Page 60 of Delta (Alpha #12)
A n irritated Sophia de Silva is a dangerous creature, indeed. In her current mood—seething with an icy, venomous, murderous rage—even I dare not breathe too loudly.
It has been forty-eight hours since we learned of Beatriz's murder, and Sophia's fury has not relented. No, if anything, it has only fermented, crystallized into a vengeful, bloodthirsty emotion so potent there is no single word for it in any language.
Hate, fury, rage, anger, these do not fully encapsulate the atomic violence radiating from her.
I fear no man, but right now, I am more than a little afraid of Sophia.
Our stolen car—a rattling, smelly, jouncing rustbucket with an anemic engine, no air conditioning, no radio, no suspension, and no muffler—wheezes as it struggles up the hill…if you can even call this slight incline a hill.
Sweating, Sophia reaches once more for the A/C controls, even though she's prodded, smacked, switched on and off, and verbally berated it in English, Portuguese, and Spanish countless times in the last sixteen hours.
Finally, with a wordless snarl of rage, she pulls out her Beretta and fires a single shot into the A/C controls.
"Sophia!" I snap, rubbing at my ringing right ear. "For fuck's sake!"
"There was no reason to leave my car behind, Lorenzo.
" She has her pistol out, still, and I'm worried that if I don't carefully consider each word I speak, she very well might just shoot me.
“You could not have stolen a worse vehicle.
I'd rather take a bus than spend another moment in this sweltering death trap. "
"Your Mercedes, as excellent as it is, was far too conspicuous," I answer. "I'll trade us up at the next opportunity."
She only glares at me for a moment and then turns her gaze out the window. For a long time, she's silent, seething, plotting, scheming.
"She harmed no one," she says, eventually—her first words on the subject of poor, innocent, murdered Beatriz. "Her only crime was that of love."
"I know," I murmur. "At least we know Reninho is safe."
"Without his mother. What am I meant to say, Lorenzo? What am I meant to do? After I deal with Mercado, what then?" For a moment, I'm worried she's about to cry, which is something I am frightfully ill-equipped to deal with.
A crying Sophia is akin to…god, I don't even know. I can more easily imagine a cobra weeping as Sophia.
Not that she doesn't feel emotions—she's no psychopath or sociopath. She just keeps them very, very well hidden from the world. She deals with such strong emotions only when alone.
Once, she trusted me with her feelings. Now, however, our reunion is still too fresh for her to allow me so close to her most intimate self.
She really isn't Sophia anymore. Especially now. This is Inez, the cold, calculated, precise, emotionless killer, her current mood notwithstanding.
I see glimpses of my Sophia in there, though.
"We have to find him, Lorenzo," she whispers. "I will kill Mercado with my bare hands, or I'll die trying. Do you hear me? I swear it on Beatriz's immortal soul. I swear it on Santa Maria." There was a hint of her old accent in there—faint, but present.
"I know. We're hunting him, Sophia. We'll find him. We'll get him."
"Not fast enough."
"I know."
"Stop saying that!" she growls. "I know, I know. Find something else to say."
I say nothing—it's safest.
We crossed the border into Mexico hours ago.
A contact in the NIC—Mexico's version of the CIA—placed Mercado somewhere in Central Mexico.
This intel is rather thin, however, as it is based more on the movement of Mercado's entourage than his movements.
Basically, it's a guess. But it's all we have to go on, so we are on our way to the coordinates my associate at the NIC gave me.
We still have a long way to go.
We have found ourselves in Fresnillo, in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. It's a silver mining town, but lately it has become something of a hub for organized crime. In other words, a perfect place for Mercado to hide in plain sight.
We're at a cafe in Fresnillo's Centro area, sipping sparkling water from sweating bottles. A fan lazily stirs the air overhead, and a bored waitress idly scrolls on her phone with a basket of silverware and a stack of paper napkins in front of her, which she ignores.
On the opposite side of the street is a trucking company's garage, which is our focus.
In addition to the usual, normal traffic coming and going from the fenced-in lot, there's a steady influx of old pickups, battered SUVs, and the occasional rattling sedan.
