Free Bought (Unchained Vice Book 3) by Nicolette Hugo

mère est morte
.
    His mother was dead.
    The slow ache inside his chest seemed misplaced. He shouldn’t feel such a keen loss for something he’d never even had. All things considered, he’d lost his mother a long time ago.
    In the end, regret didn’t matter.
    Maybe what hurt was the crystallization that there would never be a chance to make it right. The ember of hope had smoldered even as it was dying.
    Now there was a vacuum; it sat there in an unnatural silence.
    Silence that engulfed him.
    Silence that swallowed the world.
    His ears popped.
    A muted ringing echoed in his head along with the distant shouting of Campbell. Louder, scarier, was the whoosh of blood pushing through his veins. He shook his head to clear his ears, but it didn’t help. Had he said anything?
    He looked down, only to realize the thumping on his chest was his heartbeat.
    He was safe. Everyone in the ambulance was safe.
    He peered out of the window, through the haze of dust; it seemed as if a sandstorm was bearing down on them.
    Flames rose off the debris of a vehicle while soldiers swarmed around the second, undamaged truck. The Coalition convoy had set off a roadside bomb.
    He opened the back of the ambulance.
    Dust invaded his nose and mouth, and he coughed.
    “Stay here.” He coughed again and lifted the neck scarf to cover his mouth and nose.
    Campbell nodded. The order was standard procedure; they were not equipped for battle.
    They were aid workers. Their remit was to help as soon as the hostilities ceased fire, except Jerricho couldn’t accept that. He jumped from the ambulance as more rounds were fired, Aamir running at his side.
    To the wounded, every second mattered.
    The shooting trickled to sporadic pops, and they split up to move through the bodies, looking for victims with the highest chance of survival. The law of triage was harsh, but necessary.
    There.
    Jerricho knelt down, but on closer inspection, he realized the soldier would bleed out as soon as they moved him. Still conscious, the wounded man was staring at him. Jerricho reached out and squeezed the man’s shoulder.
    A flash of red darted across his peripheral vision and he turned to look. Seemingly out of nowhere, a local stood up ahead of him, staring vacantly, as if dazed. Their eyes meeting only briefly before gunshot mowed the man down.
    Jerricho was on his feet.
    “Stop!”
    He kept moving.
    “Stop!”
    More gunfire. Behind him? He wheeled around, halfway down in a crouch and hyped on adrenalin.
    A corporal, standing by the wounded soldier, held his gun pointing into the air. “What about Bradford? You left Bradford.”
    Jerricho shook his head. There was no need to say it in front of the dying man.
    He turned back to see if he could help the local instead.
    “You take one step closer to that dog and I’ll say you got caught in the crossfire.”
    Jerricho stopped, hung his head forward, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
    Words.
    They were just words. Tempers were thin.
    But so was control.
    He turned slowly back to eyes that shone with righteous fury.
    “You look after the goddamn soldiers first. Everyone else is expendable.”
    A hush fell around him.
    “You can’t just leave him there.” Jerricho gestured with his head to the wounded civilian.
    Teeth gleamed in a heartless grin. “I say I can.”
    Jerricho didn’t flinch. War was ugly, and he’d seen the worst of it. Seen it tarnish the pure and punish the brave.
    He looked around. On the outskirts of the scene, oblivious to the unfolding tension, soldiers were moving bodies.
    “Get your boys to load the local in my ambulance, and I’ll sit with your man.” He started back to the dying soldier—Bradford, the dead had a name.
    For a moment, it looked like the corporal was going to ignore him, but then the man gave a small nod and started to order some men.
    Relief came in a wave of light-headedness as Jerricho knelt down next to Bradford.
    Aamir ran up to him. “Ambo is full. One blast