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

  Geneva didn’t like the feeling that crawled under her skin. It made her work faster.

  She pressed her shoulder against the plywood that covered a front window of her cabin as she reached into her pocket for another nail. One side had been anchored. She only needed a few well-placed nails to secure the lumber. Geneva pounded her hammer until the board didn’t budge.

  “Bonnie, you are one fickle female,” she cursed under her breath as she worked.

  Her gray hair whipped in the mounting winds and buffeted her blue chambray work shirt. Hurricane Bonnie had changed direction in the middle of the night and barreled for the Florida shores. Geneva couldn’t wait for her son Sam to help her now. She knew what had to be done.

  “Looks like you could use some help,” a woman’s voice called out. “Where is your son?”

  Geneva turned to find a beautiful dark-haired woman standing beside two men dressed in suits. The men were the mirror image of each other—making them twice as ugly. Nice suits didn’t make them tolerable to look at and didn’t hide the evil in their very nature. Their eyes told Geneva all she needed to know about these men—and the woman who brought them to her door.

  Both men were armed. Their fancy suits didn’t hide the bulges under their jackets.

  “My boy should be here directly.” Geneva wiped her hands on a rag she had hanging on her belt as she inched closer to her front door. “He ran an errand for me. Who might you be, missy?”

  Geneva hoped they wouldn’t see through her lie.

  “My name is Camila Borrego. These are my associates, Amadeo and Tavio Vega.”

  “They’re the spittin’ image of each other.” Poor bastards, Geneva wanted to say.

  The twins had slick black hair, a sickly pallor, and their menacing eyes were the color of obsidian.

  “How do you know my boy?” she asked.

  “I recently met your son. Sam was a guest in my home and he made an impression on me.”

  “I bet he did.” She forced a grin. “Let me get you folks somethin’ cool to drink. I have fresh lemonade in the fridge.”

  When Camila tried refusing, Geneva said, “Now where are my manners. Come on inside, out of this wind. We’ll sit down proper.”

  Geneva didn’t wait for an answer. She pushed open her front door and hurried toward the kitchen. When Camila stepped across the threshold with a smug smile on her face, Geneva Rafferty racked the slide of her loaded pump-action Remington 870 shotgun and aimed it at her.

  The younger woman’s smile vanished.

  Her lap dogs in suits stood on the porch. One stared through an unboarded window and gave Geneva the chills. His eyes were nothing but black holes. They weren’t natural. The other mutt glared at her from behind his master. She couldn’t see what he had in his hands, not with his lady boss blocking her sight. Geneva knew she’d have to shoot first and ask questions later.

  She put firm pressure on the trigger, ready to shoot anyone who twitched. Sweat trickled down her scalp. She had no doubt this woman had come to kill her—and her boy, Sam.

  “I see you take after your son,” the woman said.

  “That’s where you’re dead wrong, missy.” Geneva raised the muzzle of her shotgun and took aim. “That boy of mine? He takes after me.”

  Chapter 2

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but the next one who moves gets buckshot.”

  Geneva held as still as stone, staring at her unwanted guests. When darkness fell over the cabin, she shifted her eyes toward the only window not boarded. A wall of rain blackened the sky and would soon swallow her neck of the glades and complicate things.

  Photos of Sam in happier times hung on the walls and stared back at her. She gritted her teeth and clutched at the shotgun tighter, praying she’d see her boy again.

  “Be careful where you point that.” Camila didn’t take her eyes off Geneva.

  “Missy, I’m a crack shot. I learned a long time ago to just shoot. Whatever I hit, that’s where I was aiming. Guess you could say I never miss.”

  “Is it my men who scare you?” Camila asked. “I can ask them to wait outside.”

  The woman kept her voice low and calm. Her eyes never blinked.

  “I like ‘em right where they stand. A cottonmouth slitherin’ through the grass is still deadly, even if you can’t see the damned thing,” Geneva said. “You best get to speakin’ your mind, or you can leave.”

