I heard Rafael retching beside me, and choked down my own bile. As a member of Lone Star, I’d seen the gruesome aftermath of murder before, and had been a witness to several shootings, a handful of them fatal. But I’d never seen anyone dispatched with such cold, cruel precision. I knew now that the leader’s hands were stained with blood—not painted—and that the objects I assumed were sponges were in fact human hearts. An entire pile of them. I’d just witnessed my first human sacrifice. I didn’t want to see another one.