Tijuana Nights (The Nights Series Book 1)

by Leigh K. Hunt

  I looked between him, Gabe, and then Chase. Slowly I shook my head.

  “It means,” Chase said softly, “that unless we deal with them, they will hunt down all of your friends and family, and use them against you until they get what they want.”

  I dropped the cigarette on the ground, and mashed it with my boot. “But they’re in England.”

  “Doesn’t mean they’re untouchable,” Gabe stated. “They will hunt every known associate down, and kill or torture them one by one until you come out of hiding. That is what these people do. No one is safe.”

  My mind flicked to Elsie, and my throat closed up. I didn’t want anyone to hurt her, let alone look at her the wrong way. She was the sweetest and most caring woman I had ever known, and she had raised me as one of her own when I had lost my parents.

  I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead and gritted my teeth. I couldn’t think clearly. This was all getting too damn complicated. I refused to cry. This was not the time. Anger flared inside of me. “What do we do now, then?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  ‘We take ‘em out,” Chase said plainly. “Now.”

  I stared at him, wondering if I’d misheard, but from the way he looked at me, it was clear he was deadly serious.

  My phone started ringing in my pocket, and I reached for it, giving the others a confused look. It was an unrecognised number, which wouldn’t have been too hard, considering no one really knew this number except for the people standing around me. “Hello?”

  “Ciara.” Someone sighed deeply. I looked up at River in alarm.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Alvarez,” he said. “We still haven’t had our dancing date yet.”

  A part of me felt relieved to hear a friendly voice at the other end of the phone, but I also knew that I didn’t give him my number. Hell, I didn’t even know my number. As River moved closer to me to listen in on the call, I collected myself. “Lovely to hear from you,” I said quietly. “You’re right – we haven’t.”

  Alvarez chuckled. “Been busy, have you?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “I have time now, if you’re free?” he said suddenly. “Come meet me.”

  I gave River a panicked look, but he just silently nodded. “I just have to wrap something up, but you caught me on a good day,” I answered. “Where should we meet? Your place?”

  Alvarez laughed outright then. “No, no. I’m working late – so you can meet me here.”

  He gave me the address, and I repeated it back to him before ending the call.

  “Fuck,” River muttered.

  “What?” Chase asked.

  “He gave her the address of the warehouse we’re about to go to.” He blew out a sigh, as I stared at him.

  “He knows, doesn’t he?” I whispered, my heart racing.

  “I would say so,” River responded, gripping my shoulder with reassurance. “I guess all we can do now is what we came to do. Then we get to fly home.”

  I swallowed. “Can’t we just go now?”

  River moved in front of me, putting his other hand up on my shoulder, and looked me in the eye. “I know this is hard, Mack, but they will never, ever stop. There is nowhere in the world they can’t find you. They have their hands in every pie. We need to finish this before they get to your friends and family…and before they eventually catch up with you.”

  I clutched my arms to my chest. I felt like I was going to faint. I avoided looking at him, and stared at the ground. “Can I stay in the car?” I asked in a small tight voice.

  Chase stepped up behind me, his hand around the small of my back. “You will never have closure from this unless you do it yourself. It’s better to see things with your own eyes, instead of constantly being haunted by it.”

  I turned to him. “I don’t want to go in there. I have seen enough death and bloodshed today to last me a lifetime.”

  “And you will see a lot more if you don’t help us end this.”

  I gnawed on my bottom lip as I considered his words. The gravity of the situation was quickly becoming a reality. I looked at the three men standing around me. Chase with his ability to quickly and accurately analyse every situation, his extreme emotional intelligence, and his ability to care deeply and yet kill with calculated precision. River, the role he’d played in getting me to come to Mexico and becoming my mentor, protector, and voice of Zen-reason. And then there was Gabe, the American hacking guru who moonlighted as a diversion for those he loved, and who was always quick for a light-hearted laugh. They all looked back at me now, their features solemn as I considered my options.

