Breaking Rules (Delta Force Strong Book 2) Read online

  Breaking Rules

  Delta Force Strong Book #2

  Elle James

  Twisted Page Inc

  Contents

  Breaking Rules

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  SEAL JUSTICE

  Chapter 1

  About the Author

  Also by Elle James

  Breaking Rules

  Delta Force Strong Book #2

  New York Times & USA Today

  Bestselling Author

  ELLE JAMES

  Copyright © 2020 by Elle James

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-62695-330-7

  PRINT ISBN: 978-1-62695-300-0

  Dedicated to my incredibly swift and efficient editor (also my sister) Delilah Devlin.

  And to my personal assistant who manages my life and keeps me moving forward, Nora.

  And to my dogs for allowing me brief spurts of their nap time so that I can write my words!

  Author’s Note

  Enjoy other military books by Elle James

  Delta Force Strong

  Ivy’s Delta (Delta Force 3 Crossover)

  Breaking Silence (#1)

  Breaking Rules (#2)

  Breaking Away (#3) coming soon

  Breaking Free (#4) coming soon

  Breaking Hearts (#5) coming soon

  Visit ellejames.com for more titles and release dates

  For hot cowboys, visit her alter ego Myla Jackson at mylajackson.com

  and join Elle James's Newsletter at

  https://ellejames.com/contact/

  Chapter 1

  “I don’t see any sign of the dealer or anyone else, for that matter,” Delta Force Sergeant Ryan “Dash” Hayes spoke softly into his mic. As point man for the mission, he was the farthest forward and in the most precarious position. If their target showed up with a full contingent of Taliban gunmen, he could be in trouble.

  “According to our Intel guys, he’s supposed to be there right about now,” said Sergeant Rucker Sloan, the team lead. “Dash, you sure he’s not there already and we missed him?”

  “I’m sure. It’s dead out there. Nothing moving.”

  “You think someone tipped them off?” Bull’s voice came across.

  “Could be,” Dash said. “Unless they show up in the next thirty minutes, I’d say they aren’t coming.”

  “We’ve already been here for thirty,” Lance’s voice sounded in Dash’s ear. “I say we leave before we’re discovered.”

  A snort sounded in Dash’s ear. “You just want to get back to the forward operating base,” Dash drawled.

  “Yeah, so?” Lance said.

  “It’s not like you’re going to get to meet Miss Daye in person. She’ll have men all around her.”

  “It would be nice to hear her sing. We rarely get to see the USO tours,” Lance said. “It would be nice to see one with Sunny Daye in it. I saw her and her partner, Ray Bonner, in concert in Austin last year. They were phenomenal.”

  “I thought Ray died.” Dash shifted in his position, his gaze on the warehouse building in front of him but his mind on the beautiful singer, Sunny Daye. “I thought Miss Daye quit singing after her partner’s death.”

  “She did,” Lance said. “For a few months. Then she joined the USO in an effort to give back.”

  “I heard she joined to get out of the States and away for the paparazzi,” Craig “Bull” Bullington said.

  “Probably a little bit of both,” Lance said. “She was pretty broken up about losing her partner. They made some really good music together.”

  “I think she carried the pair,” Rucker said over the radio. “He didn’t have as powerful a voice.”

  With his thoughts on the beautiful Sunny Daye, it was half a second before Dash realized a vehicle was heading his way. “Guys, we got company.”

  All chatter ceased.

  “What do you have?” Rucker asked.

  “A cargo truck.”

  Mac snorted in Dash’s ear. “The question is, what kind of cargo?”

  “If they’re delivering at this location, we can only hope our middleman shows,” Rucker said. “From what Nora said, and what the intelligence reports indicate, the man is American.”

  “He’s not American,” Dash said through his teeth. “He’s an animal.”

  “Truth,” Rucker said. “Any man dealing in human trafficking is nothing more than an animal.”

  “Pond scum,” Dawg said. “I have my sights set on the truck. If our target steps one foot out, I’ll blow his fuckin’ head off.”

  “It would be better if you just wound him,” Rucker warned. “We need him so the intelligence guys can follow the chain of lowlifes who are perpetuating this travesty. Selling little girls and women into the sex trade is as low as you get.”

  “Yeah, but after they get all the information out of him, we need to turn him loose in a minefield,” Blade said. “He needs to die a painful, bloody death.”

  “The truck is pulling to the back of the building.” The vehicle moved out of Dash’s view.

  “Dawg, you got eyes on it?”

  “I do,” Dawg responded. “The driver’s backing up to a loading ramp. Driver and front passenger just got out. They’re going in a side door. An overhead door is rolling up.” Dawg paused in his reporting. “Bastards,” he murmured.

  “What’s happening?” Rucker asked.

  “They’re herding women and children into the building,” Dawg said. “I count four guards with AK-47 rifles.”

