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.”
“Brett,” Mamá said low in warning.
“Mamá,” Brett said firmly in denial.
They went into staredown.
Boone was not surprised when Cisco then turned to him and spoke.
“I have three siblings,” he announced.
That wasn’t what Boone was expecting.
“A brother and two sisters,” Cisco continued. “My brother is a radiology tech at National Jewish. One of my sisters lives up in Alaska. Her husband is in salmon. And my baby sister, who used to be a bookkeeper and lived here in Denver, now lives up in Alaska with my older one.”
Seemed Cisco was the definition of a bad seed.
“As much as I’ve been dying to know details about your family, at this juncture this doesn’t mean dick to me,” Boone returned when Cisco quit talking.
“Cabe,” Mamá said quietly.
Upon which Hawk, whose real first name was Cabe, murmured, “Boone, rein it in and let the man speak.”
In the genealogy stakes, Hawk was a mutt. There was Puerto Rican in him, Cuban and Italian. Hawk, and his top guy Jorge, had a thing with Mamá Nana. A good thing.
Hawk treated this relationship like it was what it was to a man in his business.
Pure gold.
But it went deeper with Hawk and especially Jorge.
Jorge worked for Hawk because of Mamá Nana. A long, complicated story that ended with a young kid on the road to becoming common street thug turning his life around to become Hawk Delgado’s top lieutenant.
Something none of the men questioned that Hawk felt indebted to Mamá for, rather than the other way around.
Jorge was that solid of a guy.
Mamá saw that when he was young, turned Jorge onto the right path, and gave Hawk a man he and his men could trust with their lives.
And they did.
But that wasn’t the only reason Hawk had mad respect for the woman.
Boone had that respect too.
Everyone did unless they were idiots, worked opposed to her purpose, or she could help someone and the information she had on you allowed her to do it which made you not dig her all that much.
In other words, Boone shut his mouth.
“What I’m trying to say is, their efforts are escalating,” Cisco said.
“Efforts at what?” Boone asked.
“Trying to get me to come forward and take the rap for the dead cop so that can be swept away, and no one will look too closely at that murder or what that dead cop was doing before he got whacked,” Cisco explained.
There it was.
Tony Crowley had been looking into Bogart and Mueller and they’d put a very definitive stop to it.
“And why did you share about your family?” Hawk asked.
“Because my baby sister is in Alaska due to the fact she got herself a stalker who made life unlivable here in Denver. Her stalker was an ex-con Kevin Bogart arrested five years ago. My guess, they have something on him. So, probably like the guy today, he had no choice but to be their puppet. My problem with that is, him being their puppet scared the fuck out of my sister, to the point she quit her job, gave up her apartment and moved to Alaska.”
The kitchen was dead silent after this information was shared.
Because that was not good.
But they all knew what had come next.
“You know what happened to Corinne,” Cisco reminded them of what came next.