Dream Chaser (Dream Team, #2)(57)

So something else was at play here and that had not been communicated to the man who was sleeping in Kathryn’s bed.

“There’s something you aren’t giving me that I need, and you knew I needed it, and Ryn faced a threat today unprotected because I didn’t have it,” Boone told him something he had to know.

Cisco actually looked guilty.

“I honestly didn’t think they’d use her,” he admitted. “I was just taking precautions.”

But a word he said made Boone’s gut tighten.

And he dug into that right away.

“Use her? For what?”

Cisco didn’t answer.

He looked to Mamá Nana, who was at the stove, frying empanadas.

She had her back to them, and she didn’t turn around when she murmured, “Mijo.”

Oh shit.

Mijo?

Boone got tight and he felt Hawk do the same beside him.

Cisco was white.

Mamá Nana was the most Mexican woman in Denver, and she worked hard for that title.

She was all about community, she lived it, breathed it and took care of it.

As far as anyone knew, she did nothing illegal.

But that didn’t mean what she did wasn’t dangerous.

And what she did was build such loyalty in her community by looking after them in big and small ways, doing this utilizing the proceeds of her other endeavors, they gave her what she needed to see to her other endeavors.

This being providing information for sale to the highest bidder and acting as a mediator in some tricky situations (like the one right there in her kitchen).

She had her finger so firm on the pulse of the city, she could bring down the biggest player in Denver (which explained her bodyguards).

Boone knew she could do this because she had.

Recently doing it by assisting in the takedown of Benito Valenzuela.

Not a surprise, considering Valenzuela came from her ’hood—direct from her ’hood—which she’d spent decades protecting, and he’d turned his back on it. But still a surprise because she’d sided with Chaos to do it.

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.