Each of these vehicles is packed with armed men.
They arrive, park, the men disgorge, and then… nothing. It's very curious.
"What do you think they're doing?" I ask Sophia in Portuguese, rather than Spanish.
She shrugs. "Sucking each other's dicks, I don't know. I don't care. I only care about ripping Rafael's spleen out of his body with my fucking fingers."
"At least thirty men have arrived in the last hour, by my count," I say, ignoring her outburst.
"Wonderful."
I sigh. "Sophia." She ignores me. "Inez."
This gets me a withering stare. " What , Lorenzo?"
"Even if he is in that building, with that many of his men, we can't do anything."
She reaches into the backpack at her feet and withdraws a frag grenade. "Sure, we can."
I reach across the table and push her hand down. "Jesus fucking Christ , Sophia," I snap in English. "Put that fucking thing away. Do you want to get us arrested? Because I've been in a Mexican prison. I do not recommend it."
She puts it away—slowly, laconically. She glances at me with idle curiosity. "You have? When? Why?"
"It is a long story. I was undercover and things…went sideways. I spent a month there before my people could get me out." I shake my head. "I really do not fancy another stay."
She nods, the topic already dismissed. When yet another Toyota pickup enters the yard and disgorges four more men with assault rifles, Sophia shakes her head, hissing a serpentine sound of irritated fury.
"Fuck this. You sit here and watch if you like.
I'm done playing fucking games." This is in English, as well.
"Sophia, wait," I say, grabbing her wrist.
Mistake.
Before I can so much as blink, there's a blur of silver and a snick of metal, and a butterfly knife has blossomed open, the blade resting at my throat, drawing a spot of blood.
She leans over the table, spitting her words in a savage whisper. "You are with me or you are against me. Do as you wish, Lorenzo. But do not think you can tell me what to fucking do."
"I'm not, Sophia. I just—"
She pockets the blade as swiftly as she produced it. "Stay here or come with me. I don't give a fuck. I'm going, and I’m getting answers."
"There must be nearly forty men in there, at minimum."
Her grin is downright barbaric. "Excellent. At least one of them will have information."
She snags her backpack and strides out of the cafe.
Fuck.
This is bad.
Sophia Bruna Santos de Silva on the warpath is a very, very, very bad thing for anyone in her blast radius. There is no rationality left in her. Only a thirst for death, havoc, vengeance, and blood.
As tempting as it is to sit here and watch the fireworks, I cannot do that. I love Sophia, and so, I must go.
But I don't like this.
At fucking all.
As it is, I'm nearly too late. By the time I toss some cash on the table for the meal we just finished and head for the car, she's already donned her vest, filled her pockets with magazines and grenades, and is marching with singular, determined focus in a beeline for the trucking lot.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Hurrying, now, I shrug into my own vest, clip my MP5 to the vest, add some mags and flashbangs—since it seems she's got us covered on the grenade territory—and jog after her.
CRACKCRACKCRACK!
She's in the lot, MP5 to her shoulder, peppering the windshield of a sedan as it enters the lot after her.
Red paints the interior, and the car lurches to a halt for a split second, and then the horn blares and the car bolts forward in an arc as the dead driver slumps forward against the wheel, foot burying the pedal.
It smashes into a parked trailer in a shattering of glass, wedging beneath the trailer; if any of the occupants survived her shots, they're dead now.
There's shouting from inside the warehouse, an overlapping chorus of voices all yelling competing orders.
She's kicked the hornet's nest, it would seem.
I charge the MP5, reposition the spare mags for easier access, check my sidearm's positioning, and follow Sophia toward the warehouse.
There's no strategy to her attack. She marches up the rickety wooden steps leading to the loading platform, the shadows of the platform all but swallowing her trim, black-clad figure. I jog after her, but I’m a good twenty yards behind her.
She kicks in the door and fires a burst into the opening. There's a scream, and a barrage of gunfire, but as far as I can see, none of it comes even close to her.
She vanishes into the warehouse, then, and that's when all hell breaks loose.
La Víbora has come for blood.