He wasn’t seated behind his desk, but Hawk was not the kind of man who often sat.

He was leaned against the side, arms crossed on his chest.

Mag, the last one in, closed the door.

When he had both his men’s eyes, Hawk gave it to them.

“Got a call from Eddie. As you know, that shit with Mueller and Bogart happened in Englewood, jurisdiction of their PD, so Eddie and Hank were out. Still, Eddie knows the ME over there and gave him a call. ME told him straight up he was billing it a double homicide, considering Mueller’s tox screen showed such high levels of Rohypnol, not only would he be unable to deliver that kill shot straight to the heart of Bogart, he’d have trouble aiming at his own head.”

Boone felt relief at this colossal fuckup.

“So, we got ’em,” he noted. “Or at least we got something and it’s something the cops can’t ignore.”

Hawk shook his head.

Then he shared, “Report just filed. Ruled a murder suicide. And no mention of the Rohypnol.”

“What the fuck?” Mag asked.

“That was Eddie’s question. So he called the ME. Five times. When the man finally answered, he denied ever telling Eddie about those results and was adamant there was no Rohypnol found in either man’s screen.”

Shit, fuck.

“They got to him,” Boone said.

Hawk nodded once. “They got to him.”

“Shit,” Boone muttered.

“And we’re right, this is big,” Mag stated.

Hawk nodded once again. “We’re right. This is big. Because that wasn’t it. Eddie got that news, he went to the investigating officers and asked if they were ordering an assessment on the suicide note and if they printed the backdoor light. The detective who caught the case stated there was no reason to do an assessment of the note due to the ME’s ruling, and no reason to print the light, since he supposedly followed Eddie’s lead on that and says it worked. DA is going to close it as is. The nail in that coffin is going to hit the evening news.”

“But now, Eddie’s out there,” Boone said ominously.

“Now, Eddie’s out there,” Hawk agreed. “And that’s why they put him and Hank in front of this. Not to mention, noted Slim and Mitch and me in their texts. They got the power. They’re willing to go the extra mile. But they can be reasonable, they gave us what we wanted. Time for all of us to step back and shut down.”

No one said anything.

Hawk broke the silence.

“Lee’s better at this shit, so his boys are all over that ME to find out if they paid him, or if they’re holding something over him. Eddie’s out. He’s too visible right now. Hank, Slim and Mitch too. Malik is gonna see if he can get a copy of that note. Once we get all that, we’ll proceed from there.”

This time, Boone and Mag nodded.

“All right, men, the plot thickens,” Hawk said in preparation for dismissing them. “Boone, you get on telling Cisco. I’ll tell Mamá. And when I have your next orders, you’ll know.”

Both men did chin lifts and walked out the door.

“Christ. Roofied. Probably aware enough to know in some part of his head what was going on, totally incapable of doing anything about it. Is it semi-fucked I feel bad that Mueller was done like that?” Mag asked on their way to their workstations.

“Nope. Don’t got a lotta love for the man, and you can read from that, not any, but that’s harsh. Justice should be fair. It should be known what he did and the man he was, and he should pay for that. But his family thinking he’s steppin’ out on his wife to fuck prostitutes and not even pay them before he kills his partner and guarantees a closed casket? And he’s doped up and not even given a fighting chance before they lay him out?” Boone shook his head.

“Sinister shit,” Mag muttered.

“We’ve seen worse,” Boone pointed out.

“Yeah,” Mag sighed.

They hit their workstations, which were next to each other, and Boone spied Mag’s nameplate that said #1 BOYFRIEND on it.

Evie had given him that. It was goofy as fuck. They gave Mag no end of shit about it.

It rolled right off his back in a way Boone wondered if that plaque wasn’t his most prized possession.

What they’d discussed on their way to see the asset earlier, he was figured he was right about that.

So he took them out of the heavy and into what they’d talked about on their way to see their asset.

Something a fuckuva lot lighter.

“This weekend?” he asked.

“This weekend,” Mag confirmed.

Out of curiosity, and to be prepared, Boone queried, “How much was the ring?”

“You don’t wanna know,” Mag mumbled.

Boone started chuckling. “You’ll get a new fifteen-dollar plaque, and Evie gets Tiffany.”

Mag looked him in the eye and said, “Worth it.”

Boone knew it was.

Fuck, but he knew it.

He lifted a hand, caught Mag’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

Then both men went back to work.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Really Cute

Ryn

We were unloading lighting at the house when I got the call.

Okay, Boone was unloading it.

I was admiring him while watching him do it.

All those muscles bunching.

Yum.

“You could help,” he said just as my phone started ringing.

“And miss the show?” I asked.

He chuckled, and the way he did I knew he liked that I liked the show.

It was Saturday, a week and a half after the bogus murder suicide.

And by the by, I wasn’t feeling real sad for Bogart and Mueller (though I felt sad for their families, especially with all the media hoopla, it was ugly).

But still.

That was no way to go.

What I was, was back to work at Smithie’s.

The press release had gone out and Smithie was in full dither about the big premiere of the revue that was happening next month.

Dorian, on the other hand, was calm as a cucumber (as per usual).

We didn’t have to hire a crew to keep work going on the house, firstly because I was on it even on days where I had to work the nights (I just turned up later than the rest of the guys), and secondly because there were always one or two Chaos guys who showed to help.

They adamantly refused payment.

They also adamantly refused to stop showing up when I demanded they do that because they’d refused payment.

And last, they continued adamantly refusing me buying their lunches, and instead, they maneuvered it so they always bought mine.

This brought on an exchange of words (with Hound, but also Dutch, not to mention Boz) that earned me another call from Tack where he said, “Listen, Ryn. We got no crises. Shit is copasetic. And we’re finding, no matter how fucked it is, that copasetic is boring as fuck. It means they got two choices. They either work on cars, or work in the shop. The men hate workin’ in the shop, and our garage isn’t big enough to have all of them working on cars. Worse, if they were all there, they’d be up in each other’s shit about how they worked on cars. So honest to fuck, you’re doin’ us a favor. We’re bikers. We need a change of scenery every once in a while. Give ’em a change of scenery.”