  They had my back, I realised. Completely and utterly. They considered me one of their team, through and through. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was part of a family. A family who looked out for each other. This team was built on friendship, trust… and something else. Comradeship. They went into situations to kill, and they came out alive because they trusted each other.

  I wanted that. I wanted them to trust that I would make the right decision. If it weren’t for them, I would have been dead a long time ago, probably beheaded, and a trophy on Carmen’s mantel.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “Okay – we go and do this,” I clarified.

  19

  Climbing scaffolding wasn’t something I ever thought I would have to do, but I guess there was a first time for everything. Thank God River and Chase both helped me up some of the trickier parts, or else I would have landed on my arse. Now we were standing on a rickety walkway that surrounded the roof of an enormous warehouse. I was already knackered from the day, and would’ve much preferred to put my feet up and have a glass of wine or something equally numbing.

  There was a crapload of cars parked around the warehouse, and judging from the noise this was apparently the place to be. As we rubbed some of the grime off the skylights, and peered down below, every cell in my body froze as I took in the mayhem below.

  This was no viewing of a football match game. “What the hell is going on,” I muttered, peering down through the dim and dusty light. I inhaled sharply as I recognised a couple of the people below us. Alicio and Alvarez. This was a cartel party, and what made it worse was that I had an official invite. I knew that invite was no accident.

  “Initiation rituals of the Cartels usually involve murdering someone,” Chase whispered as he cleared off a patch in my skylight and looked down.

  I examined the scene below me. There were men and women held captive, strung up in chains around the walls. They were alive by the looks of it. Some had thrown up, and I had no doubt that wasn’t the only mess made.

  “The more brutal and skilled the person is, the better placed their position will be within the cartel.”

  I could feel my mouth begin to water as I watched those people down there… but it was watering from the sudden urge to throw up. This was absolutely nothing like even the worst horror films I’d seen, or my worst nightmares. It was even more alarming. These people were about to be killed in front of an audience. That’s what the cheers were about that erupted every now and then. The rest of the cartel were fucking cheering them on.

  “I can’t handle this.” A lump formed in my throat, tears ran down my cheeks as I forced myself to hold the contents of my guts in. “I can’t be up here while innocent people are down there dying.” I looked pleadingly at Chase. “Let’s just go. Please.”

  Chase shook his head, and reached his arm out to steady me. “Take a deep breath, Mack,” he instructed. “Close your eyes, and breathe in and out slowly. Re-centre yourself.”

  I opened one eye at him. “You sound just like River,” I accused.

  Chase gave me a lopsided smile. “Yeah, well – sometimes you pick up useful tips from people.” He squeezed my arm. “Close your eyes and breathe.”

  I snapped my eyes shut and tried to concentrate. It was hard to do knowing what was going on beneath my feet, but I forced myse
lf to focus. I’m going home soon, I’m going home soon, I chanted rhythmically in my head. I began to feel a bit more like myself after a few moments. I could feel Chase’s warmth, and even though there were a bunch of people getting murdered below me, he made me feel safe.

  By the time I opened my eyes, my shoulders had slumped forward. Did I feel any better? No, I didn’t think so. There was absolutely nothing I could do about what was happening beneath us. I watched as Alicio instructed a young man, who I guessed would be about fifteen or sixteen years old. The boy walked up nervously to a pile of tools and weaponry on the ground.

  “Just brace yourself,” Chase whispered in my ear. “This won’t be pleasant.”

  Alicio’s voice cut through the crowds chatter.

  “Tonight we bear witness to Izel Ayala’s family sacrifice to the Day of the Dead,” Chase translated slowly for me, “and Izel will officially adopt us as his new family forever after.” Cheers erupted from the crowd as Izel picked up a bloody chainsaw from the pile. I swallowed. I knew what was going to happen, and as much as I wanted to look away, I simply couldn’t tear my eyes away from the scene below me.

