by Jordan Dane
It would kill him if something happened to Kate.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “Kill the lights and slow down. If we have company, I don’t want to make us a target.”
“Wait a minute. This is the backside to your mother’s place. You think she doubled back.”
“If the storm hadn’t hit, she would have gone for help, but after she ditched the canoe, I figured it might be her play if she had the strength to make it,” he said. “Park here. Don’t get too close. I know a back way in.”
Kate unbuckled her seat belt and stared at him through the shadows of early morning.
“You do realize that if we find her here, this plan of yours might make us both feel a little stupid, like ‘right under our noses’ stupid.”
Sam shook his head.
“If this is stupid but it works, then it wasn’t stupid to begin with.”
“What?”
“I know, it’s a conundrum,” he said. “Roll with it.”
Before Sam reached for the door handle, he turned in his seat to face Kate.
“What? Something wrong?” she asked.
“It’s just that, I may not get a chance to say—” Before he finished, he pulled Kate into his arms and kissed her. To hell with words.
He should have been grateful and said the words plain and straight out, but when he looked at Kate, something in her eyes grabbed his heart and wouldn’t let go. She had suffered through a hurricane to help him, without complaint. She’d gone well beyond the call of her duty, but the longer he’d stayed with her, the more he wanted her—duty and gratitude had nothing to do with the depth of his feelings for a woman he thought had written him off.
Her lips brought back the urgent memories that often plagued his nights with the road not taken. The soft curves of her body fit into him as if she’d been meant for only him. His eager mouth could not get enough of her—and damn it, she kissed him back. When she gasped and her hands reached for his body with a familiar yearning, Sam knew he hadn’t mistaken the hunger in her eyes.
“We need to—” she panted and groped his body.
“Yeah, I know—”
“But I can’t—”
“Me either.” He tasted her with his eager tongue. “Okay, we stop…on three. One.”
“Two.” She nuzzled his lips.
Sam opened his eyes and said with a sigh, “Three.”
It took all his will power to let go of Kate. His lips were warm with the urgent need they both had not been able to resist. Her fierce, dark eyes had softened to a vulnerability he had no defense against.
“Look at me,” he said, holding her by the shoulders. “Don’t forget this thing between us. It’s real, but we have to—”
“Yeah, I know. Geneva is here. She has to be.”
Chapter 6
Everglades
Dawn
“I never knew this was here.”
Kate peered through the morning shadows of a clearing in the forest where an old shed had been almost covered in fallen branches and heaps of blown grasses. Inches of dirt were caked on the outside walls. With Kate’s help, Sam hauled away a heavy limb that blocked the shed door.
“This is on your mother’s property, right?”
“She doesn’t use it much, but yeah, it’s hers.”
Sam and Kate had searched the main cabin and hadn’t found any new trace of his mother, but Sam had no intention of leaving before he checked the utility shed tucked into the back of his mother’s acreage.
“Look.” Kate pointed to the ground at the base of the old shack before she bent down and picked up an opened combination lock. “Does she usually keep the shed locked?”
Sam reached for his Glock and loaded a round in the chamber. Without a word, he nudged his head toward the door, signaling Kate to open it. His heart throttled against his rib cage and thumped in his ears. He had to be careful. Anyone could be hiding in his mother’s storage shed, but he prayed the unlocked door meant one thing.
Kate thrust the door open wide and Sam raced in, holding his Glock in a two-fisted grip. His eyes took time to adjust to the darkness, but a low moan startled him. He aimed the gun muzzle toward the noise until he saw legs on the floor, behind wooden crates.
“Momma, is that you?” Sam secured his gun in the back waistband of his jeans and grabbed for a box that blocked his view. He looked down to see the ghastly pale face of his mother. She still clutched the shotgun to her chest. Her shoulder and stomach had stains of blood, soaking her wet clothes, and she was barely breathing.
“Kate, she’s here. She’s hurt bad.”
When Sam saw his mother for the first time—weak and confused from blood loss, with her skin pale as death—true fear gripped him. Not even the harrowing missions he’d faced in his past had shaken him as badly, because he always had his SEAL brothers at his side.
But seeing his mother near death, Sam felt like a failure. The reality he could lose her, hit him hard. She was his only family. The last person who loved him with no strings attached, warts and all, and would always listen to him on the phone, even when he cut loose with a rant only he cared about. He thought his mother would live forever, because that’s how he saw her.
She could die. That thought hit him hard. No, I can’t lose her.
Sam raced to where she lay in the corner of the shed. He tossed aside boxes of supplies and equipment to get to her.
“Momma, it’s me, Sam.”
He dropped to his knees and touched her face. When she cracked open her eyes, it took her a long moment to truly see him.
“Yeah, I’m here, Momma. You’re going to be okay.”
“My s-sweet…boy.” His mother raised a trembling hand to his cheek and he kissed her palm.
“Kate’s here too,” he said. “We’re taking you to a doctor, right now.”
“Kate…Cypress?” His mother spoke in a voice so weak he barely heard her. “I always liked her.”
“Yeah, me too.”
In a sudden move that shocked Sam, his mother grabbed his arm with a pained look on her face.
“That woman…Camila. She wants you dead, Sam. She has two men with her, twins, ugly sons of—”
The minute his mother used the name ‘Camila,’ he had all the confirmation he needed to know the Cuban drug cartel leader had come to U.S. soil for revenge. The fear in his mother’s eyes swallowed him in rage.
Camila Borrego would regret ever coming after him and his team.
“Yeah, I heard. Don’t worry, Momma.”
“She needs her ass kicked, son.”
