One long look.
A ghost of a smile one of us couldn’t hide.
Maybe the hint of a heated stare as if we were thinking back to how good it felt to come together.
We didn’t discuss it. The only things we talked about concerned our smuggling operations.
Adrik was still on the fence about trusting her, but the day I had her come with me to the main house with me, he seemed convinced. She walked right into his office with me, unafraid, as if she thought she could belong with those making decisions. And within ten minutes of him talking about what was going on with the arms distribution, she clarified where he’d gone wrong with his assumptions and plans.
I never liked to admit a weakness. Confessing that I was wrong about something was even rarer.
But dammit, shewassolving problems we couldn’t have tackled ourselves. And I was always ready to accept a win like that.
“Is she acting like she’s spying or anything?” Nikolai asked me from the side of the room a week later after she’d practically inserted herself at my side when I left on official business.
“No.” It was an honest answer, too. Any calls, texts, or emails made to her brother were tracked from my network firewalls in my house. At no time did she reach out to tell him anything. She’d “check in” and ask how things were going at home. But those weren’t done in code and didn’t make me suspicious.
“Hmm.” He crossed his arms and watched as I did as she walked a runner through another route they could rely on for shipments from Mexico. Pointing at the map and turning to address the man clearly, she looked like a boss. Like a woman trained to contribute to the greater good.
Not a trophy wife.
Not a sidekick and inferior player to this scheme.
“Are we due to get another shipment from the Cartel soon?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing was planned. Not for months.” That last shipment was supposed to have lasted us for a while with our distribution goals, and since we’d scrambled to make alternative arrangements, there wasn’t a need to do business with them again.
Yet.
Because if we wanted to test what was going on with Carina or Arturo, another run would give us the opportunity to see if everything went accordingly. With that came the question of how I could adjust if she was here for ulterior motives. Or if things had to change because of Arturo Garcia fucking with us.
I didn’t want to.
I’d gotten so used to sharing my bed with her and becoming mutual roommates with her that I didn’t want to lose her.
Emotions weren’t at play here. We fucked hard. And often. But she didn’t make a single move on me that would fall under the realm of what couples did. We weren’t friends in any shape or form, and I thought that distance made this cleaner.
We fucked.
And she worked alongside me as an operational analyst and planner.
It works.
I didn’t want to borrow trouble wondering how long it could.
My brothers and cousins ceased questioning how smart it was to let Carina in so close. I’d begun bringing her further into the operational core of what we were doing. By day, we attended meetings together or visited the runners’ sites where we couldsupervise the fleet and check on inventory. The Cartel wasn’t the only source of arms. We frequently received shipments at the coast from Asia, too, and that was another branch of what I oversaw. Now, I oversaw it with her input.
Half of my reasoning to bring her in and let her view all that we ruled over was to use her expertise and hear what her input was. The other half of my reasoning was to keep a closer eye on her.
Sometimes too close, like when our proximity ignited unexpected tension.
Like a couple of weeks later, when I found her too irresistible as she bent over and pointed out where trackers could be positioned better for different vehicles. She’d stuck with functional outfits of tight pants and low-cut tops when she wasn’t wearing other casual yet purposeful gear like when she worked out—which she did daily. Every time she crawled down and gestured for where the men should attach new trackers, my gaze was glued to her ass.
Worse, she could tell that I was getting sidetracked, letting my professional side mix with how I desired her.
She gave me just a couple of coy looks over her shoulder, resting her hand on her ass, and I snapped.
I told the men to leave the airstrip. Then I pushed her over the bumper of a car and told her to lose her panties before I ripped them off her.
