Tijuana Nights (The Nights Series Book 1) (12 page)

"Davin," Chase said holding his hand out. "Her brother."

"Davin," Alvarez repeated as he shook his hand. "Alvarez. Ciara and I keep bumping into each other. This is what..." He wiggled his eyebrows at me. "Our third serendipitous meeting?"

I forced a laugh to my lips. "Yes. Most unusual." I put my arm through Chase's. "Anyway, we're running late. We have a lunch meeting."

Alvarez frowned at me. "Lunch? But you're still dressed in what you wore last night."

Shit. I desperately wanted to head-slap myself for that blunder. "Yes, I'm off home to change now, actually. Hence why we're running late. I dressed in the first thing I saw this morning so I could come and pick up my brother."

Alvarez smiled. "Well don't forget to call me. We have a dancing date to attend to."

I shook my head. "Of course not. I'll give you a call tomorrow and we can sort something out."

He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek again. "Lovely to see you again." As he straightened, he said to Chase, "And nice to meet you as well."

"Likewise," Chase said with his usual confident composure.

Alvarez stepped into the elevator, and as the doors closed, Chase tugged me out of the apartment complex doors, and across the road to the car. I had a feeling that Alvarez would be watching our car if he got to a window fast enough. The thought of it sent shivers down my spine, and I forced myself not to look up at the building as Chase nudged me towards the driver's seat to maintain our cover.

I started the car up, and carefully pulled out of the park. Chase told me to drive straight ahead. I hated driving in Tijuana, hated it with the rental they first got me, and I still hated it now. The drivers were erratic, there was loads of traffic heading to the border, and everyone seemed more impatient than was necessary.

Both River and Chase were much more composed when driving in this city.

"That was close, Mack," Chase said quietly from the passenger's seat. "With Alvarez, I mean."

I nodded, still too nervous about the whole meeting to say anything.

"Chances are he could be going up to meet with Nicandro. We don't know."

I shook my head, keeping an eye on the road in front of us.

Chase pulled out his phone, and dialled a number. "Gabe. Everything is set up; you should be able to link through now." There was a pause as Gabe responded. "Yes. Three of them. Also - we just bumped into Alvarez when we were leaving the building. You better check to see if he's meeting with Nicandro."

My throat closed at the thought, and my hands gripped the steering wheel. Alvarez would know that I didn't leave with Nicandro last night, and if Nicandro told him about waking up with me, it would open a whole new can of worms that I really didn't want to deal with right now.

I swore, and thumped the wheel.

Chase looked over at me in surprise, eyebrows raised. "What? You forget something?"

"No... Just thinking, that's all." I sighed when Chase didn't say anything. "Okay, I'm just hoping like hell that Nicandro keeps his mouth shut about me if he is meeting with Alvarez. I'm pretty sure Alvarez watched me leave the ball with River last night. He'll know something is up if he discovers that I apparently slept with Nicandro."

Chase patted my leg gently, causing the butterflies inside me to return to their dance routine, and I swallowed.

"If anything happens, we'll try and cover you."

"Damn straight," I muttered. I threw my hands up at the traffic in front of us, "Now, where the fuck am I supposed to be going here?"

* * *

While I had been in the bed with Nicandro, Chase had set up pinhole cameras around the apartment which Gabe could tap into. So, by the time we got home, Gabe was watching every movement of Nicandro's closely. So I knew that after we saw Alvarez, he had gone up to Nicandro's, who had told Alvarez he thought he had food poisoning. Thankfully, without even mentioning me, he sent Alvarez away and said that he would call him later.

Apparently, because Ricin has a delayed reaction, sometimes it could take a while for the person to die. Chase assured me that he had poisoned a number of other things in the kitchen as well, so if Nicandro ate, or drank the water in the kettle, he would poison himself even more.

I needed something to do, which was why I was in my room, flicking that business card through my fingers. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about with Carmen hunting me down, now I was worried about Alvarez trying to meet with me.

I needed to do more research. That's what I needed. I always felt better if I knew more about the subject worrying me. So research on Alvarez was probably the best diversion I could have right now.

I pulled myself up into sitting position on the sofa and looked around, wondering where to start. My room was a freaking mess due to the constant clothing changes and unscheduled trips out. The life that Chase, River, and Gabe lived was on the edge. Anything could happen at any time, and they were ready for it. I wasn’t. I liked everything to be planned out meticulously in advance.

So I changed tack and decided to clean up my room before I went and delved into research. I couldn't think properly when everything was in a state of chaos.

I fished my iPod out of my suitcase, and docked it into the sound system. Drum and Bass started pounding around the room, and instantly I felt my dark mood starting to lift. I separated my dirty laundry from my clean, and took it down to put it in the machine. The rest of the house was quiet, but my room was thick with noise. I loved it.

I was surprised that River didn't have staff in this house, but then he probably had trust issues, so that wouldn't work. He was the one who said that anyone could be bought with enough money. And he was right. With the right connections and wads of cash, you could.

