“Thanks, bud,” Boone replied.
“Don’t mention it,” Jorge said.
“Now, assignments,” Hawk decreed. “We got business to see to and we also got this business to see to. I’m assuming you’re all in for overtime?”
Overtime didn’t mean money. They were all salaried.
Hawk meant they could tap out if they didn’t want to wade in.
The responses were immediate.
“Yep.”
“Yeah.”
“Yup.”
“Absolutely.”
The “absolutely” came from Mag.
Boone was seeing he was going to be paying for rounds probably for the next six months.
He didn’t mind.
And anyway, it wasn’t the first time.
“Right, then let’s sit down. We got shit to discuss.”
Again the response was immediate.
They all walked into the conference room.Chapter TwelveSo, I’m OutBooneBoone made one detour before heading back to Ryn’s.
He went to visit Smithie.
He called ahead and was not surprised, when he hit Smithie’s office, to see Smithie’s nephew Dorian there.
Boone didn’t know Dorian all that well.
But what he knew, he liked.
And considering he had a feeling Dorian was behind the switch from titty bar to revue, he liked him better.
Needless to say, after Smithie lived through the antics of the Rock Chicks in their heyday, he was not real pleased to hear that Ryn was caught up in some dangerous business that had nothing to do with her but included her being the target of a sex offender.
Smithie did not blow and bluster.
After Boone ran it down, the man leaned back in his chair, looked to the ceiling and said, “Dear God. You got my devotion. I know I haven’t lived a blameless life. But I do not get it. I mean, the question has to be asked. What the fuck?”
God probably got asked that question a lot, though maybe not with that language.
One thing Boone knew, unless you paid attention to the signs, He rarely answered it.
Boone believed in God, but he was not a churchgoer. His mother was and every Sunday growing up it was Sunday school followed by being bored stiff through a sermon.
His dad, who did not go to church with them, put the kibosh on that when each of his sons turned fourteen, saying to his mother, “They’re nearly grown men now, woman. They gotta learn to make their decisions about a lot of shit, including how they worship.”
He, nor any of his brothers, ever went to church again.
It wasn’t God.
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.