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

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. His 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,