“Right, brother, not sure I got a bead on where you’re at with this anymore, but we’ve been talking and we figure you should know,” Boone started it, doing that ominously. “Ryn’s ride was in for servicing so I was at the club last night to bring her home, and as we were getting in my car, we saw Hattie coming out.”

Terrific.

It was about Hattie.

The topic he least wanted to talk about.

Mostly because he’d been a dick, and he’d been that standing next to that statue she’d made that shared just about everything there was to Hattie Yates, and none of it was good, but none of that was on her.

And then…

Yeah.

Even standing by that piece, he’d dug right in and acted like a dick.

“And?” he prompted when Boone didn’t continue.

“She got in the back of a Lincoln town car. With Cisco.”

Axl felt his eyes do a slow blink.

Then, quietly, “What?”

“Don’t know what that’s about,” Boone said. “The women are pretty pissed at Hattie for dissin’ Lottie on her party so they’re all about the cold shoulder. But Ryn called Cisco and demanded to know what was going on, and Cisco told her it wasn’t his to share. She should ask Hattie. My woman can be stubborn so that was the end of that.”

“Wasn’t his to share?” Axl asked.

Boone shrugged. “No idea, man.”

Axl took in a big breath.

Right.

He wanted to know what was Hattie’s that wasn’t Cisco’s to share, but Cisco knew it and the girls did not.

No, he needed to know.

But bottom line, it wasn’t his business.

It really wasn’t.

That said, Hattie fucks with his head dancing to that song for him, afterward running away, and then, a week later, she’s with fucking Cisco?

Denver’s top crime lord and the man whose actions landed all of them in a load of shit?

What the fuck?

“Okay, I’m getting a bead on where you’re at with this now,” Boone muttered, watching him closely.

“Not my business,” Axl forced through his teeth.

“Axe, bud—” Mo started.

“I can’t kidnap the woman and make her go out with me,” Axl pointed out.

The reactions to that would have been hilarious if he was in the mood to laugh.

Mo, agreement.

Mag and Auggie, intent contemplation.

Boone, open disagreement.

“Not endorsing kidnapping, but maybe the cautious, restrained approach isn’t working,” Auggie noted the obvious.