Page 16 of Her Chosen Protector

“Good or bad?” the old woman demanded to know.

“You need to stay calm,” the pregnant woman said soothingly. “The doctor has said stress isn’t good for you. He would have been angry if he’d known you were gallivanting all over the forest rescuing Americans.”

Rescuing?

“I’m not the one who should be resting, it’s you, Cynthia. Get inside. Where’s Rafa?” Lenora started up the steps, and Cynthia rushed down to meet her.

It was an accident waiting to happen as the old woman and the pregnant lady turned to make their way up the stairs. Cullen and Raiden followed closely in case they fell.

“Rafa is inside trying to talk to Mama.”

It took a minute for Asher to make sense of it all. He was fine understanding the Spanish, just not with everybody’s place in the family food chain. Suzanne Azua, the woman at the bank, must be the pregnant woman’s mother, and Lenora, the old woman who had driven the truck, was Cynthia’s grandmother.

He looked over at Cullen and saw that he had just done the math as well. Kane, meanwhile, was looking down at his tablet. He probably had the entire Azua family tree pulled up, and knew all of their ages, middle names, eye color, and favorite foods.

“Has anything new happened?” Lenora asked her granddaughter.

“I need you to stay calm, can you do that?” Cynthia asked when they got to the top of the stairs.

“Just tell me, child.”

“Mama has a slight injury. She tells me she is fine, but she’s having some trouble talking.

Sometimes, the translator is helping us to understand her over the phone. There is one saving grace, and that’s now she’s at our bank, not the Central Bank.”

“What do you mean she’s at our bank, Señora?” Max interrupted.

A gangly teen shot out of the front door.

“Whoa, hold up.” The kid raised his hands as eight guns were pointed in his direction.

The old lady jumped—as well as an old lady was able to—in front of the boy. “Put your guns down, this is Suzanne’s sister’s son, my grandson Rafa. He’s harmless.”

“Tia, I’m not harmless,” the kid lamented. “That’s the last time I arrange wheels for you.”

“He is harmless and lacks common sense, but my grand-nephew is brilliant with computers.” She patted his head.

“You guys are American Special Forces, right? What branch? Delta? Raiders? SEALs?” The kid was jazzed.

“What’s your name?” Max asked with a blank face.

“Rafael Azua,” Kane answered for him. “He’s good, he’s the nephew. Real hustler. He owns the food truck. Just turned sixteen,” Kane said, looking up from his tablet. “He’s already got a record with Maduro’s men.”

“Explain,” Max demanded.

“They brought him in for questioning on their system being hacked. Because of his aunt’s pull, he got out before the questioning began getting intense.”

“Jesus, how old were you kid?” Max asked.

Rafa had paled. Cynthia had stood on the other side of the young man when Max started grilling him. But when that incident was brought up, her expression changed. She slapped Rafa on the back of the head.

“Hey, what’s that for?” he gave her a disgruntled look.

“You could have gotten yourself killed. It didn’t matter that you were twelve. They would have tortured and killed you if it hadn’t been for Mama. You remember to be good.”

“Fine,” he gave a long-suffering sigh as he rubbed the back of his head. “But they’re going to need me. You know that.”

She shook her head in exasperation as she looked at Asher’s team. “Come inside, gentlemen.