Tijuana Nights (The Nights Series Book 1) by Leigh K. Hunt Read Free Book Online Page A

protest, but I didn’t give a shit. I now had a dollar value on my life.
    After a few puffs, I started to feel a bit better, if only slightly.
    “Mack, they don’t know your real identity yet. All they have is Rachel White’s details. We’ll sort something out – like getting Gabe to get you a new passport and name.”
    “Rachel White.” I took another puff. Small blessings.
    When we got back to River’s house, Gabe was in a panic. Something was going on with border control into the States, and Chase had been held up, meaning that Gabe’s set up over there was now in a mess.
    “Everyone is looking for a blue-eyed blonde haired woman, going by the name of Rachel White. The border is a flaming mess. They’re pulling women out of cars to prevent them going across the border – even if they aren’t blonde. I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns into some sort of international incident. It’s holding up Chase, and he’s not going to get to Alicio Mendoza in time – so he’ll be delayed another day over there.”
    My breath left me. “Rachel White is being hunted,” I whispered. My head snapped up. “What the hell is going to happen to those women at the border?”
    Gabe shrugged. “I guess they’ll double check passports and other supporting identification and let them go. I can’t imagine they’ll detain many.”
    River passed me a glass of wine, and I collapsed onto the sofa. He turned the fire on, even though my shaking was only from my nerves. So I lay back, sipped my wine and watched the flames, only partially listening to River and Gabe talk shop. My thoughts were more on how long it would take for Carmen and her team to figure out that Rachel White didn’t exist.
    “No, it’s not just on her head, its payment on the delivery of her physical head.”
    “So I guess that means we can’t fake it then,” River murmured.
    I sat up alert, and turned towards Gabe and River. “What?”
    Gabe ran his hands through his long surfer locks with frustration. “Carmen wants your physical head delivered as proof of death, and then she will hand over the payment to the successful person.”
    I felt sick. At this rate, the bitch would have me dead before the week was out. My only consolation was that she was hunting for Rachel White, and not McKenna Carmichael. Tears sprang to my eyes. I wasn’t ready to die. Now it wasn’t just her hunting me, it was anyone who wanted to take my life for a shitload of money – and it was becoming increasingly clear to me that the number of people who might want to take her up on that offer was higher than I’d have ever imagined before.
    If I died, there would be no one to take care of my aunt, who was living in an aged-care facility. She had taken over my guardianship when my parents died when I was twelve. She was also the same loving woman who signed over her house to me when she went into care. If Luke hadn’t been trying to take my aunt’s house off me, I wouldn’t be here at all, nor would I have tried to prostitute myself to make the money to pay him out.
    I slugged back the rest of the wine, and slammed the glass down on the coffee table. I needed something stronger.
    I crossed the room to River’s booze cabinet, and extracted the tequila, muttering obscenities about ‘fucking Luke’ as I poured a decent portion into a crystal tumbler. I had to get out of this fucking country alive, for God’s sake. I couldn’t die here. I didn’t want the light from my eyes to go the same way as Regina’s. I had now seen death up close and personal. I didn’t want to have the first-hand experience of being assassinated just yet.
    I just wanted to wake up when all this was over.
    The tequila burned my throat as I sculled it back, but I didn’t care. Something had to give here, and I’d be damned if it was my life. Alcohol it was.
    I put the glass down hard on the sideboard, and poured myself another. I felt River move up behind me, and I forced myself to turn and face