Dream Chaser (Dream Team, #2)(119)

It went back to what Hawk said about ferreting out a rat and not losing the loyalty of the ones who were just that. Loyal. Finding the weak link at the same time keeping the team strong.

His crew had no idea how big this was, who was involved or even what they were involved in doing. The only remotely visible soldiers were Mueller and Bogart.

That meant there was someone with brains behind this operation.

But tonight was a mammoth misstep.

Dramatic shit like this almost always heralded the beginning of the end.

Which made Boone wonder if Hawk and he weren’t, in a way, wrong.

They weren’t hunkering down to weather a storm, only to come out stronger.

But instead, whatever they were doing, it was close to being done. They were going to get what they wanted. And it was worth a desperate move to protect it.

He’d talk to Hawk about that tomorrow.

Now, he was home, and after he parked and jogged up the stairs to get to her, he found Ryn as suspected.

Awake, curled on the couch, and watching TV.

Probably the ID channel.

“You okay?” she asked immediately, uncurling like she was going to put her feet on the floor and come to him.

“I’m fine, baby,” he answered, wasting no time in getting to her so she wouldn’t get up.

“Everyone okay?” she went on, her eyes intense on his face.

“Everyone’s good.” He sat down next to her, slouched, put his feet on the coffee table and pulled her into his side. “But I have some good news, and some weird news.”

“Give me the weird news first,” she bossed.

“Mueller and Bogart are both dead.”

She gasped.

“And before you jump to it like I did, it wasn’t Cisco. It was a murder suicide.”

Another gasp.

“Mueller confessed,” he told her. “To everything. Cisco’s in the clear. You’re safe to go about your life like normal, with some precautions,” he added so she’d be prepared when he shared what those cautions were.

“Murder suicide?”

He nodded.

“Really?” she pushed.

He shook his head.

“Oh shit,” she muttered.

“In case you missed it, the good news, it’s done for you,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, and I got the weird news. You’re just holding back on the bad news, which is that it isn’t done for you.”

Funny. Loyal. Generous. Gorgeous. A sweet fuck.

And smart.

That was his girl.

“Two of Hawk’s best buds are cops, sweetheart,” he reminded her.

“I get that,” she said.

He pulled her around so she was mostly in his lap.

“But it’s done for you,” he repeated. “You can go back to Smithie’s and you can strut around in your ridiculous fur coat and we’ll figure out a schedule for the house and if we wanna hire some guys to finish it so you can get it on the market and start looking for your next project and life will just be life.”

“Life will just be life,” she parroted. “That’s probably the part that’s going to be weird.”

He kissed her briefly, pulled away, and said, “We’ll get used to it.”

She smiled at him, he saw relief there, and that made him glad.

He also saw something deeper there, and that meant she felt the same as Boone did with the depth of her emotions for him, and that didn’t surprise him. He’d been seeing that for weeks.

He still liked it a fuckuva lot.

And last, he noted that she’d put on a nightie, but she was still wearing her collar.

Which meant the next kiss he went in for wasn’t brief.

He picked her up during it and carried her to bed.

That was the end of the effort he intended to expend.

After that, he made her do all the work.

*



It was two days later, when Boone was returning to the offices with Mag after they’d been out to meet with an asset on another job, that Hawk came right out of his space at the top of the huge, auditorium-style room and called, “Men. Up here.”

Boone looked to Mag, Mag looked to Boone, and then they walked up to Hawk’s office.

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.