Manipulate (Deliver 6)

Never wander off alone.

So far, so good.

In three months, their bogus drug trafficking charges would be dropped. Whatever deal Matias and Camila had negotiated with the Mexican government guaranteed their release from Jaulaso.

They had three months to steal as much information as possible. Vital information, like the location of the comandante who runs the cartel’s multinational sex trafficking operation.

That intel would be handed over to the Mexican government and used to put Hector La Rocha out of business.

Martin would give his left nut to kill the crime boss himself. Not an easy feat, considering Hector was surrounded by hundreds of La Rocha members in Jaulaso. Attacking their leader would be a suicide mission.

Not only that, a dead cartel leader would only give rise to a new one. All the heads needed to be removed, and that required cunning.

Penetrating Hector’s inner circle was the first step. Martin had a sinking feeling that circle included the female inmate they knew nothing about.

“She’s a deviation.” Ricky kept his whisper beneath the din of chatter around them. “Deviations from the pattern are never good.”

Through extensive profiling prior to the mission, they’d compiled a list of every officer in La Rocha Cartel. All of them were men.

How did no one outside these walls know about her? Who was she?

Rumors on the inside were rampant, leaking from every mouth in Area Three. In the two days he’d been here, he’d heard she could outmatch any inmate in a knife fight, drink the biggest man under the table, and knew every closely guarded secret in La Rocha Cartel.

Some said she strangled a man with her bare hands on her first night in Jaulaso. Others claimed she’d saved Hector La Rocha’s life during a prison riot.

The stories were too outlandish to be true. She carried a weapon on her person at all times, but that didn’t mean she had the strength to take down a two-hundred-pound convict. She was just a little thing, half the size of the smallest man in here.

His skin prickled, the electric touch of her gaze making it damn difficult to sit here and ignore her. He was confrontational by nature and wanted nothing more than to charge across the room and talk to her.

That, as he’d learned on the first night, was not allowed.

When he and Ricky had entered Area Three, a man named Garra met them at the door. After Garra informed them they would be sleeping on the floor in the common area, he left them with a warning.

Any man who approaches Petula Gomez without permission is a dead man.

Two days of observation confirmed the threat carried weight.

Her fellow prisoners tracked her with hungry eyes, injected her name into conversations, and boasted about all vulgar ways they would tear up that pussy. But no one made a move on her.

No one approached her. No one talked to her. Every man in Area Three gave her a wide berth.

Except her ever-present guard dog.

Rumor had it that Garra was her lover. The only one, given the possessive way he stood between her and everyone else. When he wasn’t glaring, growling, and pissing a circle around her, he was poised at her side with his mouth moving at her ear.

She didn’t speak, not to him or anyone, but her posture maintained an alertness that suggested nothing slipped past her notice.

“Jesus.” Ricky stomped a foot on the ground and lifted it to reveal a pile of bug guts. “Is it just me or are the roaches unnaturally large here? Why are there so many? I don’t even know where they’re coming from.”

“We’ve been here two days and haven’t seen the boss. We have no weapons, no way to contact anyone on the outside. We’re surrounded by the most brutal drug cartel in Mexico, and you’re bitching about roaches?”

Their eyes met, and a rush of warmth filled his chest. Ricky’s mouth curved upward, his handsome face gentling with affection before tensing again.

The impulse to rescue his best friend’s smile pulled him forward.

“Remember when we first started sharing a room?” He leaned across the table, erasing the distance. “I changed our Wi-fi name to I Can Hear You Masturbating.”

“Yeah.” Ricky’s hard angles softened, and he bent in, closing the last few inches. “The next morning, I changed it to I Know.”

“It was funny at home, but not here.” He trapped his grin behind a feigned glower. “Your chronic fist fucking will attract unwanted attention.”

“What are you saying?” Ricky asked, playing along.

“Seeing how we’re in pound-me-in-the-ass prison and sleeping out in the open…” He nodded at the corner of the common area, where they’d crashed the past two nights. “You need to cease and desist the nightly hand parties.”

“A little self-gratification never hurt anyone.” Ricky’s mouth twitched.

“Shooting venereal excitement all over the place?” He couldn’t stop his cheeks from rising. “Definitely bad for the environment.”