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His hand once again landed on my already sore cheek. My eyes closed as my toes curled against the floor. When I opened them back up, Gunner’s face was inches from my ribs, unwrapping the bandage I didn’t remember getting. The reality of my situation set in. My hussy side would have to chill until I could sort out what happened after losing consciousness.

My voice came out barely above a whisper. “What the hell happened? How did I end up here at the clubhouse?” I asked. On my side, I now donned a cut about four inches in length, not deep enough to need stitches. It’d been cleaned and wrapped. Gunner nodded his head in approval, apparently happy with how the wound had been cared for.

“I got a text from Torque last night saying he found you lying in the alley,” he replied, his eyes again meeting mine, but the emotions from earlier were now gone, replaced by a neutral expression.

We were in a standoff, trying to figure out how much we should reveal to one another. Seconds passed, with neither of us doing anything more than assessing. Finally, Gunner sighed and patted the bed next to him.

I crawled back onto the soft, gray comforter, sitting across from him to watch his body language. I wanted to trust Gunner, but old habits died hard. So for now, this was all he would get: a truce and exchange of information.

Deciding I needed to show good faith. I revealed a little nugget of intel while fishing for my own.

“I was there last night meeting with an informant. Like always, we left separately. But when I entered the alley, I saw four assholes attacking. So I jumped in.”

Gunner’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion, making me wonder what information he had. But instead of asking about that, I asked the question on the tip of my tongue since I’d woken up.

“Was there…was there another female body?” I whispered.

Gunner shook his head, and a sigh of relief left my lungs. As long as Sam made it out of there, she could take care of herself and reach out when it was safe.

“Torque said she ran away as soon as she saw you were being cared for,” he supplied.

Torque. Thank God he’d been the one to find me.

“Remind me to buy him a shot. I wasn’t sure who was approaching right before I lost consciousness,” I commented.

Gunner was staring off, deep in thought, since I mentioned why I was at the fight night. Not wanting to chance him not sharing what he knew, I sat quietly until he finally broke the silence.

“Why were they attacking her?” he questioned, suspicion thick in his voice.

I rolled my eyes at his question. Didn’t he hear me say I walked out to them attacking her and just jumped in?

“I don’t know why they were attacking her, Gunner. I was too busy trying not to get my ass beat to play twenty questions with them.”

“Always a smartass,” he replied, a smile now on his lips.

“Only when asked dumbass questions,” I threw back.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, working through some internal debate. When he looked up at me, it felt like a shift in our relationship was about to happen. Somehow, I knew, once he spoke these following words, we were agreeing to be partners in more than arms dealing for Los Muertos and Skeletons of Society. We would become partners. His eyes searched mine for a sign that I even wanted that.

I pulled at my bottom lip, gnawing on it with my teeth. Did I want that?

“You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine, big boy.” My heart and mouth decided before my brain could keep up. A stab of insecurity hit me. What if I misread his body language? But the feeling was stamped out when he smiled at his words from our first meeting being thrown back at him.

“Okay, here’s what I know. The four assholes who attacked your informant, two were reapers,” he supplied.

That didn’t come as a surprise.

“Makes sense. She told me her former source was found dead in an alley. He was probably tortured for information on who was asking too many questions,” I responded.

“Yeah, well…the other two had cartel tattoos. Santa Muerte, to be exact…” he added.

My face drained of color. “Those were Los Muertos’s men working with reapers? Muertos tried to kill me?” I pried, my voice thick with emotion.

Gunner squirmed uncomfortably, like he wanted to console me but didn’t know how, so he continued, “One had a burner phone in his pocket. The last message was from a blocked number, said to take the bitch out. At first, I thought it was you, but I guess it was this informant chick.”

“Sam, her name’s Sam. She was getting me information on moves in Tucson’s underbelly. I thought someone was intentionally trying to keep moves quiet.” I looked up and met Gunner’s eyes. “She told me the Reapers had a mutiny. Now there’re all new players involved, worse than the last. She thinks they have an outside backer…” I let my words trail off, not wanting to voice what I knew we both were thinking.

Gunner did it for me.