  “Move in,” Rucker said. “We want to help the women and children, but, above all, we want to catch the guy orchestrating these trades.”

  The Delta team moved in, creeping silently toward the building and the men who were moving their captives.

  Anger burned inside Dash. How any man could trade humans like animals, he just couldn’t understand. They had to be animals themselves.

  His rifle at the ready, he eased closer to the building.

  “All in?” Rucker murmured in Dash’s ear.

  One by one, the Delta team acknowledged in low, steady tones.

  “Let’s do this,” Rucker said.

  The building wasn’t like the others in the area. It had been recently constructed of metal, more like warehouse buildings in the States. It stood on the edge of the village, a big box of a metal building, seeming out of place among the mud-and-stick residential Afghan homes.

  Dash and Blade were first in, taking out the two guards left standing on the loading dock, supposedly guarding the open overhead door.

  “Dock’s clear,” Dash reported after dragging the guard off to the side to avoid setting off any alarms.

  The team entered the building through the large overhead doors.

  Their goal wasn’t to kill all the men handling the women and children. They were there to capture the guy making the deals. However, if they killed a few of the bastards, great. Men like that didn’t belong in the world.

  With strict instructions from their CO, they were to limit collateral damage. That meant they couldn’t shoot into the crowd of women and children. They might be shot at, but they couldn’t shoo
t back and risk the lives of any innocents.

  The men inside were busy lining up the women and children. They marched a woman up to a raised platform.

  One of the men grabbed the scarf from her head and ripped the abaya from her shoulders. The garment fell to the floor.

  The woman squealed and tried to reach for the folds of fabric, but the man twisted his hand in her hair and yanked her upright.

  Tears streamed from her eyes as she stood naked in front of a small group of men in turbans. She tried unsuccessfully to cover herself with her hands and arms.

  The men standing below the poor woman approached her, studied her body and leaned their heads together. Finally, one nodded and spoke in what sounded more like Arabic than Pashtu.

  The man holding the woman’s hair allowed her to gather her garments. Then he shoved her to the end of the dais and off to the side.

  Another man lifted a female child up onto the raised platform.

  “Bastards,” Dash murmured. “They’re selling these women and children.”

  “Do you see our American middleman?”

  Dash scanned the crowd of men, women and children. In the far corner of the building, another man stood, leaning his back against the wall, wearing a brown, felt Fedora, khaki cargo pants and a long-sleeved, loose-fitting shirt. His wardrobe stood out among the men dressed in the baggy trousers and tunics of middle eastern men.

  “Back right corner,” Dash said.

  “I see him,” Rucker responded from his position on the other side of the door leading into the warehouse. “Mac, Tank, Blade, Lance…cover the rear exit. Bull, Dash and I are going in.”

  “Roger,” Mac responded. “On our way around the outside.”

  Before Rucker and Bull could join Dash, the man in the Fedora spun and walked toward the rear exit.

  Dash swore. “Our target just headed for the exit.”

  “Picking up the pace,” Mac said. “See him ahead. He’s getting into a dark SUV.”

  “Cripple it, but keep the bastard alive,” Rucker whispered.

  “He discharged five men from the SUV. They’re providing cover for the vehicle’s getaway,” Mac reported.

  “Do whatever it takes,” Rucker said. “We have to catch the bastard. We’re aborting the show and heading your way. Come on, Bull, Dash. Our guy is getting away.”

  Dash’s jaw hardened. He hated leaving the women and children under such dire circumstances, but they had to catch the American responsible for selling them. Once they had him in hand, they’d go back to help the others.

  After backing quietly out of the warehouse, Dash and Rucker turned and ran toward the back of the building.

  The sound of machine gun rounds ripped through the air before Rucker and Dash reached the corner. They stopped short and pressed their backs to the wall. It was only a matter of time before the other men inside came out to see what all the fuss was about.

  “Dawg, what’s going on? Where’s our target?” Rucker’s demanded.

  “I fired on the driver’s side window and the tires, but the SUV is still moving. Hard to see in the dark to get a good bead on the tires when they’re driving directly away from me. The others are pinned down. The opposition is heavily armed, two bearing machine guns. When any of our guys move, they throw everything at them.”

  In the lead, Dash eased up to the edge of the building, fit his night vision goggles over his eyes and glanced around the corner.

  He spotted the green heat signatures of Mac, Blade, Tank and Bull, lying low to the ground, returning fire when they could.

  Looking past them, he spotted four of the five men Dawg had indicated. They appeared as small green blobs hunkered close to the ground, their weapons trained on the Deltas.

  Beyond them were the taillights of the SUV leaving the scene before they could capture the one person they wanted most.

  Dash shook his head. How did the man managed to leave behind a team of heavily armed men? Had he known the Deltas were there? Was that why he’d left in such a hurry?

