Page 94 of Delta

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

"Yes, boss."

"Yes, hello? This is Pugli."

"Señor Pugli, I am Luis. I am el numero dos for Señor 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?"

"Las flechas rotas." A pause. "The Broken Arrows. Very hard men. Bad-bad. No can be stopped. Lorenzo, he is no Arrow-man, but he fight with them. He and La Víbora, they are amantes. They are also amigos with the Lash, who I think you know.”

“Lash, is it? I see," Pugli says, his voice dangerously quiet. "And?"

"Lorenzo escape with the woman and the boy. Mercado sends us to find them. La Víbora finds them first. There is much shooting, and only Raul gets away with the woman and the boy. Raul is injure, very bad. We must find Raul and the boy. This is Señor Mercado's only…ah, enfocar? Is all he want, now. You help find el nino for Mercado. Nothing else matter. Your woman, these Arrow-men, everyone. They all die. Only the boy is importante.”

"I see. Where should we begin looking?"

"I send you where he is last time I speak with him."

"And where are you?"

"Going there also. But you are closer."

"I see." A ding of an incoming message. "I have the location. We are…forty-five minutes away."

"I am one hour."

"What about the woman?"

"Ella no es andie. Sell her, kill her, is no matter to Señor Mercado. But the boy…no hurt him. Keep safe for Mercado."

"And if I encounter…what did you call her? La Vibra or something?"

"La Víbora. The Viper." The laugh is cruel, almost malicious. "Pray you do not, jefe. El Diablo wakes at night, frighten of La Víbora. She has no blood inside, only hielo. She is la Reina de Hielo."

"La Reina de Hielo? I do not speak Spanish."

"You are Italian. Is close, no?"

An irritated sigh. "Hielo…ice? The Ice Queen? She's The Ice Queen? Or The Viper? Which is it? She seems to have a multitude of melodramatic nicknames.” He ends with a biting, sarcastic laugh.

“You laugh. But you do not know, jefe. La Víbora…I tell you, El Diablo dreams of her coming for him and he is frighten. And now she is angry."

I don't know who this Viper woman is, but I like her already. The Devil himself is scared of her? Fuck yes. Let's go, bitch. You and me. Let's fuck these sickos all the way up.

I'm excited just imagining what kind of badass human being she must be if these Narco shitstains are so scared of her they give her wicked nicknames like The Ice Queen and The Viper. I'm picturing knives for fingers like a murdery version of Edward Scissorhands, or laser-beam eyes like Cyclops; hopefully both. Narcos aren't scared of fucking anyone, but this bitch has them pissing in their big boy pants.