It wasn’t faith.

Now that he was older and understood it better, it was the dogma.

In the end, on Sundays, he, his dad and his brothers would go out and do something, like take a hike or go play catch in the park. And with his mother not in earshot, his dad was big on saying, “This is where God is, boys, this is what He gave to us, not some damned building.”

Porter Sadler meant the park or the hike, and them being together.

And even when Boone was fourteen, he knew his father was right.

Boone didn’t share his ideology about religion with Smithie and Dorian.

He said, “I think Ryn needs to be given a hiatus until this shit is sorted so I can be certain she’s kept safe.”

Dorian waded in then.

He did this by saying, “No.”

Boone looked to the guy.

“Sorry?” he asked.

“No,” Dorian repeated.

Boone stayed silent mostly because he needed the energy to control his temper.

“Son, trust me. I’ve been through this,” Smithie said to Dorian, then jerked his head Boone’s way. “These boys got skills we do not have. They can get the job done. And still speaking through experience, it gets worse before it gets better.”

Boone wasn’t a big fan of that last part. But he knew the Rock Chicks’ stories, and what the Nightingale crew had to go through to get their women through them. So as much as it sucked, he also knew Smithie was not wrong.

“So Ryn is the one to pay for some motherfuckers targeting her?” Dorian asked.

“I’ll cover her salary,” Smithie returned, openly insulted that Dorian was inferring he wouldn’t.

“You gonna cover her tips?” Dorian pushed.

“Well…yeah,” Smithie said.

“And what? She adjusts her life to fit their bullshit?”

Smithie had no reply to that.

Dorian turned to Boone. “Think I’d like Ryn to weigh in on where she wants to go with all this. She feels like hunkering down behind your wall of protection, that’s hers. She doesn’t, we’ll cover her while she’s here.”

“Ian,” Smithie bit out. “We got bouncers, not bodyguards.”

“I will personally see to her protection,” Dorian declared.

“Love you, boy, but you don’t have the skills to do that,” Smithie retorted. “And I’ll add on to that, I absolutely do not want you the focus of dirty cops.”

This was wise, especially when they were talking about dirty racist cops.

“You don’t have those skills, but you’re right,” Boone cut in, saying this to Dorian and doing it before their discussion turned into an argument like the expression on Dorian’s face was sharing it was about to do.

He said his next even when he really didn’t want to say it.

“I gotta let Ryn know the fullness of what’s going down, what that means to her, and she needs to make the decision. When she does, we’ll reconvene to figure out how to keep her safe while she’s working if it comes to that.”

“My other girls, my patrons?” Smithie asked. “This shit spreads. You got bad cops in the mix, anything goes. Who’s gonna protect them?”

“For now, we gotta start with Ryn,” Boone said.

“We actually don’t,” Smithie clipped. “See, I’m still the boss around here and what I say goes. I’ve had girls roofied in my place. Attacked in hallways. Kidnapped in the parking lot. And worse. Far worse. Far worse than roofied and kidnapped and fending assholes off with trays, so I hope you get where I’m coming from. I do not want Ryn to suffer due to circumstances beyond her control. And I love that girl, do not doubt it. But I got more to think about than just her.”

Smithie turned his attention to Dorian and kept talking.

“I get it, son. You gotta stand for something. And the reason I’m groomin’ you to take over for me is that, without fail, you stand behind my girls. But you need to learn this. We cannot only take Ryn into account and what’s happening to her. If this club, and the people who work here, become a target of dirty cops…” He trailed off and shook his head.

This was becoming a familiar refrain.

Mamá Nana was out.

And Smithie, in his way, was too.

Smithie looked to Boone.

“I’ll call her,” he stated.

“Let me talk to her first,” Boone replied.

Smithie nodded.

Dorian was tapping his fingers on the armrest of his chair, and although the man got up to shake Boone’s hand before he left, neither man made to move as if they were going to follow him so he figured they were about to have an uncomfortable discussion.

Boone was about to have the same thing with Ryn.

He drove to Ryn’s place, parked, and as he was walking up to the front door, Lottie came out, followed directly by Mo.

Lottie was a slip of a woman. Lots of tits. Lots of hair. But just above average height and very slender.

Mo was a huge man. A mound of muscle. Muscle with bulk. No hair at all.

They were the perfect match.

Lottie was also one of the most feminine women Boone knew. She had it and she flaunted it.

She was last, one of the guys. When Mo’s boys were all together, she was in the thick of it. It was impossible to offend her. She gave as good as she got when it came down to teasing and banter.

And she loved Mo to distraction.

The last part was all Boone would need to love Lottie like a sister.

But the rest of it didn’t hurt.

However, in that moment, she was giving Boone a look he couldn’t decipher, except for the fact it was pissed.

He stopped on Ryn’s stoop and she didn’t delay in giving it to him.

“Fix this,” she snapped, whirled, looked up to her man, and semi-repeated, “Fix it.”

She then rounded Mo and stormed into the house.

Right.

Lottie had lived through the Rock Chick stuff too, and one of the Rock Chicks was her sister. The one, if Boone wasn’t wrong, who fought off an attack at Smithie’s with a tray.

Once the door slammed inside, Boone looked to Mo.

“Hawk called. Briefed me. I briefed Lottie,” Mo told him.

Boone felt his skin chill.

“Does Ryn know?”

Mo shook his head.

It wasn’t that he was the one who wanted to give her the news.

It was that he wanted to be close when she got it.

He was a little surprised, considering Lottie’s greeting, at the mood he walked into when he hit Ryn’s living room.

Evie was there now as well. They were all drinking iced tea, or a tea with the words “Long Island” in front of it, and Pepper was on her feet, bent toward Hattie, brushing something on Hattie’s lips saying, “I swear to God, it plumps them. Like you got injections. It’s insane.”

They were fucking around with makeup.

A man shot dead not fifty feet from there, and they were fucking around with makeup.

He had to admit, that said more about all of them than any recommendation from Lottie that they were the shit and her boys had to get in there.

Ryn turned to him when he showed through the door and immediately shot him a huge-ass smile.

Christ, she was pretty.

Never prettier than when she was smiling…or laughing. And he’d now seen her come, so that was something.