Defending Raven (Mountain Mercenaries #7)(3)
“None that actually went anywhere. I have no idea what happened to her. One second she was there, and the next she was gone. Even with all the cameras in Vegas, no one could track where that man took her. He helped her into a four-door sedan, which was waiting at the front of the hotel, but the windows were tinted. The license plates were stolen and were a dead end. The police did their best, but it was no use. She was gone. Poof. After a while, they had other cases to solve, and because I didn’t even live there, I couldn’t keep the kind of pressure on the detectives that I would’ve liked. Raven was a damn statistic before a year had passed. The cops assumed she was dead and urged me to get on with my life.”
Dave snorted. “As if that was possible. Raven was my everything. She was the light to my dark. I didn’t realize how much she smoothed out my rough edges until she was gone. I kept The Pit going, simply because if she somehow got away from her captors, she’d know where to go. Where to find me. But after another year passed, I knew she wasn’t going to miraculously appear on my doorstep. It was going to be up to me to find her.
“That’s when I began to do research. I learned more than I ever wanted to about sex trafficking and exactly how many women and children get caught in its clutches every year. I looked at case studies of women who’d escaped and learned how the operations typically worked. I got in touch with someone via the internet who taught me the ins and outs of hacking and video surveillance. I didn’t sleep a lot, and I kept what I was doing a secret from the few friends who hadn’t given up on me.”
“So, I’m curious,” Ball interjected. “You truly don’t have any military experience?”
Dave shook his head.
“How in the fuck have you been able to talk tactics and weapons, plan missions, and basically make yourself sound like you’ve spent your entire life in the military?” Arrow asked.
“I told you. I did a lot of research,” Dave replied. Seeing the disbelief on everyone’s faces, he shrugged slightly. “And this right here is why I never told you who I was.”
“You should’ve,” Gray said, the anger easy to hear in his tone.
“Why?” Dave shot back. “So you could turn me down? Think less of me because I wasn’t Special Forces? I needed you to trust me. To treat me like a valued member of the team. If you knew I was merely a man desperate to find his wife—and just a bartender, to boot—would any of you have taken the job?”
An awkward silence followed his question.
“Exactly,” Dave said more quietly after a moment. “I know what I did was underhanded. But becoming the mysterious and elusive Rex is the only reason the Mountain Mercenaries even exist. I left the dangerous hands-on stuff to you guys, and I dug up all the information you needed in order to be successful. I’m not going to apologize or beg for your forgiveness. We’re a damn good team, and just because I wasn’t Delta or a SEAL or SAS or any other kind of supersoldier like you guys were doesn’t mean I haven’t worked my ass off to keep you safe every single time you went on a mission. I’ve bent over backward to make connections and cultivate valuable relationships. Yes, at first I merely wanted a team to go in and save the women and children I’d found during the hunt for my wife, just so I could sleep at night, but the Mountain Mercenaries quickly became more than that. You guys became my friends, even if you didn’t know who I was. I worried about you, and I prayed every time you left that I’d see you again.”
“I have to admit, I’m not thrilled with everything you did,” Meat said. “But none of us would’ve gone along with any of the missions if we didn’t trust your intel. You’re one hell of a leader, despite your lack of training, and I can’t speak for everyone else, but I’d trust you with my life, and the life of my woman, any day of the week.”
“Same here,” Gray admitted. “You’ve come through time and time again. It’s actually pretty fucking amazing that you’ve learned what you have all on your own.”
“Agreed,” Ball said. “The fact that you basically learned military tactics from just research and gained as many supporters as you have is a small miracle.”
“So . . . now that we know the truth, what’s the plan when we get to Peru?” Black asked.
“Especially since you aren’t military,” Arrow added. “You might be good at planning a mission, but that doesn’t exactly translate into being an accurate shot or knowing how to infiltrate an enemy’s stronghold.”
“I agree. And I need your help more than ever. I can barely hold a thought long enough to come up with a plan. I’d love to just go into the barrio, grab Raven, and get the hell out, but after talking to Zara about the person Raven is now, and knowing what we know about the barrio from the last mission there, I’m not sure that’s going to work,” Dave said.
“We know the barrio’s dangerous as fuck, and we can’t go in there being too cocky,” Meat said. “That’s what got me in trouble last time. I’m thinking we get our asses over there and assess the situation. There’s a chance Mags isn’t even there anymore.”
Dave’s fists clenched. Raven had to be there. She had to. He couldn’t get this close to finding her, only to fail now.
“I don’t think she would’ve left,” Zara assured them. “She’s pretty entrenched there, with the other women she helps and all.”