Page 131 of Delta

"Yeah, Killy?"

"I'm really, really glad it's you. I hope you understand what I mean by that."

I laugh. "I do. I'm glad it's you, too."

I've always been fond of Killy. He's a few years younger than me, but of all the A1S kids, he and I were always closest. Just friends, since we were somewhat raised together, but in the last few years I've become more and more aware of him as a male to whom I'm not actually related. He's seriously hot, dryly funny, competent, and kind. Cal has always been more like Uncle Val—quiet, reserved, watchful. Killy is a mix of his parents, whereas Bryn is her mother's spitfire, hell-on-wheels twin in every way. Killy has more of his father in him, a bit more cautious, a bit less reckless, a lot less hot-tempered. The funny thing is, Cal is the daredevil of the boys. Killy is always down to do whatever Cal does, but it's always Cal's idea. Killy just won't be left behind and he won't be the one to wimp out on the fun.

So now I'm locked in a container on a cargo ship in the middle of the ocean with Killian Harris.

No one knows where we are. People are gonna be looking, but in the immediate future, no one is coming to save us.

Something tells me this shit has just started to get interesting.

EPILOGUE PART 2: LA VÍBORA HAS COME FOR BLOOD

An 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."