Night of the Assassin: Assassin Series Prequel Russell Blake (red novels txt) 📖

“You’re an idiot. For you, maybe there is, but not for me. I didn’t finish the story. You didn’t let me. After they were done with me, every orifice brutalized and bleeding, the leader, Altamar, went into the barn and got some of the acid they used on the glass tiles in the fountain – to remove the calcium deposits, as I remember. They’d always wear gloves, and mix it fifty parts water to one part acid. It was the only thing that would remove the buildup. Altamar didn’t wear gloves, and he didn’t mix it. He just poured it on my face, laughing as my skin fizzed with screaming pain. Last thing I remember was trying to make it to the kitchen to rinse it off my face with water. That probably saved my life.” She stopped and peered at him through the gloom. “I wish they’d killed me. I’ve sat here many times, ever since they released me from the hospital, wishing I was dead. I’d kill myself but it would damn my soul to hell forever, according to the priest who stops in occasionally to mitigate my torment. So I sit in the dark, and pray to an unlikely god to end my misery. So far, he’s ignored me, just the same as he ignored my family.”

“Jesus…”

“There’s no Jesus here. There’s only what they turned me into. What they did to me. There’s only this.”

Jasmine leaned forward so that he could see her face in the dim light. One side was the Jasmine he remembered. Beautiful, serene, now with tears streaming freely down her cheek. The other side of her face was an abomination. The acid had seared off her living flesh, blinded her, and so ruined it that it more resembled something that had been dragged down a road for miles, or trapped in a fire, than something human. The tendons and ligaments were exposed and, even two years later, it was a suppurating wet sore…a picture of hell on earth incarnate. The young man had seen plenty of death and horror in his life but even he was shocked and he automatically recoiled from the sight. It was the most horrible thing he’d ever seen. He felt his gag reflex triggering as the pit of his stomach dropped out.

“Oh… Oh God, Jasmine…”

There was nothing to say. No words anyone could say to make it better.

Jasmine had been right.

There was no hope.

Chapter 7

The lights of the cantina twinkled in the softness of the spring night air; the bouncing beat of lively Banda music floated out from inside, along with raucous laughter and peals of glee from inebriated women. It was Saturday night and the party was in full swing on the outskirts of Culiacan, a rough and rural area populated by hard men with humorless eyes and females who were looking for a fast luxury ride to nowhere. This was cartel country and the bar was a cartel bar, so if you hadn’t grown up in the area and didn’t know the owners, you didn’t go inside unless you had a death wish.

It was one of the few places in Mexico where Armand Altamar could let his hair down and relax. He wasn’t at war with anyone for the time being so he had little to fear. Things were prospering under his iron rule and everyone was making a ton of money since he’d taken over most of Don Miguel’s duties. He’d had to give up some of the meth and heroin traffic to Diego up north, and had to cut in Aranas, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, for a fifteen percent larger slice of his cocaine traffic; but even so, business had grown to the point where he didn’t even feel the dilution – he was pocketing fifty million dollars a month, on a bad one.

Not so bad for a forty year old ex-enforcer who had come up from the streets, fighting tooth and nail for anything he ever got. He’d been born in one of Culiacan’s worst barrios, a desperate den of poverty and filth that few walked away from. Now he was running things after someone had taken out the Don. It was like a dream come true and he was making the most of it. Every weekend, he would hire one of the most popular Banda groups in Sinaloa to play for his de facto private party at his bar. Every friend he had would attend, as well as some of the most beautiful examples of Mexican femininity in the country – all to pay homage to him and celebrate his success.

Not that winning the spoils had been easy, by any means. For a few months after the Don had passed on to his just reward, Culiacan had been a death zone. Five or six different factions fought it out for his turf. The only way Altamar had emerged victorious was through a combination of epic brutality, stealth, deceit and, surprisingly, a willingness to compromise with his rivals. After several of his competitors had been found beheaded, along with their entire families – including newborn babies, aged relatives and even household pets – the notion of doing a deal to end the madness had been appealing to even the most battle-hardened contenders. And so a cautious truce had gone into effect. The killing stopped, prosperity returned and everyone went back to doing what they were supposed to do: making money – a lot of money. Maybe not as much as if one man ran it all, as Don Miguel had, but, then again, more than anyone could spend in a hundred lifetimes, just the same.

Altamar had introduced the idea that you had to be alive to spend it, and had been utterly ruthless in driving home the point that, unless you cooperated and stepped out of the way, your life wasn’t worth anything. Over four hundred and seventy people had lost their lives in the two months following the Don’s passing,