The Lila Collection (Lila #1-2 + Lila and Alex: X-rated) by Sarah Alderson

Author:Sarah Alderson [Alderson, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471119590
Google: bZCtAAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 18870423
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2014-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

3

The taxi driver asked if we were sure.

‘Si,’ Alex replied.

I could only follow a bit of the conversation, my Spanish being remedial at best. I could order a burrito and ask for a double room and that was about it.

‘Why does he keep asking if we’re sure?’ I whispered to Alex.

‘Because tourists don’t usually ask to go to this part of town.’

‘I can’t think why,’ I muttered to myself, looking out of the window. There were a lot of red lights and dark alleys and flashing signs for Negra Modelo and Corona. It was nearly two in the morning and the streets were eerily empty. Even the locals obviously had more sense than to come out after dark.

I turned to face Alex across the back seat. ‘So, remind me once more what we’re doing here?’

‘We both need new passports. And we need them fast. We can’t use our old passports to cross back into the States. The Unit will have an APB out on us by now.’

‘And illegal passports aren’t something they sell in the supermarket. I get it, but why are we here?’ I wasn’t seeing a flashing sign for a passport shop.

‘I asked the driver to take us to the worst part of the city.’

‘OK,’ I said as if I understood.

Alex turned to the driver and spoke to him in fluent Spanish and I stared at him in surprise, wondering how many more skills he had that I didn’t know about.

‘Aquí?’ the driver said, gesticulating at the area around us like it was a plague zone. I was on the driver’s side. This didn’t look like too safe a place to be getting out for a stroll, even with Alex and his gun for company.

They spoke for a few more minutes before the driver, shaking his head, took the money Alex was holding out to him and killed the engine. We were sitting on the side of a narrow road, parked between two other cars. About fifty metres down the road was a building with boarded-up windows. A dark reddish light was escaping through the slats.

We sat in the dark for another ten minutes until I noticed that Alex was watching a man half-hidden in the shadows. He was hovering in a doorway, and every so often a car would pull up and the man would bend down and speak to the driver. An exchange would happen and then the car would drive off.

‘I thought we came for passports, not crack,’ I whispered to Alex.

‘Follow the street crime, which leads to the local dealer, which leads to the boss.’

‘What kind of boss? Who do they work for?’

‘The Mafia,’ Alex said, not taking his eyes off the man in the shadows. ‘In Central America there are various cartels. They control it all – the drugs, money laundering, arms, passports.’

I stared at him, wide-eyed, processing only the word Mafia. He didn’t look like he was joking. I nodded slowly. ‘So, we walk up to the nice man on the corner,’

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