“Let me guess, you had an interesting night,” Cisco said by way of answer.

“Take it the word’s out.”

“You take it right. News crews and everything, my man. Cop on cop murder suicide? Big shit.”

“So you’re in the clear,” Boone told him.

“Say what?” Cisco asked.

“Message sent, you were framed. Suicide note was a very long confession about Crowley, Morton and what happened to Ryn.”

“Well…shit,” Cisco said slowly.

“And from here, Hawk wants to work together.”

“Well, shit,” Cisco repeated, this time with humor.

“We’re not feelin’ real amused by any of this, Cisco,” Boone told him.

All humor left his voice when he asked, “You think I am?”

“I think shit needs to get done and the best way of doing it is not chewing on opposite ends and hoping we meet at the middle.”

Cisco took his time replying.

Then he said, “Obviously, I have some things to sort out.”

Obviously.

“Then we’ll have a sit-down,” Cisco finished.

“Obliged,” Boone replied. “And last thing, consider whatever debt you think you still owe paid to Ryn.”

It had not been lost on him Cisco’s note mentioned “partial” payment.

“She okay?” Cisco asked.

“She’ll be a lot better when I share my news when I get home tonight.”

“Living together,” Cisco mumbled. “That was fast.”

Not officially.

But the new shine of meeting someone you connected with who made you laugh and made you feel deep and was a great fuck was not wearing off.

And Boone knew it never would.

Considering their volatile start, he still thought they should have their own space to retire to their corners if they had the kind of situation that they needed to do it.

But in a few months, yeah.

He’d make moves to make it official.

A few months after that, he’d make more moves to make it very official.

“Take care of her, Sadler,” Cisco demanded.

“Like you have to tell me that,” Boone replied. “We’re done. Chat soon.”

And then he hung up.

The rest of his drive home wasn’t long, but he did it thinking a little about Kevin Bogart, who had been married twice, divorced twice, and had three kids, two with the first, one with the last, none of them who lived with him.

But Lance Mueller had been married for eighteen years, that appeared to be going strong (until that night), and had two kids, both in high school.

Now they had a dad who was a dirty cop, but he probably didn’t take freebies from prostitutes, and even if Hawk’s crew cleared up this mess, Mueller’s wife and kids would probably live the rest of their lives thinking that he not only did that, but he also killed his partner.

And this got Boone to wondering what the other soldiers in that crew were going to think of all of this.

You get out of hand, you’re not only dead, but your memory is tainted in ugly ways, both publicly, and worse, to those you love.

It went back to what Hawk said about ferreting out a rat and not losing the loyalty of the ones who were just that. Loyal. Finding the weak link at the same time keeping the team strong.

His crew had no idea how big this was, who was involved or even what they were involved in doing. The only remotely visible soldiers were Mueller and Bogart.

That meant there was someone with brains behind this operation.

But tonight was a mammoth misstep.

Dramatic shit like this almost always heralded the beginning of the end.

Which made Boone wonder if Hawk and he weren’t, in a way, wrong.

They weren’t hunkering down to weather a storm, only to come out stronger.

But instead, whatever they were doing, it was close to being done. They were going to get what they wanted. And it was worth a desperate move to protect it.

He’d talk to Hawk about that tomorrow.

Now, he was home, and after he parked and jogged up the stairs to get to her, he found Ryn as suspected.

Awake, curled on the couch, and watching TV.

Probably the ID channel.

“You okay?” she asked immediately, uncurling like she was going to put her feet on the floor and come to him.

“I’m fine, baby,” he answered, wasting no time in getting to her so she wouldn’t get up.

“Everyone okay?” she went on, her eyes intense on his face.

“Everyone’s good.” He sat down next to her, slouched, put his feet on the coffee table and pulled her into his side. “But I have some good news, and some weird news.”

“Give me the weird news first,” she bossed.

“Mueller and Bogart are both dead.”

She gasped.

“And before you jump to it like I did, it wasn’t Cisco. It was a murder suicide.”

Another gasp.

“Mueller confessed,” he told her. “To everything. Cisco’s in the clear. You’re safe to go about your life like normal, with some precautions,” he added so she’d be prepared when he shared what those cautions were.

“Murder suicide?”

He nodded.

“Really?” she pushed.

He shook his head.

“Oh shit,” she muttered.

“In case you missed it, the good news, it’s done for you,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, and I got the weird news. You’re just holding back on the bad news, which is that it isn’t done for you.”

Funny. Loyal. Generous. Gorgeous. A sweet fuck.

And smart.

That was his girl.

“Two of Hawk’s best buds are cops, sweetheart,” he reminded her.

“I get that,” she said.

He pulled her around so she was mostly in his lap.

“But it’s done for you,” he repeated. “You can go back to Smithie’s and you can strut around in your ridiculous fur coat and we’ll figure out a schedule for the house and if we wanna hire some guys to finish it so you can get it on the market and start looking for your next project and life will just be life.”

“Life will just be life,” she parroted. “That’s probably the part that’s going to be weird.”

He kissed her briefly, pulled away, and said, “We’ll get used to it.”

She smiled at him, he saw relief there, and that made him glad.

He also saw something deeper there, and that meant she felt the same as Boone did with the depth of her emotions for him, and that didn’t surprise him. He’d been seeing that for weeks.

He still liked it a fuckuva lot.

And last, he noted that she’d put on a nightie, but she was still wearing her collar.

Which meant the next kiss he went in for wasn’t brief.

He picked her up during it and carried her to bed.

That was the end of the effort he intended to expend.

After that, he made her do all the work.

* * *

It was two days later, when Boone was returning to the offices with Mag after they’d been out to meet with an asset on another job, that Hawk came right out of his space at the top of the huge, auditorium-style room and called, “Men. Up here.”

Boone looked to Mag, Mag looked to Boone, and then they walked up to Hawk’s office.