Saturday Book Tease

A broken Navy SEAL finds new purpose in an experimental spec ops unit.

Today’s book excerpt comes from the third book in The Soldiers of PATCH-COM, Second Breath Soldier. The story picks up from book two (Second Chance Soldier) focusing on “retired” Navy SEAL turned undercover operative for the DEA/CIA, Senior Chief Vincent Torres, aka Griz.

Fun fact about the cover model… He is a medically retired Navy field medic, and also…my big brother Steve. Check the ‘Look Inside’ for more about ‘Griz’. Enjoy.

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He gave all to protect an innocent life, but his country wanted more!

• WINNER: Read Freely's TOP 50 INDIE BOOKS OF 2021 (Romance)

• WINNER: Author Shout's Reader Ready Recommended Read 2022

Barely surviving a cartel firing squad, Vincent Torres, aka, Griz, wished for death. But the U.S. government wasn’t finished with him yet. The retired Navy SEAL, now facing traumatic injury and loss, is extradited to an unknown location, one long rumored to exist in the shadows. PATCH-COM. Back in the clutches of the military, he is involuntarily reinstated.

Angry and lashing out, the Senior Chief is now the newest member of the same group of spec ops soldiers he’d mocked while undercover in Mexico. Caught between the instinct to rebel and the deeply ingrained training to obey orders, Griz finds himself summoned to assist in a CIA sting operation, and worse, forced to attend ballet class! Determined not to cooperate with either request, Griz’s resolve falters when he meets his ballet teacher, Jessica Holiday.

Beautiful, elegant, and way out of his league, the graceful woman’s charms manage to soothe the savage Griz, spurring his desire to capture her attention. But obstacles block his path to happiness. The first is his own insecurity, and the second, an over-protective big brother.

Ordered to stay away from teammate Ben Holiday’s sister, Griz holds back, concentrating instead on the sting op to infiltrate a human trafficking ring in Las Vegas. Caught up in a bad plan concocted by the CIA and FBI, teammate Nastjia Moreno is sent in undercover. But even the best laid plans can go south! Unable to complete the mission as outlined and extract Moreno, the team must improvise. And when Jessica goes missing, Griz knows he must act fast.

Hampered by his own injury and the CIA Agent bent on keeping secrets, Griz and his teammates must move quickly to rescue Jessica and save Moreno before both are sold on the black market and they disappear forever!

CHAPTER ONE

A man doesn’t remember his first breath, the one followed by a cry that brings happy tears to his mother’s eyes. But if a man is lucky, he remembers the second. The breath that tells him he cheated death. The breath that is followed by his own tears brought on by sheer terror and more pain than a man can endure. Griz stared at the white ceiling reflecting on that moment. The steady beep of the monitor assured him his heart was still beating. The pain in his body, especially his left leg, reminded him he was still alive. Barely.

Memories of the past twenty-four hours ran through his mind, bits and pieces like a puzzle, but some of the pieces were missing. He remembered dropping the American hostage, Connie Wheeler, in the parking lot and encouraging her to go with the Special Forces commander sent in to rescue her. Then, he drove around to the front of the hotel where a cadre of Colima cartel soldiers waited, their machine guns at the ready. When he pushed the dead body out of the SUV, the remains of one of their own with a bullet in his head—Sinaloa’s answer to the desperate ceasefire requested by Oscar Fernandez-Ochoa—he pressed the gas pedal once again, but never made it out of the parking lot.

A hail of gunfire tore through the vehicle taking out the tires and blowing the engine. He’d been hauled out by their soldados, and despite taking two of them out with his knife, they had him. Fernandez-Ochoa tried to use him as leverage, first in a call with Ignacio Zamora, aka El tejón, the leader of Sinaloa cartel. When Zamora laughed in his face, Oscar aimed a gun at Griz’s head intending to kill him while Zamora listened. But in the last second, he clicked off the phone and lowered the weapon, a speculative glint in his cold eyes. It was then, Griz learned Fernandez-Ochoa would attempt to trade him to the American State Department. He thought he had one of Sinaloa’s men, thought that was worth a trade for his own life. What he didn’t know was that Griz was undercover. A former U.S. Navy SEAL, now working with the DEA and CIA, Vincent Torres was not that kind of bargaining chip. But Fernandez-Ochoa didn’t know this, and the SD could not, would not expose his cover. Instead, they flipped the tables and bargained Fernandez-Ochoa down from his high demands. The State Department said they would take Sinaloa’s man and Fernandez-Ochoa as well, evacuating them out of Mexico, take whatever information they could both provide about cartel operations inside Mexico and all connections into the U.S., but they would both face justice. There would be prison time. He had two hours to think about it.

