Brody by Emma Lang Read Free Book Online

over like a ragdoll. Brody might be lean, but he was strong as an ox. She’d do well to remember that.
    “Now Sanchez, you’re going to tell me about Jeb’s operation. Where he stashed the goods, where he sold the people and where he parked his carcass after a robbery.” Brody’s voice was cold enough to give her goose flesh up her arms.
    “I don’t know nothing.” The other man wasn’t struggling anymore and she saw worry in his dark gaze.
    “Oh, I think you do.” The ranger pulled a huge knife out of a hidden sheath on his back. It had to be as big as her forearm. The sharp blade winked in the sunlight, lethal and intimidating. “And I think I can change your mind about telling me.”
    Olivia watched the blade as Brody slid it toward the man’s ear. She wondered what he would do to get the information he needed. He was bound by the law, wasn’t he?
    “You know I can do about anything I want and tell people you died in a gunfight and I buried your body.” The knife’s edge left a thin trail of blood along Sanchez’s dirty neck. “Nobody will care. Nobody will miss you.”
    Olivia was startled to realize he had not told Sanchez he was a ranger. For the first time since she’d met Armstrong, a frisson of fear slid down her spine.
    Matt always told her she acted like a bull, pushing her way through life, no matter who she knocked down. She may have knocked herself down by choosing to be with Armstrong, no matter how much she was drawn to him.
    The ranger slid the knife around the front of Sanchez’s throat as Olivia stared, her heart thumping hard enough to make her ears hurt.
    “You want to tell me what you know before I start cutting off parts?” Another knife appeared in Brody’s other hand. He pressed it against Sanchez’s crotch.
    Apparently, the man valued his balls. “I tell you. I tell you. Don’t cut my cojones, cabron .” The tough man had been reduced to begging.
    Olivia let out a sigh of relief, but a niggling doubt about Armstrong’s tactics stayed. Would she have gone that far to get information about Benjy? She didn’t want to find the answer to that question.
    “Start talking.” Brody straightened up but kept the knives in position. His cold eyes locked on Sanchez.
    “There is a shack a couple hours north where we meet. Each time Stinson tells us the ranch to hit. He didn’t care about what we took.” Beads of sweat rolled down the man’s face.
    “What about the people and goods you took? Did you bring them into Mexico?”
    “ Sí . Higher price.”
    Olivia knew the answer to the question before Sanchez answered. It was her worst fear. A sweet, blue-eyed white boy would be sold to the highest bidder for God only knew what. Her stomach heaved. She turned and ran for the bushes, her hand pressed to her mouth to hold back the vomit.
    At the edge of the woods, she dropped to her knees and retched time and again. If she let her mind drift to what her little brother was enduring, it made her vomit again. Olivia crawled to a sunny spot a few feet away. She shook as she rocked back and forth, hugging herself.
    “You kill two men without blinking an eye, but the sight of an ounce of blood makes you puke.” Armstrong stood beside her, holding out a canteen.
    She took it without answering and rinsed her mouth. If there was one time to be strong for her family, this was it. She wouldn’t let the knowledge that Benjy was in Mexico make her fall apart. Olivia had suspected he was there, but now that she knew the truth, she would follow. Little boys didn’t deserve to be sold like cattle. She would find him.
    Armstrong handed her a folded handkerchief. She was surprised by his solicitousness but took the cloth, wet it with water from the canteen and wiped her face.
    “Thank you.” She waved the wet handkerchief. “I’ll wash this and return it to you.”
    “Much obliged.” He shifted his feet. “Sanchez says he isn’t the one who took your brother, but he was there.”
    “Did