Tijuana Nights (The Nights Series Book 1)

by Leigh K. Hunt

  River once told me that Chase was extremely accurate at reading people and the situation around him, which made him a handy asset to have on the team. Perhaps that was why he made me nervous. I constantly wondered if he was assessing me.

  “… yeah, I’ve got her. She seems to think that she can do over Carmen Amaro.” I looked up at River, instantly snapping back into reality.

  “Roger that. See you soon.” He ended the call with a press of a button and turned to me, his smile infectious, though, considering the circumstances, I should have been crying. But I wasn't.

  We started to head towards the coast area. I had been to River’s Tijuana house a number of times before. If truth be known, it was more like a mansion, by my standards, anyway. The first time we went there was a defining moment, where I really understood that being an assassin must pay seriously well. His house was huge and intimidating; I felt more at home in more intimate spaces.

  I went to reach for my phone to check for any messages, when I suddenly remembered that River had thrown it out. It was a dead and useless phone anyway, but with it missing, I felt as though I had lost some sort of appendage. “I can’t believe you threw my phone out,” I said sullenly. “You could have given me some bloody warning.”

  “Out with the old and in with the new, Mack. If you roll with me, that’s how it is.”

  I put my palm against my forehead and leaned back, closing my eyes. “You have got to be kidding. I don’t even want to roll with you. You guys are the ones who got me into this position in the bloody first place.”

  River snorted with laughter. “If I hadn’t found you when I did, you wouldn’t have nearly as much dignity as you do right this very minute. You were trying to whore yourself, I saved your ass. You should count yourself lucky that I took time out of my day for you.”

  I could feel a headache coming on from the direction this conversation was taking. “You should be lucky that I happened to need the money. Now I just want to go home.”

  River shook his head. “No sweet pea… you’re damn lucky we have the money you need.” He was focused on driving in the Tijuana traffic. “We’ll get you home, don’t you worry about that. But just remember that this was originally a business deal. You held up your end of the deal, and we promised you would go home safely.” He paused and took a deep breath, “Now in the meantime, we just need to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

  “You think I’m going to do something wrong?”

  He shook his head, “It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s Carmen. She’s unpredictable, and so is the Cartel.”

  I glanced over at River, wondering if I should light a cigarette, but with the mood he was in now he’d almost certainly throw me out on the side of the road somewhere. The only other time he had ever let me have a cigarette in his car was the night I first met him.

  Instead of killing me when he’d the opportunity, he’d let me live, and then taken a chance on me by offering me a better paying job. I could come to Mexico with his team, and do just one small job for them. Be a sexual distraction to one of the El Diablo Cartel leaders. Before I knew it, they cut my hair to a close crop so I could wear wigs, sent me off for laser surgery on my eyes, thrown me in a sunbed for a few sessions to give my English skin a few shades of colour, and dressed me in designer clothes. The attitude I seemed to be developing now has only been rearing its head since the night I met the team.

  It was all too much; today, the past month. I knew that if I didn’t close my eyes and sleep, I was in danger of throwing up from the motion of the car. I absolutely regretted drinking far too many early morning margaritas.

  I woke to the sensation of salty air tickling at my senses. We rounded the top of the tree lined driveway to River’s place, and pulled up in front of a low lying house overlooking the Mexican coast. River stopped the car and turned off the engine. “Listen. I will do whatever is in my power to assist you with Carmen. However, new information has come in, and I strongly suspect it has to do with Javier Amaro. So let’s just play this one by ear, shall we? Our pay check will have everything to do with Javier, therefore he’s the priority. Carmen’s just a bonus if you can get to her. Okay?” I undid my seatbelt, and gave him a watery smile. “Okay.”

  2

  When I woke a few hours later in one of River’s guest rooms, I found that my clothes had been hung up in the wardrobe and I sighed with relief. After a shower, I felt thoroughly alive again, and more mentally prepared to deal with whatever was coming.

  Despite the fact that it never got very cold here, River had the fire roaring by the time I walked into the living room. With the bi-folds wide open to make the room more bearable and the sea breeze ruffling white gauzy drapes, it made a far prettier scene than you’d ever expect to find in the lair of a contract killer.

  Chase was stretched out on one of the sofas with a book propped up on his knees, and a glass of wine on the coffee table beside him. “I hear you’ve severely pissed Carmen Amaro off.” Chase directed both the words, and his calculating blue eyes, at me. My breath caught slightly under his gaze. I nodded and sat down on the opposite sofa. Some people are just so good looking, that they made you feel completely inferior when you're near them. Yeah… Chase was like that for me. Was I attracted to him? Hell yes. But I didn't have a chance in hell with a man like him, I didn’t even know if I wanted a chance. If anything I was scared shitless of him, yet found him intriguing at the same time.

  He had his contact lenses in this evening. It made him even more good looking than normal. I swallowed as Chase smiled. “Yes, well, some days are better than others, eh? I guess we always knew this could happen.” He closed his book, and turned his full attention to me. “And now you want revenge?”

  I froze. Revenge? I shook my head slowly. “No… not revenge. I just don’t want to get killed. Carmen seems to have a death wish for me, and from what I’ve heard, she’ll do anything to achieve her goals. She’s nuts.”

