“Because sometimes there’s a guy at the back making his presence known solely in order to flush you out the front. And it is not a good scenario to be freaked, thinking of nothing but escape, and doing precisely what they want you to do. Running right into a bad guy you do not expect to be there.”

No.

That would not be a good scenario.

I kept going.

“Would he have some reason to believe there would be someone at the front?”

“Those cops that visited you, there were two. So yeah.”

Fuck.

“How am I in the middle of this mess?” I asked.

“Because Cisco is a fuckwad.”

Hmm.

It was occurring to me that Mo was saying more words to me now than I think I’d ever heard him say in the entire time I’d known him.

As noted, he wasn’t unfriendly.

He was just not talkative.

“Don’t you have something better to do than look after me?” I asked.

“No.”

There was the knight’s vow, revolutionary’s speech and lover’s promise voice.

And it was then I realized I could no longer hack it.

“I think I’m going to freak out now,” I whispered.

Mo didn’t hesitate.

One second, that big mountain of a man was four feet away from me.

The next, I was in a tight bear hug.

I slid my arms around his thickly muscled waist and started shaking.

I also said, “I think it’d be good to call Lottie now.”

“Whatever you need.”

Yeah, these guys were really, really good guys.

And some random man got dead on my back deck for reasons I did not entirely understand.

And that was extreme.

So I knew only one thing in that moment, holding on to the mountain of Mo.

I was really, really lucky I had these really good guys.

Chapter Eleven

Mamá Nana

Boone

The asshole was twenty minutes late.

So even though not a one of them was in a good mood, Cisco fucking away their time made their moods significantly deteriorate.

Matters didn’t improve when Cisco walked into Mamá Nana’s tiny kitchen, two of his henchmen at his back, two of Mamá’s henchmen (or more accurately, one henchman, one henchwoman) at their back, to add to the two of her guys in the little kitchen with Boone and his crew (making space scarce), and he immediately said direct to Boone, “You left me no choice.”

“Is that a joke?” Boone asked.

“You left her alone,” Cisco returned.

Boone had no reply.

He had left her alone

But she was in her home.

She told him she wasn’t going to go work on her house. She was going to hang, try to get a nap in, and chill.

She was going to work on her house tomorrow.

Which would have given him time to arrange a man to be on her tomorrow.

As for that day, he was taking her to work later and bringing her home.

So in a sense, he thought she’d been covered considering he was unaware of how significant the threat was, most specifically because, boiling it down, she was entirely ancillary to all the shit swirling around Cisco.

A threat Boone now obviously knew.

It was next level, breaking into someone’s house, someone who had nothing to do with the shit swirling, in order to do them dirty.

He was not so far gone to his anger that he didn’t realize that was his fuckup.

He was also not so far gone that he wasn’t thinking rationally, including the fact that Cisco knew the depth of Ryn’s need for coverage, Boone did not, and Cisco had not thought to share that intel with him.

So something else was at play here and that had not been communicated to the man who was sleeping in Kathryn’s bed.

“There’s something you aren’t giving me that I need, and you knew I needed it, and Ryn faced a threat today unprotected because I didn’t have it,” Boone told him something he had to know.

Cisco actually looked guilty.

“I honestly didn’t think they’d use her,” he admitted. “I was just taking precautions.”

But a word he said made Boone’s gut tighten.

And he dug into that right away.

“Use her? For what?”

Cisco didn’t answer.

He looked to Mamá Nana, who was at the stove, frying empanadas.

She had her back to them, and she didn’t turn around when she murmured, “Mijo.”

Oh shit.

Mijo?

Boone got tight and he felt Hawk do the same beside him.

Cisco was white.

Mamá Nana was the most Mexican woman in Denver, and she worked hard for that title.

She was all about community, she lived it, breathed it and took care of it.

As far as anyone knew, she did nothing illegal.

But that didn’t mean what she did wasn’t dangerous.

And what she did was build such loyalty in her community by looking after them in big and small ways, doing this utilizing the proceeds of her other endeavors, they gave her what she needed to see to her other endeavors.

This being providing information for sale to the highest bidder and acting as a mediator in some tricky situations (like the one right there in her kitchen).

She had her finger so firm on the pulse of the city, she could bring down the biggest player in Denver (which explained her bodyguards).

Boone knew she could do this because she had.

Recently doing it by assisting in the takedown of Benito Valenzuela.

Not a surprise, considering Valenzuela came from her ’hood—direct from her ’hood—which she’d spent decades protecting, and he’d turned his back on it. But still a surprise because she’d sided with Chaos to do it.

A war between a Latino man and an all-white motorcycle club would usually be something she wouldn’t get involved with.

Unless her principles set her firm on the side of the Latino man.

Or someone paid her.

And then she’d go on to give a woman with a gifted child the money to send her daughter to private school. Or she’d pay the medical bills of someone who was under-insured. Or a variety of other shit that she did because it was her life’s mission, but in doing it, it earned her loyalty.

But she got involved in Chaos’s war with Valenzuela.

There was a lot of speculation as to why, but Boone thought it was simply because Valenzuela was a sociopath.

Brett “Cisco” Rappaport being mijo, an endearment meaning “my son,” was an uncertain surprise.

And it also might explain, at least in part, his rocket rise to the top of the heap of felonious assholes in Denver.

When Cisco didn’t take her clear prompt to share, Boone informed him, “Ryn didn’t include your phone call in her report to the police.”

That bought him Cisco’s eyes, as well as Mamá turning from the stove to face his way.

“Somehow you conned her into thinking you’re a decent human being,” Boone went on. “The problem with that is, if you get nailed for having a part in that guy getting dead on her back deck, and anyone finds out you phoned her after and essentially confessed to arranging a man being murdered on her back deck, she can be charged with accessory after the fact or even aiding and abetting.”