  “Dawg,” Rucker said. “Forget the SUV. Cover our guys until we can put a plug in those machine guns. We’ll cover anyone coming out of the building.”

  “Will do,” Dawg said.

  Rucker, Bull and Dash turned away from their teammates.

  “I’ll cover the other end of the building,” Dash said.

  “If you step out now, they’ll nail you,” Rucker warned.

  “I’m not stepping out. I’ll go low and fast,” he assured Rucker. “Cover me.”

  “I’ve got your six,” Rucker said.

  Using his elbows and knees, Dash low-crawled to the other end of the building, his rifle cradled in front of him. Once there, he rounded the corner and established a position covering the opposite side.

  Between rapid bursts of bullets, a single shot rang out.

  Dash glanced behind him.

  The first shot hit one of the five men firing on the Deltas. His machine gun went silent.

  Checking for trouble in front of him, Dash watched, waiting for the remaining men to leave the women and children and come out to defend their buddies.

  The next shot silenced the second machine gun. A quick glance to his rear reassured Dash that the three remaining men had eased backward. He couldn’t make out their heat signatures.

  But that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  With fewer rounds being fired, Dash picked up on other sounds.

  Engines revved.

  Dash ran along the side of the building to the front.

  The vehicles that had been parked there earlier were leaving, spinning up dirt and gravel as they took off.

  The engine of the truck that had brought the women and children to the warehouse roared to life.

  Instead of helping the other gunmen, the men who’d been inside herding their cargo were now loading the women and children into the truck. They shouted orders, pushed and shoved them into the truck about to pull away from the loading dock.

  “The truck’s getting ready to leave,” Dash said into his mic.

  “Do what you can to stop it,” Rucker said. “We’re on our way.”

  Dash aimed at the man still standing on the dock. This was the man who’d stripped the first woman on the dais. Now, he held a child in his arms. He swung her around and tossed her into the back of the truck like a sack of potatoes, the last child to be loaded.

  Dash pulled the trigger, taking the bastard down with a single shot. Another man appeared. Dash took him down.

  The truck lumbered away from the dock, slowly picking up speed.

  “Rucker, are you in position?” Dash asked.

  “We’re here,” Rucker said.

  “Cover me. I’m going to stop that truck.”

  “Bull will provide cover,” Rucker said. “I’ll take the passenger side.”

  “I’ve got the driver.” His jaw tight, Dash raced for the driver’s door as Rucker went for the passenger side.

  They arrived at the same time, climbing up on the step.

  Dash yanked open the driver’s door.

  The driver yelled in surprise and tried to shove Dash away.

  On the other side of the cab, Rucker had jerked open the passenger door. He was wrestling the weapon out of the man’s hand when it went off, blasting a hole through the windshield.

  Dash clamped his arm around the driver’s neck and snapped his head to one side. The driver went limp. The truck lurched forward as the man’s foot rested hard on the accelerator. As he slumped to the side, his arms turned the steering wheel.

  Dash fought to pull the driver out of his seat. When he couldn’t, he crawled on top of him, shoved the guy’s foot to the side, took control of the steering wheel and found his way to the brake.

  Rucker had the passenger in a death grip, fighting for control of the rifle in his hands.

  When Dash jerked the steering wheel around, Rucker slammed the butt of his rifle into the passenger’s face, knocking him out. Grabbing th
e man’s arm, he pulled him out of the cab. He fell to the ground and rolled beneath the truck’s wheels.

  The truck bounced over the man, nearly jerking the steering wheel out of Dash’s hands.

  When he had the vehicle under control, he pressed his foot on the brake and brought the truck to a gradual stop.

  Before the vehicle came to a complete halt, Rucker was out of the cab and on the ground, headed to the rear.

  Dash set the parking brake and joined Rucker at the back of the vehicle.

  A man bearing an AK-47 leaped to the ground and ran into the dark.

  In the bed of the truck, women and children scrambled to get their feet beneath them, some of them whimpering in pain, others sobbing in fear.

  “Mac?” Rucker said into his mic.

  “All clear at the warehouse. Dawg got the main gunners. We cleaned up another. Anyone left standing bugged out.”

  “We stopped the truck,” Rucker said. “Like you said, anyone left standing bugged out.”

  The men gathered around the truck and checked the status of all the people inside. Other than a few bruises and scrapes, they were intact. Shaken, scared and tearful, but alive.

  “You gonna make the call?” Dash asked Lance, their radio guy.

  Lance nodded. “On it.” He placed the radio call to the helicopters. Moments later, two Black Hawk helicopters landed near the warehouse.

  Within the next few minutes, Dash, Lance, Blade and Dawg climbed aboard one of the choppers.

  Rucker, Bull, Tank and Mac stayed behind to drive the truck back to the forward operating base where a team from the Intelligence unit and representatives of the local Afghan government would meet them and take the women and children to a temporary shelter.