The Omega Team: Hot Target (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read online

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  Hot Target

  An Omega Team Novella Series – Amazon Kindle Worlds

  Novella 1 of 3

  By Jordan Dane

  Dear Readers,

  Writing this book helped me explore my own grief—through my character of Rafael Madero—after a sudden death in my family hit me hard. Rafe’s journey after a tragic hostage rescue and its aftermath mirrored the essence of my own struggle. I worked hard to capture the right words and images that would reflect how I felt or what I experienced, even though I could only imagine the depth of his pain. Everyone’s journey through grief is different.

  The theme of family in this story is like a ripple on still water. It’s universal and touches us all. What would you do to protect your family? How far would you go to keep them safe? Is there any real justice—or closure—when you lose someone you love to violence? Thankfully most of us will never face the real answers to these questions.

  During my darkest hours, and beyond, I was blessed to discover that family is not merely defined by blood. I’m stronger now because of that, but Rafael’s story made me question what the word ‘justice’ truly means in the aftermath of catastrophic loss, when abject emptiness floods your heart where love and hope, and your sense of safety used to be.

  With acts of violence, nothing is fair and there are no answers that will ever make sense. As a survivor you are only left with questions that will never be answered and the cavernous wake where someone you love had been—a person at the core of your hopes for the future. We are the sum of our memories, and when those collective memories are tainted by tragedy, it can make us question who we are. To heal, we must find a new life—a different life—than the one we left behind, if we are willing to try.

  For some, this can seem overwhelming and impossible. Such is the story of Rafael Madero.

  Jordan Dane

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  About the Author

  Bibliography

  Hot Target

  When Rafael reaches out to his sister for a job, Athena Madero—a founding member of the private security agency, the Omega Team—can’t help but be protective of her younger half brother. After a tragic hostage rescue and its aftermath, Rafael Madero turned into a solitary loner, only surfacing to fulfill his duties as team leader for an elite SWAT sniper unit with the Chicago Police. Athena decides to fast track his application by vetting him on the job—a mission to Havana Cuba to investigate a cold case murder.

  But when the old murder is linked to the shadowy death of a powerful drug cartel leader, Rafael is burdened by a terrible secret from his past—and an unrelenting death wish—that puts him at dangerous odds with Athena and her team. He believes he’s beyond saving, but that doesn’t stop Jacquie Lyles from trying.

  Jacquie sees something in Athena’s mysterious brother that touches her heart. Chivalrous and brave, Rafael is as rare as a unicorn in her life as techno computer geek and white hat hacker for the Omega Team. After she joins the team on its mission to Cuba, she uncovers Rafael’s shocking burden and it breaks her heart.

  Rafael stands in the crosshairs of a vicious drug cartel—powerless to stop his fate—and his secret could put Athena and her team in the middle of a drug war.

  Dedication

  To the unstoppable Judith Rochelle - I want to be you when I grow up.

  Chapter 1

  Outside Havana, Cuba

  Five years ago

  Rafael lay sprawled on his belly in the gritty dirt for hours, enduring the cool darkness before dawn to the now sweltering heat of the midday sun. He offered up his body to anything that crawled or slithered. With a single-minded purpose he remained as still and unmoving as the boulder he hid behind, dressed in camouflage tactical gear—BDUs, boonie hat, and boots. Not even the heat or the sweat trickling down his neck distracted him.

  His unwavering discipline kept him rooted to the land. This had to work.

  Rafe cleared out every last cent of his savings—after he’d lost all hope for his future—to pay for his covert drop and extraction so he could bring his weapon into Cuba. Without an official stamp in his passport, there would be no record of him entering or leaving the country.

  When he heard the sound of a vehicle in the distance, he knew his sacrifice had come down to this moment. His eyes shifted toward the horizon and his throat wedged tight. He fought the emotion that welled inside him as he shouldered his suppressed .300 Winchester Magnum. Rafe stared through the Nightforce telescopic sight with his eyes trained on the dirt road below his position.

  Please let it be him.

  Not many used this desolate acreage of private ranch land, except for the man he dared to hunt. A truck barreled toward his position and kicked up clouds of dust. As he peered through the scope, adrenaline raged through his veins. Stay in control. Don’t lose it now. He’d come too far to fail. Rafe had his egress routed, but if he didn’t take his target out, he didn’t care what happened to him.

  The truck would soon be in range. Rafael slipped on his ear plugs and checked for wind, spying the inconspicuous ribbon he’d tied to a downrange branch at dawn. He adjusted the knobs for windage and elevation and took the safety off his sniper rifle. His hand reached for the bolt action and he chambered a round.

  One shot. One kill.

  He relaxed his body and took a deep breath before he let it out slow. Rafe hardened his expression as callused as his heart had become. He lined up the man’s face until it centered in the floating crosshair of his scope—Adiós, cabrón—and without hesitation he squeezed the trigger.

