The Omega Team: Hot Target (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Jordan Dane Page A

Rafferty, “Search every square inch on her order.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Camila gave the nod and Rafferty humped it through the front door. The woman cartel boss waved her hand at two of her men and they followed Sam, to make sure he didn’t take a detour.
    “Come and join me.” Camila swept an arm toward Athena and welcomed her to enter her home. “We shall speak openly, so we understand one another.”
    Athena tensed her jaw and glanced over her shoulder at Esteban Ruiz. The man did not look happy.
     
    ***
     
    Inside the spacious fortress of Camila Borrego, Athena followed the woman to a drawing room near the foyer. A tasteful chandelier of dripping crystal hung from the center of the round room and added a feminine touch of bling. A massive stacked rock surround fireplace with a raised hearth of travertine stone anchored one side of a room of white furnishings with glass accents—an unusual blend of contemporary with traditional elements of texture.
    Apparently the drug trade had its perks.
    True to Camila’s word, they were alone. The cartel boss had dismissed her men and offered her a seat.
    After Athena chose a plush chair, the woman stepped toward a small bar and opened a fresh bottle of white wine. From the stern look on Camila’s face, Athena knew there would be no small talk.
    “After I met your brother Rafael the other night, something about him stayed with me.” Camila poured her a glass of wine, but Athena declined with a shake of her head. “His name. I had heard his name before, but I had forgotten. It had been many years.”
    The woman stared at Athena as she took a long sip.
    “My father told me your brother killed my cousin Mateo in Chicago. He paid informants to acquire your brother’s name and his address. Nothing was beyond my father’s reach, his legacy to me now.” Camila set down her glass. “Rafael is a marksman with a rifle. A sniper.”
    “He was doing his duty, under orders. Your cousin killed a grandfather and was holding a five-year old boy hostage with a gun to his head. He held others, too. Lives were in danger. Rafe did what he had to do, what he was ordered to do.”
    “He killed a twenty-year-old boy. Mateo did what he did because he was scared,” Camila yelled until the veins in her neck pulsed with her blood.
    “He was stoned out of his mind on meth. I read the police reports.”
    “Oh, and I suppose the police in your country, they do not lie, is that it?” Camila stood and paced behind her chair.
    “So where does that leave us?” Athena stood and matched her stance. “Your father killed Rafael’s wife and baby girl. He had his man carve into their bodies, the sign of your cartel.” She pointed a finger at Camila.
    Athena felt heat rush to her cheeks. Her rage, against the injustice her brother had endured, was never far from the surface.
    Camila winced but did not speak.
    “Haven’t we all suffered enough?” Athena asked. “When will the killing stop?”
    The woman cartel boss leaned against the back of her chair, resting her elbows as she considered what to say.
    “If I find that your brother had anything to do with the murder of my father, if any evidence ties to him, this will not be over. I promise you. I will finish what my father started. I won’t kill Rafael. That would be too easy. I will slaughter anyone he ever knew or loved. Do we understand one another?”
    Athena struggled for her next breath and it took all her strength to keep the emotion off her face.
    “Yes, yes we do.”
    Athena knew in that instant that she could never reveal what she’d found on the shell casing. The bullet taken from the body of Hector Borrego would have to be lost, for good. Anything that could tie Rafael to the murder of Hector Borrego would have to be destroyed, or else Camila would not stop her rampage and innocent people would continue to die.
    She would have to doctor the report she would file with Esteban Ruiz and hope he didn’t know the facts better