The Beasts of Juarez by R.B. Schow (best books to read for beginners txt) 📕

He blinked away the memory and focused on her face as he came back to the present moment. “I am but one of the beasts of Juárez, Sydney. We are many—too many to count—and we have no feelings, no remorse, no ambition but to corrupt others for a profit. Drugs, prostitution, human trafficking, sex trafficking, murder…this is what I sell, and sales are good.”

“There is no honor in that,” she argued.

“Not for you there isn’t.”

“Not for anyone!” she retorted. “Unless you’re sick in the head.”

“I traffic in the kind of darkness a woman like you will only know in her dying moments. My occupation is the thing you never discuss in polite society, the trade that fuels the deepest corners of this world. I am the distribution channel and the seller, the buyer and the killer. I do it all in this black market, which is something your civilized world has no clue about. But it will. We have quietly invaded the United States, gathering power in the streets, paying influence to police and politicians alike, corrupting judges, and creating sellouts in congress. Of course, you will never know about that world because that was never your scene. But it is now. You’re in my world, and in my world, you don’t beg for your life, you beg me to end it. If you can’t see the honor in that, then you are blind, foolish, or just plain stupid.”

“This is a large house,” she heard herself say.

She had to say something to keep her mind off of his cruel words, for this malevolent demon was unfolding its leathery wings before her like some ferocious nightmare taking shape.

Smiling, sloughing off the darkness that seemed to have taken hold of him, he said, “My house is ten thousand square feet. Do you like it?”

“It’s too garish for me,” she replied, no longer concerned with offending him. “All of this shiny crap is just a man trying to prove he has taste when in reality he amounts to very little. You staked your claim in the sinister world, Santiago. Since when does the opinion of a woman even register with something like you?”

“It doesn’t,” he replied. “Let me show you the rest of the house and then I’ll show you to your room.”

Santiago continued the tour telling her how his décor was better than everyone else’s décor and, despite her noted revulsion, a house of this size and design spoke to a man arriving at his place in the world. As much as he seemed to be telling her about himself, she really didn’t know what kind of status he had in Juárez. Was he the head of one of the local cartels? Or was he just a hustler who saw a crack in the system he realized he could exploit? Whatever the case may be, in her estimation he was just another godless, narcissistic prick trying to pretend he wasn’t a blight on the ass-end of humanity.

The thing that bothered Sydney about Santiago was not the love affair he was having with himself. It was that after completely unraveling her life, he had the gall to talk about fabrics and dynasties and how much this or that thing cost.

Making matters worse, the same seven-foot creature that looked at her with such disdain only moments ago was now walking behind her with his gun pointed directly at the back of her head.

“I won’t run if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said over her shoulder, “so you don’t need to keep that thing pointed at me anymore.”

“You don’t have it in you to flee, and even if you did, where would you go?” Santiago turned and asked. “To find your daughters?” He erupted in a brief but hearty bout of laughter. “One-and-a-half-million people living in Juárez, many of them of the criminal sort. Do you know what criminals are good at, Mrs. Fox?”

“Covering their tracks,” she said, unamused.

“Precisely,” he replied. “That’s why you’ll never find your daughters.

“People will come for you, Santiago. I’m not just some daft blonde who went missing on a Saturday afternoon.”

Santiago waved his hand like he didn’t care about that. “Do you know why Jose has a gun pointed at your head?” he asked with a pleasant smile.

“Because he’s protecting you?” she asked.

“Ha! Protecting me from what? From you? What could you do to me that I wouldn’t do back to you a thousand times worse?”

“Then why?” she asked.

“Jose is holding a gun to your head because he likes to kill women.”

Somehow, this didn’t surprise her. The way the fiend had looked at her earlier said it all. “Oh, he’d be a hit in America.” Behind her, she heard the hulk of a man grunt out a laugh. She glanced over her shoulder for just a second then said, “Yeah, they love it there if you don’t like women.”

“Ah yes, your silly cultural upheaval.” To Jose, Santiago said, “They hate straight white men in America. Right now, women and minorities are assuming control to the detriment of white people, as it should be.” Now he looked at Sydney. “White men are shit. White women who like white men are shit, too. Your little girls are shit, except for what we can do with them, and what others can do to them. If you haven’t figured it out yet, the only worth you have left is as a commodity that men like me, heathens like me, live to exploit. We do it because we can, because it makes us truckloads of money. And Jose? He isn’t in it for the money as much as he wants the experience of making people like you