  A woman who was chained up against the wall was looking at Izel, tears in her eyes, shaking her head. I was rooted to the spot, eyes trained on her. They had similar facial features, and at best guess, I would say she was Izel’s mother. My mouth went dry, as she spoke in rapid Spanish to him. I couldn’t understand her, but I could feel that she was trying to talk him out of whatever he was about to do. It was his leer that made my breath catch.

  Shocked disbelief swept over me as he started up the chainsaw. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. The woman had closed her eyes, and I could see her lips moving quickly. I realised she was praying. She could have been praying for life, praying for mercy, or even praying for a quick death. Mostly, I imagined she was praying for her son – especially when she suddenly stopped speaking and looked at him with such love it almost broke me.

  Chase grabbed my arm, and held on to me as the chainsaw cut rapidly through her neck, releasing bloody splatters all over the other people chained up next to her. Her head dropped to the ground with such a thud; I could imagine the sickening sound of impact over the noise of the chainsaw. The crowd roared with blood-fever, and when Izel turned around to face the crowd, I saw it was all over him as well as he lifted the chainsaw victoriously above his head.

  Feeling sick didn’t even begin to describe the horror that filled me, seeping into every cell and pore within me. Alvarez stepped up to Izel, slapping him on the back in congratulations, and led him through the crowds, who in turn were giving their congratulations. If I leaned my head down low enough, I could see Alvarez leading Izel to a back room with glass frontage. “What’s he doing?” I whispered to Chase.

  “Probably marking. That’s what the entire Cartel does.”

  “Marking?”

  Chase smiled indulgently at me, even though he had a hard look in his eye. “Yeah. Tattooing. The El Diablo Cartel tattoo their sign, the Jaguar, to the lower ranking members, and they brand it with a hot iron onto the senior members.”

  Jaguars. Branding. Suddenly I knew why Nicandro’s and Alvarez’s cat tattoos looked different. They were branded, not inked. My attention was drawn to the scene below me once again as I heard Alicio’s voice ring out. He had another child standing beside him, but this one took me by surprise. A teenage girl stood poised and confident. There was none of the nervousness that I saw in Izel. I looked at Chase, who was staring intently down at them. “Is she…?”

  Chase gave a grim nod. I realised that he didn’t like this any more than I did.

  Once again Alicio formally introduced her to the crowd, giving the same speech he had for Izel. This time I didn’t need Chase to translate it for me. I already knew what he was going to say, and every part of it made me feel sick.

  The girl picked up a knife, and inspected the sharpness of the blade. “Don’t tell me she’s going to cut a head off with that,” I muttered. “That really would be sick.”

  Chase didn’t say anything in response; he just continued watching silently and calmly. The girl walked over to a chained up teenage boy who was probably around the same age as her. The crowd roared as the boy spoke to her. “I think that’s her brother,” Chase whispered. The girl ripped open the boy’s shirt, pulling the buttons off effortlessly, and began running the knife around some of the concave areas of his abdominals and chest area. “Shit,” Chase muttered, sitting upright. He turned to look at me. “I don’t think you should watch this.”

  I swallowed. “I get it. He’s going to die, just like the rest of those innocent people down there.”

  Chase shook his head and glanced down. I followed his gaze when I heard the screaming start. My eyes snapped back to Chase’s. “She’s skinning him?”

  “Yes. Alive.” The screams of the boy surrounded us, as they echoed around the warehouse. The crowd cheered her on, and even though I wasn’t watching this, I could hear her progress on their tongues. I swallowed, wishing that this would be over, wishing that I could do something to help. But instead, I was on top of a roof, being protected by Chase, River and Gabe. Chase put his arm around me, holding me close. “Don’t worry. He should pass out soon from the pain, and then maybe she might have mercy on him and make it a faster kill.”

  I bit my bottom lip as the boy’s screams started to die down, and the crowd’s noise swallowed it with their cheers. “I think we should get out of here,” I said quietly. “I really don’t think I can cope with this.” I wrapped my arms tighter around Chase, wishing I was Dorothy and had the ability to just click my ruby-red slippers three times to take me home. Life wasn’t like that. I understood why Chase, River and Gabe wanted to finish this once and for all, but this was not something I ever wanted to see or hear again.

