Ian looked at his husband, then me, and then back to him. “I’m sorry, what?”
I had to explain the whole thing all over again, and Miro started laughing, which was good because with his job, the release was helpful, but I could have lived without him cackling specificallyatme and my horror.
“Who the fuck did you piss off?” Ian wanted to know.
I threw up my hands in agreement.
“I mean, I’m glad it’s you and not me,” Ian made clear. “Even with all my newfound diplomacy, that sounds like a clusterfuck waiting to happen.”
“You have a real gift for getting people to work together,” Miro complimented him.
“I know, right? I even loaned out Callahan and Redeker to Stafford over at the fuckin’ DEA.”
I snorted. “That’s damn nice of you. You’re turning into a regular Mother Theresa.”
“Fuck you.”
Ian’s temper was legendary. Rage incarnate. But that was before he and Miro had sorted out their relationship. He was so different now, and I often wondered if I found my other half, what would be the change in me.
“So how are Callahan and Redeker doing with the DEA?”
“Good. No one’s told me any different.”
“They seem solid.”
“I guess.”
“You guess?”
Ian shrugged. “I think they’re solid marshals, but whatever it is with the two of them personally is totally fucked up,” he asserted, putting his two cents in. “But that’s not any of my business, and honestly, I don’t give a shit. They’re good at their jobs, and that’s all I care about.”
“Okay, but who do you have in the field?”
“Why’re you asking?”
“Well, if Callahan and Redeker are with the DEA, and Pazzi is in rehab, then aren’t you short with only Sharpe and White and Yamane and—”
“Yamane didn’t report the fact that Pazzi was on drugs,” Ian told me. “I sent him down to Asset Forfeiture. I don’t expect him to live.”
Miro shivered hard. I knew how much he’d hated his stint there.
“You know people don’t actually die of boredom,” I assured Ian.
“Says you,” he replied snidely. “And Sharpe and White have been assigned to the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force that’s checking out all the information Leland Vaughn gave the Department of Justice,” he explained.
“The Irish mob is dead in Chicago,” I stated with authority. Everyone knew that.
“That’s probably true, but between us and the Feds, ATF, and the CPD, they’re gonna run down every part of Vaughn’s confession and find out.”
“No stone left unturned.”
“Yep.”
“So this is what I’m getting at,” I apprised him. “It sounds like you’re short people, so you actually need me.”
“Need you?”
“To help in the interim,” Miro chimed in. “Eli’s suggesting that you tell Kage you need him so he won’t have to do this night-of-dance thing.”