Defending Raven (Mountain Mercenaries #7)(65)

“Ready for more?” Gray asked Raven quietly from beside her.

She nodded, but didn’t take her gaze from Dave’s.

“We couldn’t do this without you,” Gray praised. “This isn’t easy, but you’re doing great.”

His friend’s words seemed to bolster Raven a bit. He didn’t like the situation, but he couldn’t have been prouder of Raven if she’d won the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Right,” Black said in a menacing tone to Ruben. “So you have a buddy who claims del Rio brought a kid to his barrio. How did you know his name was David? What aren’t you telling us?”

“I’m telling you everything!” Ruben wailed.

More rustling sounded behind Raven’s back, and Dave could see from his peripheral that Black had cut through Ruben’s shirt this time. He held the tip of the knife to one of his nipples and pressed. A bead of blood formed and quickly grew, until it dripped down Ruben’s chest.

“Stop! For the love of God, stop! I’ll tell you!” Ruben yelled. “My friend went into the old woman’s hut, to see what was going on and maybe try to get some money out of her. The kid had a chain around his ankle and was sitting against the wall, crying. He took some money and smacked the old lady around until she told him the kid’s name was David, but she didn’t know anything else. How long he’d be there or what del Rio wanted with him.”

Dave gently caressed Raven’s face with his thumbs, wanting to soothe her in any way he could. He hated that she was there listening to Ruben spout his filth. Hated she had to hear about what their son was going through. Wanted to step over to Ruben and fucking kill him. But Raven needed him right where he was. And if the choice was being there for his wife or exacting revenge, he’d choose Raven every single time.

“The kid asked if my friend knew his mom, Mags. Said she’d be worried about him when she went to visit his house and he wasn’t there. Said he was lost, and she’d be looking for him,” Ruben went on.

“He’s worried about me,” Raven whispered after she’d translated the other man’s words, tears filling her eyes.

“Of course he is,” Dave told her. “He loves you.”

“Where’s the barrio where your friend lives?” Black asked.

When Ruben didn’t answer, Raven tensed in Dave’s hold.

“Hang on just a little bit longer,” he soothed. “Almost done.”

“I asked, where is the barrio where your friend lives?” Black repeated in a deadly tone.

This time there was no noise as Black walked behind Ruben and knelt down. Without a word of warning, he grabbed hold of one of Ruben’s hands and, using the dull knife, sliced off the tip of one of the man’s pinkie fingers.

The scream that came out of Ruben was piercing in its intensity.

“Stop! Stop! I’ll tell you! It’s a few kilometers west of here. I can take you to it!” Ruben yelled.

“Just tell us exactly where it is,” Ball told him. “Exactly.”

For the next few minutes, between sobs, Ruben gave explicit instructions on how to get to the barrio where David was supposedly located, and which hut belonged to the old woman. The barrio was larger than the one they were in now, and had double the number of houses, according to Ruben. It backed up to a housing development and was surrounded by a twelve-foot concrete fence, separating the haves from the have-nots.

Dave knew they had what they needed from Ruben. He dropped his hands and reached for Raven’s. He’d started toward the door with her when Black stopped him. “Just a second, Dave. I need Raven to translate one more thing for me.”

Hating it, Dave stopped and nodded anyway. He knew Raven would protest if he tried to drag her out of the hut. She was selfless and eager to help in any way she could. He couldn’t take that away from her, no matter how badly he wanted to wrap her up in cotton and hide her from all the ugliness in the world. She was stronger than that. She proved it every damn day, and he’d be an asshole not to treat her like the warrior she was.

Dave put his arm around his wife’s waist, keeping her back to the room.

“You fucked up when you attacked me and my friend Meat,” Black told Ruben as Raven translated. “See, my friends and I hate bullies. And that’s what you are. You have no problem being tough around those you think are weaker than you, like women, children, and the elderly, but when it comes to standing up like a man, you fold like a baby. Your days of bullying are over, Ruben. You and all your friends. We’re gonna make sure, first of all, that you can’t force yourself on a woman ever again.”

“Don’t cut off my dick!” Ruben screeched.

“I won’t,” Black said calmly, “but I am going to make sure it’ll be a very long time before you’re able to do anything other than piss through it. And don’t bother going to the health clinics around here, because I guarantee none will help you. The second thing my friends and I are going to do is make sure del Rio knows what happened here today. How your friend was spouting off and bragging about what he saw—and how you gave us all the info we needed to find the little boy.”

“No. No, no!” Ruben yelled. “Please, no. He’ll kill me!”

Black shrugged. “Not my problem, is it? Sucks to have someone else making decisions for your life, doesn’t it?”