Free Bought (Unchained Vice Book 3) by Nicolette Hugo Page A

victim, one gunshot.”
    Jerricho looked around and saw the soldiers were carrying the local man toward the dead. The shot man was alive and chanting, the weak words weren’t clear but it seemed like he was praying.
    Jerricho searched for the corporal, the man was standing by the surviving truck, talking on a radio.
    “He can ride on the floor.” He wasn’t leaving the man with them. “Just check him out and put him on the floor.”
    Jerricho turned his attention to Bradford, slow tears rolled down the man’s cheek. He knew he was dying.
    “Are you in pain?” The most he could do was try to make the man comfortable.
    Bradford shook his head. Blood loss and shock had probably rendered him numb.
    The boom of the second bomb sucked all the oxygen out of the air and knocked Jerricho flat. He was back to deaf; the dull ringing and foggy head, an ache in his eardrums seized the muscles in his jaw.
    And then the rain of dust and the hail of debris started to fall.
    Shielding his eyes, he tried to click his jaw free of the tension.
    Blinking against the grit, he looked around. A severed hand lay a meter in front of him. Jesus, he knew that ring. Aamir was dead.
    So was Bradford.
    Coughing, he pushed up from the ground to his knees. Dust was on his tongue; he could taste the devastation.
    One of the soldiers was screaming something about a BCB—the local had a body cavity bomb.
    His stomach convulsed as he dry-heaved. He’d insisted they bring the man right into their center.
    A boot kicked him back onto his ass.
    “You … YOU ….” Hate hissed and he looked into the eyes of his mother. It was all there, the same sneer of distaste and accusation of betrayal.
    “I’ve got questions for you.” A finger jammed roughly into his chest, a blunt prodding that felt like nothing. The hurt, the bone-splitting hurt, was tearing him up from the inside.
    “Don’t you move.” Those frenzied eyes burned into him. “Don’t you fucking go anywhere.”
    ***
    Jerricho’s body rocked as the car took off from the light.
    Of course he’d moved. He’d found Campbell and gotten out of there. At the medical camp, they’d tried to convince him it was all a misunderstanding—to stay and clear his name.
    The thing was, he’d looked into the eyes of someone who’d called him a traitor before. He knew from his mother, once you were branded, your accuser never listened.
    Clear his name?
    He had a fucking fatwa on his head for working with the Coalition and they were questioning him?
    The only thing that had made sense was the idea of distance.

Nine
    “He didn’t discuss this with you first?” Jerricho’s stomach churned as he stood on the doorstep of the Bailey residence and watched the fallout of Killian’s proposal.
    “No.” The answer was written all over her face—a mix of shock and anger, warring with her outwardly calm demeanor. “He just … rang and said we would have company.”
    In a less fucked-up world, Jerricho might have questioned what he was doing here, hired for another man’s wife.
    In a less fucked-up world, he wouldn’t be hell bent on staying.
    “For forty days.” More than casual company.
    “Yes … he said someone would be staying for forty days.”
    The pause stretched uncomfortably.
    He should leave, but he didn’t move.
    There were things you could do that made it hard to live with yourself; this didn’t come close. Dammit, why did he have to like her?
    “Jerricho, I’m still….” She tilted her head. “What exactly does Killian want with you?”
    “A better question is what do
you
want from me?”
    Her brow winkled then smoothed as her eyes widened in recognition.
    The door slammed in his face.
    He didn’t move.
    He was stubborn at holding onto hope, and she had given him a glimpse of it. There had been the briefest flash of lust after she’d opened the door to him, a breathy inhalation between her parted lips, and the softening of her shoulders. He clung to that fraction of a second of