  “Very well, if you insist.” Camila narrowed her eyes. “Perhaps you would deliver a message to your son.”

  The approaching storm darkened the room and shadows played tricks on Geneva’s eyes when they appeared to move. As the mounting winds intensified the rain that pummeled the cabin, the noise and the thick humid smell made her edgy. She gripped the shotgun tighter.

  “You picked a fine time to call. Couldn’t your message wait?”

  “I’m afraid not. I’ve waited long enough.”

  Camila reached into her pocket with one hand. Curious, Geneva let her eyes drift toward the only movement in the room until she realized too late. The woman had a weapon at her back and came out shooting with her other hand. A bullet zinged by Geneva’s ear.

  Camila lunged for the cabin floor, leaving her rabid dogs standing behind her. Geneva pulled the trigger and the shotgun blast made her deaf with its roar. Buckshot hit the man at the door and he stumbled back into the blowing rain.

  Geneva stepped out from around the kitchen counter with adrenaline throttling through her veins. She peered out from cover and searched the floor for Camila. Like the snake she was, boss lady had slithered away and cowered to let her men do the dirty work. Damn it. Another blast broke glass and a bullet punched into Geneva’s body, nearly knocking her down. She spun around and pumped the shotgun to reload and fired—again and again.

  Another round hit her hard.

  The suffocating smell of blood filled her nostrils. Her clothes were damp and sticky with it. She wasn’t going to make it. Through the broken glass, she saw movement in the tall drenched reeds outside. If they had more mongrels coming, she couldn’t hold off an army.

  Geneva had no choice. She had to move. Now!

  ***

  “Pick up, momma. Come on. Judge Judy can’t be that good.”

  Sam Rafferty disconnected his Bluetooth call with a punch of a finger and a wince. Service had always been spotty in this remote area of the glades near his mother’s cabin, but during the mounting storm, he only heard service disruption messages. He prayed his mother had gone before the hurricane hit, but knowing her, he couldn’t take the chance.

  He had to make sure.

  Sam clenched his hands on the steering wheel as he drove his SUV through the deluge of the blinding storm, his thoughts nearly drowned out by the staccato hammer of the blowing rain. The drops were large enough to sound like gunfire against the metal and windshield of his vehicle. He narrowed his eyes as he peered through the brief glimpses of the road between swipes of his wipers at full speed. The storm added to the tension he already felt in his pounding heart.

  His mother had always been stubborn about leaving her home. ‘Who wants to die from too many birthdays?’ she had always told him. His strong-willed and stubborn mother had raised him solo and never compromised on how she lived.

  That suited him fine as a boy. He loved the adventures of living like a feral child in the glades with mud squishing between his toes and a familiar layer of dirt caked on his skin. Gators and snakes and peculiar spiders opened his eyes to all living things. He spent long hours exploring the massive swamp outside his door, only coming home for dinner. Those days weren’t wasted. During his SEAL training, when it came time for S.E.R.E. prep before graduation, he excelled in the acronym’s meaning—survival, evasion, resistance and escape.

  But his mother wasn’t a young woman anymore and he worried about the dangers outside her home. If she ever were hurt, emergency crews could be too far away to make a difference, but that never mattered to her. She’d say, ‘T
he only way I’m leaving here is if I have a tag on my big toe.’

  Sam tried arguing, but it never did any good. When he turned down his mother’s gravel road, sections of it had been flooded, but he saw her rusted old truck up ahead.

  “Damn it, Momma. If the hurricane is in range, so are you.”

  She was still at the cabin, pushing her luck with the storm. He drove his SUV through the washed out road to her mailbox and parked. Sam didn’t bother with rain gear.

  He unlocked his glove compartment, retrieved his Glock 21, and slipped it into the waistband of his jeans under his black T-shirt. After he slammed his door shut, he ran for the wooden pier that led to her cabin.

  Rain pelted his skin and snaked down his neck and under his shirt. The deluge made his jeans and boots heavier as his clothes became drenched. He ran down the jetty with his boots thudding on the wood planks and caught a glimpse of her cabin.

