t the first time.
“Right, then let’s sit down. We got shit to discuss.”
Again the response was immediate.
They all walked into the conference room.
Chapter Twelve
So, I’m Out
Boone
Boone made one detour before heading back to Ryn’s.
He went to visit Smithie.
He called ahead and was not surprised, when he hit Smithie’s office, to see Smithie’s nephew Dorian there.
Boone didn’t know Dorian all that well.
But what he knew, he liked.
And considering he had a feeling Dorian was behind the switch from titty bar to revue, he liked him better.
Needless to say, after Smithie lived through the antics of the Rock Chicks in their heyday, he was not real pleased to hear that Ryn was caught up in some dangerous business that had nothing to do with her but included her being the target of a sex offender.
Smithie did not blow and bluster.
After Boone ran it down, the man leaned back in his chair, looked to the ceiling and said, “Dear God. You got my devotion. I know I haven’t lived a blameless life. But I do not get it. I mean, the question has to be asked. What the fuck?”
God probably got asked that question a lot, though maybe not with that language.
One thing Boone knew, unless you paid attention to the signs, He rarely answered it.
Boone believed in God, but he was not a churchgoer. His mother was and every Sunday growing up it was Sunday school followed by being bored stiff through a sermon.
His dad, who did not go to church with them, put the kibosh on that when each of his sons turned fourteen, saying to his mother, “They’re nearly grown men now, woman. They gotta learn to make their decisions about a lot of shit, including how they worship.”
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