  Chase threw his head back and laughed. “You don't get to be a cartel wife just for looking pretty, Mack. I’m sure she has a few more assets behind her than that. Watch your back.”

  “Leave her alone, Chase,” River interrupted, as he walked in carrying a tray with several crystal tumblers on it and a bottle of tequila. “She’s had a shitty day.”

  I smiled gratefully at him as he lowered a tray onto the coffee table. “That’s an understatement,” I muttered. River poured tequila over ice into four crystal tumblers, and handed a glass to Chase. When he passed one to me, I accepted it hesitantly. Alcohol was the last thing I needed right now, but I didn’t have to drink it if I didn’t want to.

  Chase smirked as I eyed up the golden liquid suspiciously. “This tequila is nothing like the revolting stuff we get at home. This is pure and untainted. Try it.” He raised his perfectly manicured eyebrow as he waited.

  “What the hell,” I muttered, and took a generous sip. Subtle warmth spread through me as I swallowed. Chase was right. Unlike the crap back home, this tasted mellow, cooled by the ice in the glass. I found myself taking another sip. “That’s actually quite refreshing.”

  River laughed. “Yes, it is. You know, the Aztecs used to make their own form of tequila called ‘octli’. The people from this region have been distilling the blue agave plant for hundreds and hundreds of years. Believe me – if it tasted as awful as it does from those cheap bottles we get in England, they would never have continued to drink it.”

  “River is quite right. There is only so much of a culture you can experience outside of a country. If we had never brought you out here, you would have continued to think that everyone in Mexico wore sombreros, lived on nachos, and drank cheap firewater tequila. As you have discovered – this country has so much more to offer.”

  “Yeah… a body count.” I smiled, amused at my own wit. I had a feeling there was still a load of margarita in my system, and the tequila was just waking it up again.

  River burst out laughing. “That too. The cartels ha
ve a lot to do with that though. Speaking of which – where the hell is Gabe?”

  “Here,” Gabe called from the doorway. He eyed up the glasses in our hands, and glanced down at the laptop he was carrying with him with disgust. “What? Ya’ll started without me?”

  I pursed my lips with guilt. We should have waited, and I felt bad on Chase and River’s behalf. I liked Gabe. He was nice. I couldn’t understand what sort of potential he saw in these two, but the relationship seemed to work. He plonked himself down beside me, put his laptop on the floor at his feet, and reached for a glass.

  “So,” Gabe started, his American lilt muffled by the glass at his lips. He took a long sip and put the glass down, “We have a completely new set of instructions, should we choose to do it.” He shrugged. “Kind of a big job though. It’s not going to be easy, to say the least.”

  Chase’s eyes lit up with cunningness. “What do you mean? What’s the job?” He swung his long legs off the sofa, and leaned forward with anticipation.

  Gabe sighed. “Well…” He took another sip of his drink. “It’s another directive from the clients. Apparently our little information gathering expedition has paid off somewhat.”

  He turned his focus back to his drink, and I really considered throttling Gabe, and throwing his fricking glass out the window. I’d had a no-good very-bad day, and the last thing I wanted was to listen to him playing games. I could see the others thinking the same thing. “Gabe,” I said with impatience. “Come on. What’s the job?”

  “It looks as though the information we gathered was mainly structural, giving our clients full records of most of the higher ranking employees of the El Diablo Cartel. The hits are for eleven of those employees.”

  “Eleven.” Chase muttered. His eyes met River’s across the room, eyebrows raised. “That’s one hell of a hit.”

  I didn’t need to be a professional hit man to know that this was a huge job. Eleven people dying at the hands of Chase and River seemed insane. Although, from the little I knew of the Cartel’s, it wouldn’t make that much of a dent in their numbers.

  I couldn’t help myself, I had to ask. “Is Carmen on the list?”

  Gabe shook his head. “She’s too high up the food chain… these guys are from, what do you call it? Middle management, I guess, for want of a better word.”

  River shrugged. “Payment terms?”

  “Proof of death, the usual. They’ll pay us two million a head, plus a bonus if the job is done within a certain timeframe.”

  “Two million?” I whispered “Seriously?” That would pay off some of the major debt that Luke had left me with, even if I only whacked one of them.

  Chase smirked, and shook his head slowly with amusement. “Mack, you’re not trained. Don’t even think about it.”

  “She can train with me,” River said quietly. “She needs the money, you know that.”

  My eyes went wide and my mouth dry as I glanced at River. Kill someone? Holy shit, I didn’t know if I was ready for that just yet. I couldn’t even use a gun properly, let alone think about blowing some random guy’s head off. “Train me?”

  “Yes, Mack. Train you. You need to learn some skills if you’re with us – especially for your own protection. You want to kill Carmen, right?”

  I nodded mutely as I dropped my gaze to the floor, unsure of what I wanted. My heart raced. Was I actually that kind of person? I guess I had to be. I knew that to get Carmen off my back it was going to take something more than an academic education and a pretty face. It was going to take some hard skills; skills that she had, and that I hadn’t acquired… yet. Actually, it was kind of a thrilling feeling. I looked from Gabe who was looking at me with encouragement, to River, and then to Chase. They all looked at me as if they had complete faith.

