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Locking eyes with me, he continued, “I want to see the way you run this operation. See what tweaks we need to make. You can tell me what you know, and I’m sure Sergio or Mario can fill in the rest,” he said.

I crossed my arms over my chest and watched as Gunner’s eyes dipped to my cleavage, causing me to smirk.

Men. So easily distracted.

“You can ask Sergio or Mario whatever the fuck you want. The answer you’re going to get is to reach out to me.” My hands hit the desk and I leaned toward the infuriating man, pissed that I had this urge to get closer to him. “You may not like it, mí güerito, but I run this area. So the rumors I know you’ve heard about Los Muertos’s operation…it was someone with a pussy pushing all those guns,” I asserted.

The smile he gave me while rubbing a hand across his jaw made me squirm. Now I got what Nikki meant when she said a man’s hand could be the biggest turn-on. Images of those tattoo-covered hands wandering my body kept popping into my brain. The fucker was an asshole—and annoyingly sexy.

“All right, Brujita. You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”

Fuck. A white boy speaking Spanish was hot when his pronunciation was on point.

Gunner licked his bottom lip, trying his hardest to keep his eyes on mine. I was now painfully aware of how much cleavage was showing. Fuckin’ Nikki and her bright ideas. But two could play the eye-fucking game.

I looked down to where his bulge was clearly straining against his zipper, taking my time bringing my eyes back to his.

“Try to keep up, big boy.”

With that, I pushed off the desk and made my way out the office door, knowing they would follow. I was still within range when Dex finally spoke.

“Fuck. The sexual tension between you two is like fuckin’ foreplay.”

My soaked thong seemed to agree with his observation.

Gunner

This whole damn meeting was not going how I thought it would. How the fuck did we not know Ryan, the goddamn cartel’s arms dealer for Tucson, was a woman? And not just any woman, a fucking sex goddess of a woman. My dick had been hard from the moment I saw the sway of her hips and the perfect curve of her ass. But then she spoke, and I about came in my pants like a teenager. I didn’t think I was a masochist. But the verbal lashing she gave me when I questioned her ability to do her job was such a turn-on.

“Get your eyes off her ass, Dex.” I growled at my brother when I caught his eyes dipping down.

He let out a snicker beside me while holding his hands up in surrender.

I didn’t like the possessive feelings I was having for this woman. I was here to do a job, and I couldn’t afford a distraction. I was hoping her operation would be shit, which would piss me off enough to get me to move on. Plus, it would mean I’d be too busy fixing her fuck-ups to pay attention to her. I was willing to bet she handed over the reins to some other person in Los Muertos. Sure, Mario might have left her in charge, but she probably just delegated to someone else. I watched her long, lean body stride down the hallway to another set of stairs.

Yeah, that body wasn’t doing manual labor. I bet her hands were as soft as her curves—they’d never seen hard work. Ryan must have been a figurehead. She sat up in that pretty office, looking down at the club while drinking margaritas on the rocks. Paid to look pretty, and when shit hit the fan, I was sure all she did was find people to fix it. Or went crying to Mario.

I bristled at that last thought. What was her relationship with Mario? Sergio seemed to be close to Ryan, but it felt familial. I knew Sergio didn’t have any living relatives besides his son, so they weren’t family by blood. Did Mario view her as a little sister? And why the fuck did the thought of him not seeing her as a sister piss me off?

At the bottom of the stairwell, Ryan came to a stop at a thick door with a keypad. “Okay, boys, try not to fuck anything up, please.” With that, she opened the door and walked into what could only be described as a warehouse of sorts. Shelves of liquor lined the walls. Crates were neatly stacked in one portion, and there was a large bay door for trucks to back up to. Coming to a halt in the middle of the room, she turned to face us.

“This is where we accept shipments.” She nodded over to the stacked crates. “Lotería is a legitimate business, and we move large numbers when it comes to alcohol. So no one bats an eye at all the deliveries we receive weekly.”

Walking over to a crate, she pried off the top and pulled out a bottle of Anejo tequila. “To our club-goers, we are known for our specialty tequilas from Mexico. And to the criminal underground…” She reached her hand back into the crate, pulling something else out. “We are known for our excellent handguns.”

Her grin made me want to bend her over and smack her ass for being cocky.

Dex let out a whistle. “Well, damn. You do know what you’re doing.”

Ryan gave a blinding smile at the compliment before continuing with her explanation of their operation.

“You probably know that Los Muertos is the largest cartel in Mexico. We run out of Sinaloa specifically, and that’s where these crates come from. When I took over Lotería, I changed it from fully nude to partial so we could serve liquor.”

She looked at me before continuing. Probably to make sure I was paying attention. She didn’t realize I couldn’t give my attention to anything other than her, even if I wanted to. And it was beginning to piss me off.

“Liquor sales and half-naked people bring in a lot of cash, so after we started becoming more popular, I began laundering money out of Lotería for Los Muertos.”

I moved closer. The moment I was beside her, she flipped the firearm, handing me the grip. My calloused fingertips brushed her soft skin, and I saw her slight shudder.