  Even though the night air was warm, something cold and hard had buried itself within me. This was not normal behaviour. Every single person inside that warehouse was psychopathic. These were the types of people we were told to stay away from at all costs while we grew up – and here I was with a crowd of them below my feet.

  I had to do something. I couldn’t just stand by and watch a bunch of innocent people dying horrifically for sport.

  Wrapped in Chase’s arms, I could hear the next announcement from Alicio. From Chase’s arms, I eyed the crowd below. Another girl was standing in front of the tools spread around the floor, ready to choose. Her target was an old man with calm, kind eyes. Of all of the people chained up down there, he didn’t look as though he was scared, or had even soiled himself in some way. He was stoic as he watched her approach him. She had a knife, but I could see that her hand was shaking, even from this distance. “She’s not going to do it,” I whispered to myself.

  Chase looked sharply down at the scene, his eyes calculating every movement from her. He shook his head. “No. She may want the life of the cartels, but it seems that she hasn’t yet lost the love she has for her old man.”

  I watched with fascination as tears ran down her young face, and she dropped the knife with a clatter to the concrete floor. As she turned towards the silent and stunned crowd, all I could see were warring emotions of love and remorse on her features. She shook her head.

  Alvarez pushed his way through the crowd and addressed her. She held out her hands, crying. He then walked up to her, pulled out a Glock from a holster, and shot her point-blank, the back of head spraying out behind her onto her loved one. The man slowly lifted his eyes from the girl’s body on the floor and met Alvarez’s with such vehemence, my heart stopped. Another shot was let off, and the man’s body slumped forwards into the chains. “No…” I whispered. “No…”

  River walked up to us and started talking in hushed tones to Chase, but I didn’t hear a word. I was too busy, my eyes fixed on the bodies of the old man and the girl. People undid the chains of the old man, letting his body fall to the floor next to hers. A few people dragged them off out of sight, no
doubt to dump them into a pile with the rest of the people they’d murdered in there tonight. The girl had shown such strength in not killing the man, and she’d faced down the cartel – if only for a moment. To me, that was a stronger show of commitment and loyalty than publicly killing someone. The longer I stood up here with Chase, River and Gabe, the more people would die. I just didn’t know if I could stand by and let that happen.

  I pushed myself out of Chase’s arms, and walked over to Gabe, whose lips were pursed in disgust and frustration as he peered through his own skylight.

  “Gabe?”

  He looked up at me, eyes hard and focused.

  “Alvarez… when he was initiated into the Cartel – who did he kill?”

  Gabe thought for a moment. “Well his parents were dead by that time. He has no siblings…” He thought for a moment. “That’s right. I believe it was the nanny who raised him.”

  It was like a slap in the face. “Thanks,” I murmured, my mind whirling back to the night I was officially introduced to him at the ball. The same woman who raised him and taught him English, one day hoping that he would be smart enough to get a good and decent job. Probably away from the cartel life. And he’d murdered her in cold blood. And then I remembered Chase’s words earlier about how the more horrific the murder, the higher the position they got in the Cartel.

  This was a man who wanted to get friendly with me. A man, that somewhere inside of him I had believed to be good. But in reality, he’d just invited me to a slaughter house to be strung up alongside the rest of those people down there. I knew that if it wasn’t for Chase, River, and Gabe, I would have been dead a long time ago. I would never make it out of Mexico.

  And if I wasn’t going to make it out, I was going to go down with a hell of a fight.

  20

  Chase watched me curiously as I stood still, trying to figure out what to do. There had been enough innocent deaths since I had been in Mexico. All those beautiful women that Carmen had hunted down, hoping that each head brought to her was mine…the women that were used as drug mules, who would probably die across the borders from wherever they were sent…and the people in the warehouse below me. No one was holding the cartel accountable.