  The man’s head spattered red mist and brain matter onto the windshield. The back of his head severed from his neck. Target down. Confirmed. After the truck veered left and lunged into a ditch, the man’s dead weight landed on the steering wheel. The abrasive sound of a horn cut through the late afternoon air.

  Rafael lay motionless and glared at the dead man through his scope. Time drained away and he could not move. Tears welled in his eyes. He expected to feel something. It was over, wasn’t it? His body shook and he fought the urge to puke.

  You gotta go. Now.

  It took everything he had to get off the ground and stay focused on his egress. He’d have to get to his extraction point and out of Cuba fast before authorities found the body. Out of habit, he policed his brass, grabbing for the spent shell casing ejected from his .300 Win Mag, but something made him stop. He stared down at the brass in his hand. An impulse gripped him hard. Maybe the urge came from his unrelenting respect for justice.

  He’d built a career in law enforcement with the Chicago police department, his latest assignment in SWAT, special operations. Being one of the good guys was all he ever wanted to be, but today he shattered everything he ever stood for.

  He’d killed a man in cold blood.

  In a slow and deliberate gesture, Rafe wedged the spent casing into a notch on
the boulder like an artist signing his work. He didn’t care what happened to him—not any more.

  ***

  Chicago, Illinois

  A week later

  A day before his wife Elena’s birthday, Rafael made an appointment for a fresh haircut, high and tight. He got up early on her special day to shower and he shaved twice. His dress blue police uniform coat and slacks hung on a hanger outside his closet, wrapped in plastic from the dry cleaner. He had polished the brass buttons, his police star, and black dress shoes last night. He’d taken the time to pin on his ribbon bars, emblem of recognitions for distinguished service, his name plate, and his unit designator pin.

  Look sharp. Be sharp.

  He stood in front of the mirror to put on his crisp white uniform blouse and watched as his fingers buttoned the shirt. After he slipped into his uniform slacks and belted up, his dark tie came next, a tight Windsor knot.

  Elena always loved seeing him in his dress blues. He wouldn’t disappoint her. Not today.

  On the dresser in his bedroom sat his uniform hat with its distinctive black and white checkered hat band and his white gloves, ready for him to grab on his way out the door. Next to them was a fresh cut red rose that he’d especially picked for Elena—along with another gift that flooded his mind with bittersweet memories.

  In complete uniform he stared in the mirror. It felt as if he were looking at a stranger with a past he could never reclaim. He wasn’t sure he could face her, but he had to.

  “Soon, my love,” he whispered in the silence of his bedroom.

  As he knew it would be, Elena’s birthday was perfect. Blue skies tufted with clouds and a bright sunny day. He drove his truck with the single red rose lying on the seat next to him. A peace offering. He hoped she could forgive him for what he had done.

  But her forgiveness would change nothing.

  Rafe turned right and drove toward a wrought-iron gate. He meandered through the manicured lawns and pristine landscaping to a spot he knew well and parked his vehicle. Before he got out of the truck, he took a deep breath. He didn’t think he could face her, but Elena had to know what he’d done. Like confessing his sins to a priest, he would tell her everything.

  Rafe walked through the dewy grass on the path he’d worn to her.

  He stared down at Elena’s headstone and dropped to his knees to trace his fingers across her name chiseled into stone. He kissed the rose and placed it on the ground.

  “Happy birthday, baby,” he whispered.

  He had another gift clutched in his hand—a pink teddy bear. Rafe had picked out the tiny soft toy for his baby girl, Ariana, because she could’ve held it in her sweet little fingers. With the memory of her small hand clasped around his finger came the smell of her skin after he’d bathed her and the feel of her warm body on his chest as she slept. Ariana. His baby’s headstone stood next to Elena’s and it broke his heart.

  The tears came.

  He confessed what he had done in their names. His revenge. None of it mattered. None of it brought them back. Rafe yanked off his hat and tossed his white gloves aside. He collapsed against Elena’s headstone and broke down. He’d lost his loving wife and baby girl.

  The man he’d killed in Cuba—a drug cartel leader—had arranged the whole thing as payback for what Rafael had done in the line of duty. He took what had been most precious to Rafe, knowing it would tear him apart—and the man had killed him without firing a shot.

  “It should’ve been me,” he cried.

  Rafe had been the one to find them. He’d come home early to surprise his family and walked into his worst nightmare. Elena had died holding their baby in her arms. Whoever pulled the trigger had shot her straight through Ariana. He prayed his wife had died instantly, so she didn’t know the pain of feeling the life drain from their little girl.

  Take it away. I can’t see it anymore. Please!

  But the blood, the fear in their dead eyes, Rafael had it seared into his brain because the killer had laid claim to what he did and made sure Rafe would never forget. His wife and child’s bodies had been carved into with a knife that had branded them with a sign for the cartel. Only one man ever used that symbol as a warning, to mark his kills. Rafe couldn’t picture their faces in life without seeing the bloody work of the knife cut into their skin.