In that time, Fernandez-Ochoa grew increasingly erratic. Finally, he made his decision. He had his men drag Griz out to the parking lot and stood him up against the side of the hotel. With ten men aiming, he gave the order. Fuego!

Griz didn’t remember anything beyond that until he woke up inside the emergency room of a local hospital in more pain than he could ever remember feeling. Then the world went black again. His eyes opened an hour ago, and the pain was off the charts even as his head felt like it was stuffed with soft, fuzzy cotton. Two embassy officials showed up and explained what happened to the best of their knowledge.

After he’d ordered Griz’s execution, Oscar called the State Department negotiator bragging about his deed. His skewed logic ran the lines that since he was the only one left with inside information, his market value had increased. He panicked when he realized his mistake, was told instead that his stock plummeted. He fucked up. The State Department told Oscar Fernandez-Ochoa there would be no deal at all if Sinaloa’s man died. That they would leave him to his fate after his failed attempt to assassinate El tejón. They went so far as to tell him they would personally contact Zamora to give the greenlight on taking him out. Oscar’s fear of El tejón outweighed his bravado. Running against the clock, he sent his men to drop Griz’s body at the nearest hospital. Not even sure if the man would live, he took the State Department’s lesser deal. In the meantime, he was to go into hiding and sit tight.

“Our team will find you,” they said.

Following that debriefing, Griz was informed he was to be airlifted out as soon as he could safely travel. He was being transferred to a military rehabilitation hospital. Relieved he’d survived, he thanked them and called the nurse.

When she arrived, he asked for something for the pain.

“Where does it hurt,” she asked. The nurse stood with her hands in the pockets of her scrubs. She was older, maybe late fifties. She reminded Griz of his own dear, sweet mother back home in Bakersfield, California. Lupe Torres was in her late sixties, but she was still spry. Still worked, even if only on a volunteer basis for her local Catholic church. She cooked dinners for the other seniors and those who needed help. She had a good heart, but she could be stern too.

“My leg,” he mumbled. “It burns. I can’t seem to move it though. Could you help me? Maybe slide a pillow under it.”

The nurse retrieved a pillow from the cabinet against the far wall and approached. She lifted the covers on the end of the bed and lifted his right foot.

“No, not that one,” he said, looking down. He couldn’t see what she was doing. There was a shield hanging cutting off his vision from the waist down. “The left leg, por favor.”

The nurse stopped, and then set the pillow down on the chair behind her. She came to stand at his side where she took his hand. The look on her face raised the hairs on his neck.

“What? What is it?”

She patted his hand. “Mijo,” she began. “That’s not real pain you’re feeling.”

Griz yanked his hand back. “What? Of course it is. It hurts like hell. I know what pain is.” He looked at her like she was crazy.

The woman sighed. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but…”

Griz felt a knot form in his stomach. He held his breath, waiting...

“They had to amputate. Your left leg is, well,” she said, walking around to his left side, she lowered the shield.

Griz’s heartrate skyrocketed, the monitor beeping off the charts. There, hanging in a sling, was what was left of his left leg. It ended just below the knee wrapped in mounds of white gauze. His vision blurred and if he’d been standing, he would’ve passed out.

“Get out!” he shouted. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

The nurse jumped and then backed away. “I’ll bring you something for your pain in an hour.”

“Just get out!” he screamed, his chest heaving as he gulped in air.

My leg, he thought. My leg! The horror washed over him in a wave so massive he thought he might drown. Tears filled his eyes. Anguish squeezed his heart. He howled in misery, a sound so guttural, so primitive, it unsettled even the senior nursing staff at their desk down the hall. Griz grieved the loss of his leg all alone, the child within silently crying out for the comforting arms of his mother.

The nurse returned, as promised in an hour with his scheduled pain medication. She also brought in the doctor who explained the full extent of his injuries. The leg amputation was the result of too many bullets shredding the bone and muscle. He also took bullets to his right shoulder, left collar bone, and left flank. He’d been fortunate to not have any head injuries. These other bullet wounds, the doctor said, would heal. There was no major organ damage caused by them, but the leg, they could not save.

Numb, Griz nodded his understanding so the doctor would leave. He accepted the medication, morphine injected into his IV. As soon as it hit his system, he felt himself fading out. In that moment, he longed for it to be permanent.

In the morning, he was discharged and placed into the military Medevac’s care. Griz had no fight left in him. All he wanted to do was lay down and die. But the general had other plans.

Continue reading Second Breath Soldier. Download now.

Are you a binge reader? Get The Soldiers of PATCH-COM Box Set (Books 1 - 4) and start reading today! Click here.

Book 5 in the series Coming SOON (Date to be announced in August 2023).