  The front door was flung open—creaking on its hinges in the wind—and one of the front windows had been broken.

  Sam stopped. On instinct, he reached for his Glock and racked the slide. He wanted to call out to his mother, but something in his gut wouldn’t let him. He clenched his teeth and took measured steps toward the weathered shack. Holding his weapon in a two-fisted grip, he peered through the shadows in the house he’d grown up in. Today it didn’t feel like home.

  When he drew near the porch, a smear of rust on the doorframe gripped him hard. The stain was in the shape of fingers—from a hand too large to have been his mother’s.

  “Momma,” he whispered under his breath as he raced inside.

  Rain made a puddle at the front door. After he stepped into the cabin, glass crunched under his boots and shell casings were strewn across the wood floor. He recognized the spent shells from his momma’s shotgun. Furniture in the room had been tossed and bullet holes marred the walls, shattering picture frames. In one violent act, the safety of his family home had been ripped apart and he still couldn’t find his mother.

  More blood pooled near the kitchen counter—too much blood—close to the spot where his mother kept her weapon hidden. It had to be her blood.

  “Momma?” he called out. “It’s me, Sam.”

  He inched toward the kitchen, afraid to look behind the counter. His imagination pummeled him with horrific flashes of his mother dead at his feet. Please, no, he prayed. She can’t be dead. He swallowed hard and fought his racing pulse.

  Sam gripped his weapon tighter and took a deep breath before he made his move. He lunged into the kitchen, ready to shoot. When he didn’t see his mother’s body, he let out the breath he’d been holding, but something else stopped him.

  A small woven rug of a distinct Seminole pattern had been tossed aside and blood trailed across the floor toward a wooden hatch cut into the floorboards. It was open. The escape route had been his mother’s design. In case of fire, she wanted another way out. It led to metal stairs down to the water and a waiting canoe.

  Sam dropped to his knees and aimed his Glock down the murky passageway. The canoe was gone—so was his mother.

  ***

  Tampa General Hospital

  Rafael saw Jacqui wheeled into the emergency room of Tampa General. From what he could tell, EMTs had kept her body functioning as they rushed her on a gurney into the trauma center, but he didn’t know if that meant she was alive.

  I’d feel it if she died…wouldn’t I?

  He paced outside the doors and caught fragmented glimpses of doctors and nurses working on her, but she never opened her eyes—or moved. Voices yanked him from his tunnel vision of Jacqui.

  “Are you family?” The disembodied voice of a woman plucked at Rafe’s raw nerves.

  “I’m her boyfriend.”

  “But you’re not family.”

  He shut his eyes and almost didn’t answer. Rafael thought of her as his family now. Why didn’t this woman understand?

  “No.”

  “Who are her next of kin?”

  “She doesn’t have anyone.” It killed him to say that. He wanted to scream, ‘She has me! I’m here,’ but he didn’t. “She was raised by the state. Foster care.”

  “Does she have anyone we should contact?”

  “I already informed her employer.” His words sounded cold and distant. The Omega Team was much more than an employer. They were family. “If she has anyone listed on her emergency contacts, her employer will make the call.”

  A nurse handed him a clipboard and a pen and said something he didn’t grasp until he heard…

  “They’re taking her to surgery now.”

  “Is she gonna make it?”

  “I can’t tell you that, sir. A doctor will talk to you, when it’s all over.”

  All over? Rafe’s throat tightened and he fought the sting of fresh tears. He slumped into a chair, exhausted.

  Time passed. People came and went out of the emergency waiting room. Even as he looked up at the clock on the wall, nothing registered. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting or pacing. A storm darkened the windows of the room and stretched its murky fingers across the floor and walls until it swallowed him.

  Inside his heart Rafael prayed, not knowing if it would do any good. His prayers had never been answered before, when he promised his life if God would keep his wife and baby girl healthy…and safe. That didn’t happen. The way they were butchered—and the fact that he’d been the one to find their bodies—Rafe took it as a sign that God had singled him out for the worst punishment fathomable.

