Breaking Free: Decadence LA Book 5 by Maddie Taylor

Author:Maddie Taylor [Taylor, Maddie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Breathless Romance
Published: 2025-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

LATER THAT EVENING, needing to sleep but unable to, Tristan sat in the dark of his living room sipping a beer—his third—his mind on the failed mission.

It seemed like any other hot summer day in southern Afghanistan. A light breeze blew, which would have been welcome if it didn’t bring fine particles of dust and sand along with it. No matter how much he showered, he couldn’t remove the grit.

Their mission that day was to escort a convoy of humanitarian aid workers and a medical team to a village in the Kandahar Province, in desperate need of food and medicine after recently being liberated from enemy hands.

They were five clicks out when chaos erupted. A barrage of bullets dinged off their armored vehicles. Tristan and his team were safe, but the same wasn’t true about the volunteers in that ambulance or canvas-top truck. And the insurgents didn’t give a damn about the giant red cross emblazoned on both.

Their captain’s orders came almost instantly. “Flank and return fire.”

The driver didn’t hesitate before moving up into position, as Tristan and the other five men piled out. For what seemed like an eternity but wasn’t more than a few minutes, they took on enemy fire, bullets whizzing by their heads, kicking up dirt and debris. And they gave as good as they got, to protect the civilians in their care.

The air was thick with the acrid smell of gunpowder when the call came, “Cap’s been hit!”

“What’s his status?” Tristan demanded.

“A bullet to the head. He’s gone, Chief.”

Cursing erupted from the men surrounding him. With the continued bombardment, they didn’t have time to grieve the man and the leader most of them had served under for years. That would come later. It was now up to Tristan, the highest-ranking NCO and second-in-command, to get the rest of them through this alive.

“Foster. Get on the horn with the CO in the village,” he directed his communications sergeant. “Have him send what help he can. And contact command. Tell them we need air support.”

“Roger that, Chief.”

As the battle raged on, his ears rang from the rapid pop-pop-pops of automatic rifles and the click-click-boom of grenade launchers. Despite their best efforts, the enemy was gaining ground because he and his men were both outnumbered and outgunned, their mobility severely hampered by the civilians they had to protect. They also had limited ammo, each round fired shrinking their chances of making it out of this alive.

“Where’s our air support?” he shouted through his headset.

“Command said they’re twenty minutes out.”

Tristan cursed under his breath. Twenty minutes was an eternity when under attack. “And the platoon in the village? Where the fuck are they?”

“They’re taking fire too,” Foster said grimly.

The sudden mantle of responsibility weighed on him. Every decision he made could mean the difference between life and death for his unit and eighteen innocent civilians, primarily volunteers. When Tristan glanced around, he could see their fear and the grim determination etched on the faces of his teammates, despite fighting against overwhelming odds.

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