Justice (Bad Boys of X-Ops Book 2) by Rie Warren Read Free Book Online Page B

Jade.”
    “You are such a wanker,” Walker tossed out.
    “ Ha ! Wanker? Guess you picked that up from your girl Jade.” Storm laughed until creases appeared beside his mouth.
    Just one big happy family out on a pleasant vacation. In Yemen, trying to rescue the ambassador and his bangin’ daughter from a life-threatening situation.
    Next time I wanted a staycation. Fuck this shit.
    “Thanks, Storm.” I shut him and everyone else up with a hard glare. “What we got here is a classic scenario of who has more stamina, sir,” I addressed Lawless. “We’re gonna outlast ’em as long as we can before we make our move. Wait for them to get lazy, bored, tired . And I got a lot more stamina than most.” I sailed a wink in Tilly’s direction despite my best efforts.
    “And on that note, I think we better figure out some sleeping quarters.” Walker stepped in before Daddy Lawless could correctly interpret my ill-timed flirtation. “Would you mind, James?”
    Two hours later, we sat in the kitchen, eating our portions industriously doled out by Storm, who probably measured every precious fucking ounce.
    We’d arrived by dark, and the others went to sleep by dark. Everyone billeted down, Tilly in one room with her father. Storm, Bane, and Walker in the other.
    I’d cleaned up quick, eaten even more quickly, and taken the first watch. Twenty-four hours awake was nothing. Fuck, thirty-six hours, forty-eight, they all blended together sometimes.
    It was the hunger that struck me. I’d never gotten hungry before the Marines. Hungry for action. Against my parents’ wishes, I’d become a jarhead right out of Parris Island, South Carolina. Joined up when I was twenty-two. Had to get away.
    Not that there was anything wrong with my folks or their marriage despite what I’d said to Lawless. But growing up hadn’t exactly been homey-normal either. I’d been raised by two highly successful, high society, Upper East Side, New York City parents. Attended private school, had a nanny, and a trust fund I’d never touched. My mom, a fashion designer, my dad, an ad man. And me? I was supposed to be a model.
    Jesus.
    It had started in my teens when I’d grown into the clean-cut, arrogant all-American looks. A few ad campaigns, a few magazine spreads.
    The guys already called me fucking pretty boy . Imagine if they knew about that sideline?
    I hadn’t been back home since I’d started this gig with T-Zone.
    It wasn’t that my parents were hard people, just that I’d become a hard man.
    Even though I’d willingly signed up for T-Zone when they recruited me, a life like this was . . . lonely.
    It was empty.
    I thunked my head back against the wall I sat against, but I kept at the ready, gun barrel loosely aimed.
    As empty as a Medal of Honor awarded for valor when the only thing that bravery meant was other people— good people, better people —died.
    Awards meant nothing. Not validation. Not happiness. Not courageousness. As a Marine, I’d earned plenty of ribbons and medals to pin on my long-untouched dress uniform and light up my chest, but that didn’t mean I fell asleep peacefully.
    I hardly slept at all. And it was never peaceful.
    I flipped a sharp-edged shuriken through the fingers of my free hand.
    Afghanistan had been hell. Real hell. Demoralizing down to my soul hell .
    Nothing like boot camp.
    The terror never went away. Murder holes and ambushes in villages. Sweltering, sweaty days. Endlessly cold nights on recon. My fellow leathernecks dropping dead around me. And that one night. When the intel about Taliban movements in the area had been all wrong. Dirty tactics had us surrounded inside an abandoned quarter of Lashkar Gar.
    The guy called Texas had been a new recruit. He wore his cowboy hat on top of his helmet whenever we weren’t in the combat zone. He threatened us with spurs up our asses whenever he was losing a poker hand during downtime. He talked big, but he kept us laughing. He put his money where his