Page 42 of Delta (Alpha #12)

He doesn't miss a thing, Pugli. He sees my expression and laughs. "No stomach for that, eh? Well, you'll certainly not enjoy what Mercado has planned for you. He shared it with me in some detail after I sent him your file."

He has a file on me?

"We sort of bonded, he and I. It's truly wonderful to connect with someone who operates on one's own level, to freely discuss one’s…pecadillos.”

This guy is fucked in the head. But the good thing is I know his plans, so I'm that much closer to knowing how to foil them.

I also know I'm not going to be immediately tortured, raped, and killed.

Just eventually. Although going off of what he's saying, I'm starting to think torture, rape, and murder would be the easy way out of what’s actually coming my way, if this freaky fucker's frank admiration of Mercado is anything to go on.

He leans back in his seat, scrutinizing me.

"You're a calm one, Miss Harris. I find that admirable, truly, but foolish.

There is no escape. There will be no daring last-minute rescue by your delightful band of do-gooder paladins.

" A shrug, a flip of his hand. "That said, hysterics will do you no good either, I'm just not accustomed to a lack of theatrics when my merchandise discovers the fate awaiting them. "

I feel a vicious surge of disgusted hatred at the use of the word "merchandise" to describe human beings.

I've kept silent thus far, but since I've got very little to lose at this point, I may as well indulge in my curiosity. "Tell me, Bob, what happened to you? I mean, who hurt you? For real."

His dark eyes narrow at me. "Bob? I think not." The hardness in his gaze belies his jovial, charming speech patterns. I hit a nerve, I think. "And I've no idea what you mean."

"Well, Bobby-boy, what I mean is that I just can't figure out how the fuck you become such a vile, disgusting, evil, demented, filthy, depraved, rapey piece of shit.

It's truly mind-boggling." I roll a shoulder, or at least, as much as I can while my hands are still bound behind my back and my elbows cinched inward.

"The only option, as far as I can tell, is that you were badly abused as a kid.

That's how monsters like you are made, right?

Daddy beat you? Mommy called you mean names? Uncle Al diddled you in the basement?"

I'm making light of such awful things on purpose—to get a reaction.

And it works.

His hands curl into claws and dig into the armrests, savage, insane fury lighting his features. "What would you know about such things, you pretty, privileged princess?" he spits each plosive P-sound with venomous rage.

"Nothing whatsoever, Bobby-boy. My mommy and daddy love me.

My uncles gave me perfectly appropriate hugs.

I've never been beaten or diddled in the basement—at least, not as a child and not against my will.

" I shrug, faking an insouciance I do not feel.

"There was that time Zero and I got it on in his mom's basement.

The man had a talented mouth, I'll tell you that much. "

"Stop calling me that."

I lean into the restraints, letting him see my hate.

"Or what , bitch? You think I don't know what's coming?

Fuck you. You can't do shit to me. Your sick little buyer across the pond wants me untarnished, am I right?

That means you can't do shit to me. I have to be unspoiled so your kinky little bitch of a buddy can have all the fun with me. "

His eye twitches. "I warn you, Miss Harris, I am not a man to provoke."

"Oh, I bet. Big bad man like you? You're the type who likes to pretend like he does his own dirty work, huh? Get in on the action? Cut off a few fingers, throw a few punches, maybe even finish them off with your special gun?"

Another eye twitch—bullseye.

"C'm on , Bobby-boy. What do you have to lose?

If you're right and my fate is sealed, you've got nothing to lose by telling me a bit about yourself.

Who am I gonna tell? This Mercado prick?

According to you, I'll be too busy being tortured or whatever it is you sick fucks like to do to innocent girls. "

"Innocent? You, Miss Harris, are very far from innocent."

"I mean, until your pet apes tried to kidnap that poor girl in Zermatt, I was.

I'd never killed anyone. You brought this on yourself, Bobby-boy.

" I shake my head, sighing. "Regardless, my question stands.

What the fuck happened to you? For real.

How do you become what you are? I mean, you have to know that you're a sick, twisted, horrible creature from the deepest, darkest pits of hell, don't you?

People don't just suddenly turn evil. Things happen.

Evil in human beings is created by other humans.

We all have the capacity for good, and we all have the capacity for evil.

It's the things that happen to us in our formative years that determine which way we go.

