Defending Raven (Mountain Mercenaries #7)(25)

Except for maybe one way . . .

She could tell him the truth.

Feeling cold and dead inside, she asked, “You want to know what’s going on, Dave?”

“Yes,” he said immediately.

“You won’t be able to handle it,” she warned him.

“Try me.”

He was so sure that nothing she could say would affect him, and that pissed Mags off so badly. He had no idea what she’d been through. It didn’t matter how many other victims he’d talked to. He didn’t know about her choices. The sacrifices she’d had to make over the years. Dave thought he knew everything about sex trafficking and how the world worked—but he didn’t know what had happened to her.

She knew part of her anger was because her husband had managed to rescue hundreds of other women and children, but he hadn’t found her. He was here basically by accident.

She also knew her feelings were irrational. It was obvious Dave had done whatever he could to find her; that deep down, she was still struggling to come to terms with the way her life had turned out.

So she lashed out at the one person who, despite everything, was still one hundred percent on her side.

“Fine. I didn’t get fired from del Rio’s operation because I was too old, even though that’s certainly the case. I made a deal with him. A deal with the devil.”

Dave stilled—and for the first time, she saw uncertainty creep into his gaze. “What kind of deal?” he asked.

“I promised that I would allow him to increase the number of clients I saw every day for seven months, in return for him letting me retire.”

Dave frowned and swallowed hard. “And? There has to be more to it than that. Men like del Rio don’t let their employees make those decisions.”

He was right. And that irritated her again. “Yeah, well, del Rio’s ‘employees’ don’t usually beg to be able to keep the baby one of their customers knocked them up with,” Mags shot back.

There. She’d said it.

And she got exactly the reaction she was expecting.

Dave’s eyes widened in shock and his mouth fell open. “Baby?” he asked.

At the word, the other women straightened and gaped at Mags.

She ignored them and kept her gaze on her husband. “Yeah, Dave. I got pregnant. It was a miracle.”

And it was. She and Dave had tried for two years to have a child, with no luck. Doctors had said there was a problem with both Dave’s sperm count and her fertility. The odds of them having a child together had been extremely low. It had devastated them both, but after a couple years, they’d decided to try the adoption route.

But then she’d been taken, and that had been that.

“How?” Dave whispered.

Mags shrugged. “Del Rio doesn’t require customers to use a condom, although most did when I insisted. Apparently, one of the men who’d paid for the privilege of being with me managed the impossible—and I wanted that baby. Badly enough to tell del Rio I’d be willing to take on more men, make more money for him, until my ninth month. You wouldn’t believe the number of guys who have fantasies of getting it on with a pregnant chick.”

She was being deliberately crude now. She just couldn’t make herself stop. She wanted to hurt Dave. And she wasn’t even sure why. Maybe because she knew after this conversation, he’d probably go back to the States as soon as possible. She’d be left alone again. There was no way he’d want to be with her after hearing all this. And she needed him gone. Needed to stop thinking about the past and dreaming about an impossible future. She was a former whore, no matter that she hadn’t wanted to participate in del Rio’s sick operation in the first place.

“So I let as many men as del Rio wanted into my bed for seven long months—and I pretended to love it. When it was time for me to have the baby, he locked me in my room and told me if I survived the birth, he’d consider letting me go. I was so scared . . . I had no idea what in the world I was doing. But I did it. My son was born, and he was perfect, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.”

“Where is he now?” Dave asked in an eerily subdued tone.

This was the hardest part of all. The part that made Mags so mad, she could literally kill del Rio with her bare hands.

“Del Rio has him. He said that I could leave, but I couldn’t take my baby with me. He has him in a house not too far from his compound. He’s being raised by some of the other women who work for del Rio. He’s also watched twenty-four hours a day. He’s as much a prisoner as I was, except he’s getting three healthy meals a day, and he’s safe. Del Rio doesn’t give a shit about David, but he doesn’t want me to have him either. He loves knowing I still can’t leave, despite getting away from him. He lets me see my son three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I’m not allowed to eat any of the food there, and I can’t take anything with me.

“My son is the most important thing in my life—and I am not leaving him. I can’t.”

As she talked, Dave’s face had gone as white as the snow that used to fall outside their house in Colorado Springs. It had been ten years since Mags had seen snow, but she remembered how blindingly white it was after a fresh snowfall. And that was exactly how her husband looked now.

“You named him David?” he finally asked.