  “Well, then I guess you’d better learn, eh?” Chase snorted, and raised his glass to me. Holy shit. I really wasn’t prepared for this.

  “So – you want the list or not?” Gabe interrupted.

  “Yes, Chase and I will take five each, and if Mack’s got the skills to assist us by then, she can help us with the eleventh.”

  “Me?” It came out like a squeak, and I immediately drank back the remaining liquid in the glass. I stood unsteadily, and sought out my cigarettes in the handbag at my feet. “I need a fag. A lot to process.”

  Both River and Chase watched me cross the room, making me feel even more self-conscious. I stepped out onto the terrace under the starry night and lit up. I inhaled, the warm night air mixed with the cigarette smoke, which immediately went to my head and started to calm my nerves.

  I could hear them still talking inside. Eleven people? Gabe called them middle management. But why wouldn’t you kill the people at the top of the Cartel first? There must be some sort of grand master strategy, but I was buggered if I knew what.

  I could hear the others discussing people and their marks locations. Part of me felt sick. Logically, I knew that these people were really bad people, but there was just so much death. Then again, I knew they had probably all killed innocent people themselves and they worked for Carmen and I knew she deserved to die…

  After all, her and her staff had just basically murdered a plane-load of people.

  * * *

  When I woke the next morning to River shaking my shoulder, I was feeling rather worse for wear. I’d had only three hours sleep, and felt like I had been at an all-night rave, not sitting around talking. I was just pleased that I’d had the common sense to stop drinking halfway through the night.

  River looked as though he’d slept 12 hours at some luxurious resort, and was bright-eyed and far too bushy-tailed for my liking. He shook his keys at me, shoved some sort of ridiculously healthy, green smoothie onto the bedside table, “Come on – up you get. Things to do, people to see.”

  I groaned, throwing my arm over my face in protest, “Five more minutes,” I murmured, feeling the drifts of sleep starting to pull at me.

  Moments later I heard the curtains getting ripped back on their rails, and I opened my eyes to glare at him. “You have fifteen minutes to get ready, Mack.” He tapped his watch, “If you go back to sleep, I’m taking you out in your pyjamas.”

  I rolled my eyes, and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Moments later, the door closed behind him and I was alone. I looked over at the green smoothie, and my stomach went queasy just from the sight.

  Once I had showered and dressed and finally walked into the living room twenty minutes later, he silently handed me a wig to wear along with a pair of huge sunglasses.

  I didn’t like being out in public, despite being behind the tinted windows of the car. Not only did I hate sunlight right now, but River was busy taking photographs of houses and the different people associated with his marks, and I was the designated driver. We were parked outside an enormous house with a large fence line, and electronic gates. I imagined there would be guards somewhere in the gardens or along the perimeter who wouldn’t have an issue shooting us point-blank. “How bullet-proof is this thing?”

  River lowered the camera, and sniggered. “It’s not. You’re just going to have to drive fast if we get into trouble.”

  I raised my eyebrows; he had a lot of naïve faith in my driving skills. I returned my gaze to the road in front of us, where not one single other car moved. I wondered if it was always like this, or if it was just the time of day. “So, how are you going to get into the house to kill her, maestro?”

  “I’m not. I’m going to get Regina to come to me.” River looked back at the house through the gates. “It’s not impossible to get in there. Actually, I would say it’s rather easy. However, it’s better if no one knows you’re there. Regina is heavily guarded, so I’m going to hook up with her at a bar she frequents, and get to her that way.” He looked down at his iPad, fingers scrolling across the screen. “And, according to the information we recovered she’ll be out tonight or tomorrow night, and we can catch up with her then.”

  “Tonight?” Anx
iety filled me. I swallowed. “So soon?” I was going to totally screw this up. I had never watched anyone die. Well, actually, that wasn’t true. I had, technically, seen my parents die, but I couldn’t remember it. The psychologists said I might get the memory back. Might not too.

  “Yes, tonight. Listen, Mack, you are on ops with me. To learn this trade, you need to live it. I need to show you exactly how it’s done in real life situations. Kinda like being thrown in the deep end.” He put the camera back in the case at his feet. “Now, let’s head back towards the city – there are a couple of other people we need to check on the way home. Then tonight, I expect to see you dressed to kill.”

  Oh great, now came the fun.

  3

  When I looked in the mirror, I hardly recognised myself; dressed in a low-cut, black, slinky dress, my nails sparkled, and once again, I was wearing a wig that’d undoubtedly annoy the hell out of me later. This one was a short, dark bob, which made me look a bit like Cleopatra. My skin was thick with makeup, and I wondered where the hell River and Chase learned how to do this. This was one area I didn’t feel completely out of my depth in. I could do my own makeup – usually in subtle hues and tones, low key, but River and Chase had really outdone themselves enhancing my features. Apparently they’re masters of disguise.

  I paced the terraced area of River’s house, puffing away on a cigarette. River wouldn’t let me have a drink to calm my nerves, and I totally hated him for it. I needed something to settle my stomach, and the cigarette wasn’t cutting it.