And you, obviously, had truly awful things done to you as a child to make you the kind of person who gets off on the suffering of innocent girls. "

Jaw grinding and ticking, narrowed eyes fixed on me with blatant fury, Pugli is silent for a long, long time. Several times he opens his mouth to speak, but thinks better of it, clicking his jaws together with an audible snap.

Eventually, he glances over his shoulder at Anatoly. "Sedate her before I give in to the temptation to teach her a lesson. It would not do to raise the ire of Mercado at this juncture, after all."

Is he… scared ? Of Mercado?

That gives me major pause. If Pugli is afraid of Mercado, then the guy has to be a big fucking deal.

Anatoly reaches under his seat and comes up with a black hard-sided case.

He opens it, revealing, in true Bond-villain style, black foam encasing four identical, pre-filled syringes.

Selecting one, Anatoly approaches me with it.

Eying me warily, he pauses, draws his pistol from the shoulder holster, shoving the barrel against my crotch, angled so the bullet, if he were to fire, would go through my pelvic bone.

"I do not give a fuck about his friend. If you so much as breathe wrong, bitch girl, I shoot you.

Right… here ." He digs the hard barrel into my groin, eliciting a shocking burst of agony—I can't stop the gasp of pain from escaping.

He grins. "Now think of how much hurt it will be if I shoot you here.

Hmmm? You like it? No? Do not even fucking blink. "

I hold absolutely still as he injects me with the sedative. Feeling it take hold almost instantly, I grin at him. "Scaredy-cat. Afraid of little ol' me, are you?" Darkness is pulling me under. "You're gonna die, Anatoly. My face will be the last thing you ever see."

"Bitch, I will—" Anatoly starts.

I don't catch the rest, because I'm unconscious.

I come back to consciousness slowly. At first, it's just a sense of heaviness, a slow, dense kind of quasi-awareness.

That sensation gradually gives way to an awareness of light on my eyelids and the bounce and jolt and rock of an SUV on a rutted road.

I can't make my eyes open for a long time, can't make my limbs function—I'm mostly conscious but unable to surface the last of the way to fully awake.

I hear the suspension protesting, the rattle of objects in cupholders. There's a sniff and snort, a window humming open, and the gross sound of a loogie being hawked.

I'm on my back, stretched out. I'm still bound, but my hands are in front and my elbows are loose. It's a relief, honestly.

I crack my eyes open cautiously. I’m in the trunk/cargo area of an expensive SUV, most likely another Range Rover, which this pretentious jackass seems to prefer; the bouncing and jolting of a backroad abruptly gives way with one last violent bounce to the smooth hum of blacktop.

"Finally," I hear Pugli mutter. "My teeth were rattling."

"Sorry, boss," Anatoly says. “I cannot fix the bumpy road." "I'm aware. We are behind schedule, however. We're due to meet Mercado's lieutenant in Austin in less than two hours, and we're at least two and a half hours away."

"I go faster, boss."

"Very good." A pause. "But within ten miles per hour of the posted limits, please. An encounter with American law enforcement at this juncture would be regretful."

“Yes, boss."

Austin? Texas? The fuck? When he said across the Atlantic, I assumed we'd be somewhere in South or Central America.

I'm considering the possible implications of being on American soil when a cell phone burbles.

"Silence, please, Anatoly. I must answer this."

"Yes, boss."

"Yes, hello? This is Pugli."

"Senor Pugli, I am Luis. I am el numero dos for Senor Mercado." The voice is nasally and heavily Spanish-accented.

"Hello, Luis. We are about thirty minutes behind schedule, I'm afraid. We encountered heavy winds crossing the Atlantic."

“Is no problem, jefe . We, um…there was a problem."

"Oh. I see. Meaning what?"

"We are attacked. A very dangerous woman attacks our safe house in Austin. She is bad-bad, jefe . Our people took the woman and the boy, but La Víbora got away, and so did Lorenzo."

A pause. "You refer to people whom I do not know, Luis. Is there one woman? What child? And who is Lorenzo?"

" Lo lamento, jefe . I talk about two women, one boy, and one man.

The dangerous woman is La Víbora, The Viper.

She is bad-bad, very dangerous. Escape Mercado and cause big trouble, kill many men.

The other woman is…" a pause, a frustrated sigh.

"I do not know all these words en Ingles .

She is not mother, but she raises boy like a mother.

The boy is Mercados's hijo . Mercado, he wants his hijo . La Víbora does not want this."

"I follow so far. And I'm guessing this Lorenzo is another troublemaker. One of the Broken Arrows, perhaps?"