  Elena and Ariana had been his miracle in life—his blessings—but a cruel man had twisted them in death to Rafe’s unending curse.

  He hadn’t known a night’s sleep since that day. Nights were the worst. Every shadow in a dark room took the shape of Elena, or a scent would thrust him back to the sheer torture of seeing them dead for the first time. Flashes of their faces would assault him until he couldn’t sleep.

  If he passed out from exhaustion in the early morning hours, he’d awaken to a twilight sleep—where he straddled the line between darkness and light—and he would sense Elena lying next to him and catch a haunting glimpse of her, or he distinctly heard the quiet cooing of Ariana in her crib. He’d open his eyes—to pretend for a precious second that none of it happened—but that never lasted long. He’d have to face the reality of their deaths all over again, a never ending torment that he deserved more with each passing day.

  He didn’t see an end to the pain.

  “It should’ve been me.”

  Rafael pulled out his service weapon and held it in his hands. His eyes shifted toward the heavens and he searched the clouds for the face of Elena holding Ariana. Te quiero, mi vida. He gripped his Glock 21 and racked the slide. With a round in the chamber, he raised the muzzle to his lips and fresh tears streamed down his face.

  Rafe placed his finger on the trigger—ready to pull—and he took his last breath.

  But an abrasive sound jarred him. He gasped and nearly choked on his gun. His phone rang. He should have ignored it, but something made him lower his weapon and reach a shaky hand into his pocket to retrieve his cell.

  One name appeared on the display. If it had been any other name, he would have ignored it and done what he came to do, but the call was from the only other person he loved in his life.

  Athena.

  After he shut his eyes tight and pictured her face, he heard her voice in his head and knew what she would’ve said. She echoed in his mind, not giving up, as stubborn as he’d always known her to be. Amidst the storm of her words, he let the tension ebb from his body until a fragile serenity washed over him and stayed.

  He knew what he had to do.

  “Sí, sí. Basta, hermana.” He heaved a sigh.

  Athena Madero saved his life—his sister, his protector—and he vowed not to tell her how close he’d come to taking the coward’s way out. When justice would come for him, and he had no doubt that one day it would, Rafael Madero would face it with eyes open.

  Chapter 2

  Tampa, Florida

  Five years later

  Jacquie Lyles held her breath as she ran her fingertips across his muscled chest. She had to touch him, to get the tension right, but being this close to Rafael Madero had its risks. His hazel eyes never wavered. They followed every move she made. He wore his thick dark hair longer than the men she knew. A strand hung perilously close to one of his eyes and dared her to brush it back. The faint stubble on his face—and his mesmerizing soulful eyes—gave him an edge she found impossible to resist.

  After she fastened the rubber tube across his broad chest, she remembered to breathe. With an unsteady hand she shoved her large dark framed glasses up her nose.

  “Now I have to do your…” She swallowed, hard.

  She couldn’t finish. Jacquie forgot what she wanted to say. His full lips parted like an invitation. It took all her will power not to oblige.

  “Take your time.” His deep voice skittered chills across her skin. His Cuban accent had to be as addictive as crack. Not that she had any experience with…

  She reached for his back to place a strap around his taut stomach. Only inches away from him, she breathed in the scent of
herbal soap and an intoxicating aroma that must’ve been all Rafael. He wore a black T-shirt and faded jeans. She could’ve run the binding over his shirt like the last one, but what fun would that be. Her fingers lingered against the warmth of his bare skin. When she glanced up, Jacquie swore she caught the corner of his lips curl into a subtle smile.

  “Your perfume. I like it. Very much,” he whispered, only loud enough for her to hear him.

  Her face burned hot. To cover up her embarrassment, she did what came naturally.

  “Uh, transducers will convert the energy of…displaced air and convert it to…digital readings.”

  Gah, don’t geek out now. She gritted her teeth to keep from ruining the moment. Guys like Rafael Madero didn’t belong in her world. They were like unicorns.

  “Beautiful and smart. Very lethal,” he whispered again.

  This time she imagined that voice sighing in her ear in the darkness of her bedroom, with the feel of those lips on her skin.

  Electro-dermal activity. She had no choice but to let her inner geek fly. It was the only way she’d get through this.

  “These fingerplates are called galvanometers.” She took hold of his long fingers and placed his palm flat on the table. “Fingertips can tell us a lot.”

  “I’ve certainly found that to be true,” he said.

  Another wave of heat flushed her face.

  “Now we’ll have your respiratory rate, your electro-dermal activity, and your heart rate and blood pressure. The standard polygraph test, but we’ll also be running a cognitive polygraph using a functional Trans-cranial Doppler. It’s harder to beat.”

  For the first time since she’d officially met Rafael an hour ago, the man’s face flinched.

  “Harder to beat?” he asked.

  “What’s wrong, Rafe? Afraid I might really find out who papered my house after my high school graduation party?”