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The stranger in her car froze when he realized that Sophia had him, her gun pointed up against his head in almost the exact position as he had done to her not a few minutes ago.
“Drop your gun,” she commanded, and he had little choice but to do as she said. His Glock fell to the passenger side floor with a thud, and he held up his hands a little.
“Look girl, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’ve got no idea what you’re getting yourself into. I was gonna let you go, but now …”
“But now what? Now it looks like you’re going to have to hope I do the same for you. Are you with Salvatore’s Family?”
The man was taken aback by this question, and took a moment to answer.
“I … I thought you were lost?”
“I thought I just asked you a question,” Sophia answered as she pushed the gun harder against his head.
“Yes,” he replied quietly.
“How many others are there?”
“Three. Two up behind us in cars on the road, and one talking to Palmero down there,” he motioned towards the bridge where the four men down there were still oblivious to the drama occurring in her car.
“You were coming down here to get rid of us?”
“I’m not going to say.”
“You’d better,” Sophia replied, “because it’s not going to do you any good if you don’t. Were you going to kill my father?”
“Who?”
“Palmero Tremarchi. Were you planning on killing him?”
“Holy …” the color in the man’s face washed away, and he tried to turn his head to look at her, but she forced it back with the barrel of her gun.
“Did you come here to kill him?”
“There are problems; they have to be sorted.”
Sophia was quiet for a moment as she realized that she and the rest of them could have been dead moments ago if it wasn’t for her dumb luck. With that came something welling up inside her, but she couldn’t put a name to it. Adrenalin again, yes, but something more intense. More intense than even fear. And as she thought more in those few scant seconds about how this man intended to kill her and her father purely for business purposes, she
realized what it was. Hate. She couldn’t help but take it personally.
Before she even realized she was doing it, Sophia snarled at the unnamed man, “How’s this for sorting it out?” squeezed the trigger and blasted her gun into the side of his head. The noise and the splatter on her face brought her back to reality, and she lurched out of the car.
She looked up and saw Frank running towards her, and without even thinking she yelled at him, “Two, two up there,” and pointed behind their cars. As she did so, she heard someone yell “Down!” and she did as she was told as bullets whizzed over her. Crawling to the front of her car for cover, she jumped up and fired three bullets in the general direction that she had given Frank and ducked back down. She twirled around and looked down to where her father was. She couldn’t see him or Benny and Vincenzo and prayed they were okay. She saw one figure on the ground but couldn’t make out in the panic who it was as the sounds of guns blasting and men yelling made her head swim.
She heard a car behind her and swung around. Her father’s Jeep hurtled towards her. It swerved just as it reached her and skidded to a stop. One of the back doors opened.
“Get in, get the hell in now,” Benny bellowed at her. Sophia dove into the back seat next to him, followed closely by two other men.
“Go, go, go now!” Frank yelled as he opened the window and held his gun ready to shoot again.
“Sophia, do you realize who you shot?” Benny roared over the top of the melee. “That was Salvatore! You killed the head of the other Family!”
“Oh Jesus, I thought he was with you guys and this guy was just one of his thugs …”
“No, they made like he couldn’t make it. He tried to take us all out …”
“I didn’t mean to …”
“Believe me, kid, you did good, I’ll explain later.”
“Oh Jesus, oh Jesus,” Sophia ranted over and over. Her father looked at her in the rearview mirror.
“Are you okay?” Palmero asked, a worried tone in his voice.
“The blood …”
“I know. If you feel sick, you just …”
“It’s in my hair!”
And as the car made it to the bridge on ramp with all of Palmero’s men safely inside, the gunfight well behind them, there was silence for a moment as they all took in what Sophia had said.
“You’ve gotta be kidding,” Palmero smiled, and the rest erupted into laughter, including Sophia.
© Cynthia M. Piromalli
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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