The bad guys probably knew three things.

The first, after Bogart and Mueller visited Ryn, the players met at Hawk’s offices.

The second, Mamá Nana arranged a sit-down.

And last, Lynn Crowley got some visits.

There might be murmurings about Slim and Mitch asking questions as well.

But it was Hawk’s reputation, Lee’s, maybe even Chaos helping at Ryn’s house, that got panties in a twist.

Enough they killed two of their own.

They’d drawn attention.

They were now deflecting it.

“The good news is, Ryn’s off the hook,” Hawk said.

There it was.

The reason Axl was there.

“You sure of that?” Axl asked.

“Maybe they didn’t know the extent of Cisco’s desire to keep her safe, which got their puppet dead, and that exposed them,” Hawk said by way of answer. “Boone and Ryn were new at the time, so maybe they underestimated Boone’s commitment to his woman, which got our protection, and they’re not stupid, they know it got our attention. Either way, or both, they’re not gonna be that stupid again.”

It made sense.

There were still going to be precautions.

“But we’re going to take precautions,” Hawk spoke Boone’s thoughts and trained his eyes on Boone. “Panic button with her at all times. Also ones installed in her apartment. We put a tracker on her car. We do some training sessions with Dorian at Smithie’s. And she keeps you in the know about where she’s going and how long she expects to be there.”

Boone nodded.

That worked.

“This means Cisco knows he might have a rat, and he didn’t shut him down,” Mag noted.

“I wouldn’t either,” Hawk said. “I had a crew loyal to me, I wouldn’t start picking them off, shaking the commitment of the ones I got, and unnecessarily thinning out my team. I’d put cheese on the trap to make sure I got the one who needed got. And we’ve underestimated Cisco in the past. This man wants us to think he’s a thug. He wants everyone to think he’s a thug. He’s not a thug. He’s decisive. He’s patient. And he’s smart. He’s put out some cheese. It just remains to be seen if he catches the one who ate it.”

“That puts Mamá out there,” Boone said.

“Mamá knows where she is, but more, Cisco knows he put her there so if you think he went the extra mile to keep Ryn safe, you can imagine where he’d go for Mamá,” Hawk replied.

“So you think Mamá’s in the clear too?” Axl asked.

Hawk shook his head. “Not exactly. What I think is Mamá can take care of herself. But she’s in the know of everything we find out so she can best do that.”

Word on that.

“Do you have the story of how Cisco and Mamá got where they are?” Boone asked.

“I didn’t, but I asked, and Mamá was feeling chatty, because I think she wanted me to know what makes Cisco. So now I know it’s got to do with a girl named Cristina who is no longer whoring for her drug dealer boyfriend, but instead she’s at Columbia, majoring in literature,” Hawk answered.

“Jesus, Columbia. Mamá’s taking it up a notch, handing out degrees to one of the best universities in the country,” Axl muttered.

“Mamá isn’t the one paying her tuition or her rent,” Hawk shared.

“Jesus,” Boone and Axl both said.

“Is this girl Cisco’s?” Mag asked, not masking the hope that this would mean Cisco’s focus would be off Evie.

“No, she’s just a girl who needed someone to give a shit,” Hawk replied. “And Cisco did that.”

Well.

Jesus.

And again, Boone was fighting the feeling he might like this guy.

“So he does a solid for Cristina…” Boone let that trail.

Hawk picked it up. “Mamá doesn’t let a good deed like that slide.”

“She gave him what he needed to take top of the heap,” Boone surmised.

Hawk nodded, but said, “She didn’t share that. But it doesn’t take a leap to get there. After assisting in knocking down Valenzuela, who had tendencies she could not get on board with, she set a man she can respect, as much as she does anyone like Cisco, a man who has some of her sensibilities, the important ones, in a place of power. And after she does, he owes her.”

“It could be her downfall,” Mag said.

“I could be wrong, but my guess is, they cleared Cisco, they’ll lose interest in Mamá if they ever had it in the first place,” Hawk replied. “No one knows the extent of her network. They just know it’s extensive. I get her not wanting any heat. But I get them steering clear of someone like her, not only because of the questions that would be asked if she was targeted since she’s never done anything overtly illegal, or the shit she could maneuver if they failed and she acted in retribution, but the fact there might be a riot someone has to answer for if she was taken out. But bottom line, they made bold moves that fucked them up, and I see indications tonight that they’re going to take a serious change of direction.”

“Doing that making a pretty fuckin’ bold move,” Mo pointed out.

“Yeah,” Hawk agreed. “But you can’t deny there’s a finality to it.”

The men nodded because none of them could deny it.

“I want bugs in Lynn Crowley’s house, and I want eyes on it,” Hawk ordered.

In other words, Ryn was safe, Cisco in the clear, but the team wasn’t giving up.

That didn’t sit great with Boone.

“On it,” Mag said.

“You don’t think Lynn Crowley is working for them,” Axl put in, doubt in his voice.

“I think she’s scared as fuck and under their thumb,” Hawk told him.

“Hang on with this,” Boone cut in, feeling some weight that his boys were doing this partly on their time, partly on Hawk’s dime, and if the bad guys could be believed, Ryn was safe. “We’re not pulling up stakes?”

Hawk locked eyes with him.

“I got two men who mean a lot to me who’ve spent their entire careers dealing with some seedy shit for the betterment of society. And this kind of thing muddies anyone holding a badge. But more, it’d crawl deep into my gut I knew there was a possibility that every day I went to work next to a piece of shit. Slim has dealt with the dregs, he knows how low humanity can go, he lived with it undercover. He’s keeping his shit on this. But it’s torturing Mitch. And I want it stopped.”

Boone got that.

Totally.

He lifted his chin.

“I want you to establish a connection with Cisco,” Hawk continued. “I’ll give you a safe phone. I doubt this is done for him. He’s not going to sigh with relief, get back to business and ignore that they targeted him. And we can’t control him. We might have the same goal, but we’d be working it at cross purposes. We need to see if he’s in to work together. If he is, he could be an asset.”

Boone did not question this.

They’d worked with far worse.

Hawk dismissed them, and Boone left with a safe phone.

He looked up the number in his own cell, put it in the safe one, and called Cisco on his way home.