I hung clothing up in the wardrobe, and stacked shoes neatly side by side. The stuff that River and Chase had bought me was all designer, and beautiful. I guess I needed to look the part in any situation. Since they had paid me to come to Mexico and they were currently protecting my sorry arse, I was sort of living on their terms.

When I finished sorting out my clothing, I walked into the bathroom and took in that state of chaos. I put my make-up away in draws, my toothbrush in the holder, and tidied up the bottles in the shower. I picked up the wet bath towel, and other used towels, and together with the sheets from my bed, I took those down to launder as well once my clothes were finished. I was starting to feel much better about the world.

I shut the music off in my room, and went to find Gabe, who would be able to supply all of the files I needed on Alvarez.

Only the house was empty. They had all disappeared. I looked out the kitchen window and saw that two of the cars were missing.

"Bugger," I muttered. I stood there with my hands on the bench for a few moments before I turned around and rifled through the fridge for a glass of chilled juice. With drink in hand, I retrieved the cigarettes from my bag and stepped outside into the afternoon sun, to light up. I decided that I was going to savour a few moments peace while I could.

I sat down on one of the deckchairs, lowered my sunglasses over my eyes, and inhaled deeply. It was heaven.

The sun was hot as it beat down on me, but I didn't care. I felt safe. Chances were that it was going to burn my fair English skin to a crisp, but that didn't bother me too much either. I wanted to have a little more natural colour by the time I went back to England, and there was really only one way to achieve that. At least lying in the sun wasn't exerting.

I really needed to write to my aunt and let her know how my 'trip/holiday' was going. She would worry if she didn't hear from me soon; especially as I should have been back in England by now.

I walked into the coolness of the house and over to Gabe's iPad. I keyed in his security code, and logged into my email.

I hadn't checked it in ages, and I blew a sigh of frustration when I saw a message sitting in there from Luke from a week ago.

McKenna,

              We need to talk. And we can hardly do that if you're flitting off around the world somewhere and won't even respond to my emails.

              We agreed that you would buy my half of the house off me, and so far I haven't seen a penny. Where are you anyway? You know that you can't run from your problems. And you can't run from me.

              Call me when you get this email.

              Luke.

I wanted to scream. Actually, more than that - I wanted to bash the shit out of Gabe's iPad for delivering the email to me. "Fucker," I growled. Who the fuck did he think he was? It was MY house. Elsie had transferred the family home into
my
name when she started to get sick, for god's sake. I gritted my teeth. She would be utterly horrified if she knew what Luke was up to.

He'd fucked my best friend, was reaming me for half the value of the house, had forced me into the sex industry, which in turn had me whisked away by assassins, and now I had a giant fucking bounty on my head - all because he was an asshole. To put it plainly - he fucked me seven ways from Sunday.

I was no longer going to be emotionally controlled or abused by a man - not now, and not ever again. But now Luke wanted to fucking talk. Again.  I wasn't going to talk to him until I got back to England. If we were going to talk, it was going to be on my terms.

I exhaled a sigh, shook my head to clear it, and returned to checking my emails.

There was another email amongst the junk that I opened, from Theodore Olsen. I had no idea who that was, but I opened it anyway.

He was a lawyer.

"Oh god," I muttered.

Dear Ms Carmichael,

              It has come to our attention that you have not been in contact with Mr Luke Sommers for an extended period of time.

              Mr Sommers has charged us with the collection of 460,000 pounds, the current level of debt owing for the house in East Dulwich, London, the 2010 Mini Cooper S that he states he bought you, as well as 96,000 pounds in joint assets and financial support he has given you during the last six years, in which you only earned minimal amounts.

              We understand that you are currently out of the country. However, it is still imperative that we speak with you.

              If you do not want this matter to go before the Courts, then please contact us by the 31st October, and we can have a discussion.

              Yours sincerely,

              Theodore Olsen

             
Solicitor

I looked at the date on the screen. Today was the 29
th
October. I had two days to get back to them. I just didn’t know what to say.

I felt as though this was just the beginning of the end. Temporarily foregoing the email, I was going to write to my aunt's carers, I stormed off to my bedroom, rifled through the drawers and wardrobe, and found some clothes to work out in. I just couldn’t write the email to Elsie’s carers when I was in a foul mood. I had to somehow get this rubbish out of my system.

I stomped my way down to the training room, and started smashing the shit out of the boxing bag. With each hit, I imagined Luke's smarmy face on the receiving end. After a while, I started to feel buggered, and a bit better. If I was really being honest - I was actually enjoying myself. Perspiration poured from my head, and ran down my body, but I just kept going. I remembered what River had said about punching through the bag, and that the hit doesn't just end at impact. And the harder I worked, the more I threw my body and weight behind it, and the more the bag swung. I even managed to get into a rhythm of dodging when it swung back at me. Practice was definitely helping my technique, and what was even better was that there was no one there to critique me. It was just me and the bag.

I thought that target practice with a gun would probably work wonders as well, but I highly doubted that River would allow me to do that in my current state of mind.

I just couldn't believe that after all this Luke still had power over me and my emotions. As an accountant, he already had the 'arsehole' streak in him. I just never really imagined I would be on the receiving end of it. I punched the bag again.