  Please God. Don’t let her die.

  He made the sign of the cross and lowered his head to pray until he heard and felt the vibration of his cell. He saw the caller ID on the display and took the call.

  “Rafael. Thank, God. I’ve been trying to reach you.” The voice of his half-sister Athena gave him comfort.

  He looked at his phone and saw he had messages. He never heard the pings.

  “How’s Jacqui?” she asked. “Where are you?”

  “Tampa General. They took her to surgery. I don’t know how long she’s been in there.”

  A long moment of silence warned Rafael that Athena had something more she needed to tell him.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you have to know,” she said.

  She had his attention. Rafe stood and walked toward a window to watch the storm closing in.

  “What is it? Tell me.”

  “Right after Jacqui’s accident, someone sent photos to my cell. I don’t know how they got my number, but they did.”

  “Photos of what?”

  “Of Jacqui, at the accident. She was still in the car. Someone had to be very close.”

  “What?”

  “My contacts at Tampa PD said they’re still looking for the driver of the eighteen-wheeler that hit her. The rig was stolen, Rafe. Are you connecting the dots, mi hermano? Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to target Jacqui and made sure I knew about it.”

  “What are you saying, Athena?”

  “I have reasons to believe Camila Borrego is behind this.”

  Rafael nearly doubled over.

  “Reasons?”

  “Yeah, there’s more. Clive Landry has been murdered, gunned down at his home this morning. I was sent pictures of that, too.”

  “Ay dios mio. Lo siento.” Shock gripped Rafael hard and the mounting pain of a terrible headache grew worse. “Does this have anything to do with Cuba?”

  He trusted his gut and made a connection that he didn’t want to say aloud, but he knew the answer before Athena even said a word.

  “I think so,” she said. “I can’t get a hold of Sam Rafferty to warn him. The entire Omega Team could be in danger. To play it safe, we’ve ordered an emergency protocol for everyone, including you. When I see you, I’ll have a burner phone for you to use, so ditch the one you have and do it now. Watch your back, Rafael…and Jacqui’s.”

  Rafe ended the call in a deeper and darker hole than where he’d started. H
is past had come back to haunt him. He would never be free of it.

  ***

  Hillsborough Medical Examiner

  Tampa, Florida

  Athena ended the call to her brother, unsure she could feel any worse, until she remembered why she’d come to the office of Tampa’s medical examiner.

  She had used her connections as a former homicide detective at the Tampa PD. If she wanted to attend the autopsy of Clive Landry—along with the detectives charged with investigating the case—she’d be allowed to stay.

  Landry’s only child, Melissa, had taken the bad news hard and begged Grey to ID the body for her. Identification could have been by photograph, but both Athena and Grey wanted to see Clive—to say good-bye to a man they loved and respected.

  After the medical examiner pulled back the sheet that covered Clive’s face and left the room, Athena stood alone with Grey beside the body. She tensed her jaw and wrestled with the flood of emotions hitting her. Clive had served his country. He’d risked his life on many missions in his career, but he came back to the United States—ready to finally retire and become a fledgling grandpa—until a coward gunned him down at the front door of his own home.

  “I never saw this coming. On a mission, we have each other’s backs. We’re a team. We look out for—” Tears drained down her cheek. “Clive didn’t deserve this. He should’ve been allowed to walk away. He would’ve made an amazing grandfather. God, he loved Melissa.”

  Grey reached out a hand to her and gripped the back of her neck. She folded into his arms and let him hold her.

  “We haven’t had any casualties, until now,” she said.

  She knew Clive would not be the last they would lose. Every member of the Omega Team had lost someone to violence. It never got any easier to accept or understand.

  “A man like Clive touched a lot of lives. He’ll be missed,” Grey said, pulling her tighter into his arms. “We’ll find out who did this. I promise you.”