Sam couldn’t help it. He smiled.
“Amen.” He kissed her cheek. “We need to get you out of here now. Hold on. I’ll try not to hurt you.”
Sam picked his mother off the floor and cradled her in his arms. When she groaned in pain, he winced and spoke to her in a soft voice. You’re going to be okay, Momma. You’re safe now. You’ll see. He ducked through the shed door and let his long legs and a rush of adrenaline take over.
“I have first-aid in my truck…and a blanket,” Kate said, following close behind them. “It’s not much, but maybe you can stop the bleeding until we get her to the hospital.”
Against all odds, Sam had found his mother in the midst of a hurricane, and he prayed his luck would hold until he heard a mounting rumble and saw a dark cloud of dust and debris spiraling toward them—churning everything in its path.
“Run, Kate. Now.”
The hairs on his arms spiked as he watched the calm eye of the storm die in front of him. A thick wall of dirt and clumps of vegetation spiraled like an immense tornado barreling for them, slinging treacherous shards of metal and splintered boards and yanking trees out by the roots.
“Get the car started. We’ll catch up.”
Kate touched his arm as she ran by him, but she didn’t argue.
Every step Sam took felt as if he were trudging through maddening quick sand. High winds forced him to struggle for every step. He held
his mother tight with lunging shadows closing in around him. Every menacing shape looked like Camila and her men, threatening to kill them.
When he realized that his mother had stopped moving, he couldn’t tell if she still breathed.
Keep moving. Don’t stop.
Sam had nearly lost all hope until Kate’s Fish and Wildlife truck bounded over a rise, with engine revving. He winced in the blowing debris as he watched her navigate toward him, but inside he wanted to kiss her.
Her truck reeled over ruts and flattened thick brush as she cut the distance between them and parked in front of him. Kate left the motor running, jumped from the driver’s seat and raced for the backseat passenger door to hold it open for him. Sam slid into the vehicle and kept his eyes on his mother.
“Get us out of here, Kate. Now.”
Sam held his mother close to his heart and kissed her cold forehead. She didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t move. If she died in his arms, before he got her to the hospital, he didn’t want to face the gut wrenching reality of how close he’d come to saving her—and failing.
He rocked her in his arms and held her tight.
“I love you, Momma. I’ll always love you,” he whispered.
Sam struggled over his next move as Kate drove. He would get his mother to the nearest hospital in Pinecrest, but Camila Borrego was not an enemy he could afford to turn his back on. No one would be safe—not his mother, Kate, or anyone on the Omega Team—if he couldn’t stop her here and now.
Even though he knew it would be a risk that would put a target on his back, Sam pulled out his phone and made a call he might live to regret, but he had no choice. When his call was answered, he started talking.
“It’s me, Sam. I don’t have much time to talk, but I need your help. Now.”
***
Minutes later
Camila couldn’t hear herself think. The howling winds and sideways rain battered her SUV as Tavio Vega drove, making it hard for her to concentrate. As she sat in the front passenger seat, following the GPS signal on the laptop she had balanced on her knees, she prayed Rafferty would make it easy and die as she intended. Her reputation would benefit from the swift kill of a former Navy SEAL. He was the trophy she wanted and the reason she had come personally.
“Someone’s up ahead,” Tavio said and slowed the SUV until Camila looked up from her computer.
A law enforcement truck, with markings for Fish and Wildlife on its door panels, pulled onto the road in front of them. The dirt road was the entrance to Geneva Rafferty’s property. Camila’s heart pumped with renewed vigor for the thrill of the hunt.
“Rafferty’s signal is on the move. That could be him…and he has help.” Camila’s gaze shifted from the laptop to the vehicle ahead. “Follow that truck.”
“Do you think he found his mother?” Amadeo said, from the backseat.
Camila narrowed her eyes, fighting her mounting anger. She’d grown to hate the old woman who had become a nuisance like an insignificant gnat buzzing her ear. If Rafferty had found her, alive or dead, it did not matter anymore. She wanted to kill the Navy SEAL at all cost. He was a worthy objective.
If his mother were still alive, she could wait until last. It would give Camila great satisfaction to look upon the defiant face of Geneva Rafferty before she held up a bloody trophy taken off the body of her son.
“I grow tired of the resiliency of that old woman. She is like a cockroach that never dies. If she is alive, I will see her one last time before I return to Cuba, victorious. ” Camila smiled at her own cleverness. “I have a plan.”
Chapter 7
Pinecrest Memorial Hospital and Trauma Center
Off Highway 41
Late afternoon
For the first time, the hurricane showed signs of weakness. High winds had turned into intermittent gusts and the violent deluge had become a steady rain. Camila Borrego took it as a sign from God that she would be rewarded if she persevered for the sake of her father’s memory.
She had her man, Tavio Vega, follow the Fish and Wildlife truck and drive at a safe distance. Sam Rafferty had been foolish enough to use his cell phone again. The ping on her laptop reinforced they were following the right vehicle.
After the truck pulled into the emergency loading area for the medical complex, Camila watched from a distance through her beating wiper blades and the persistent rain. She saw Sam Rafferty together with his mother for the first time. The tall muscular man with broad shoulders carried his mother in his arms as if she weighed nothing. He laid her on a gurney and medical staff rushed her inside. A woman in uniform had driven them to the hospital and stood by Rafferty now, touching his arm.
“They have the look of lovers, wouldn’t you say, Amadeo?” Camila asked of the Vega twin sitting in the back seat, but she didn’t expect an answer. “Sam Rafferty looks exhausted…and worried. That is good.”
“Perhaps God will do our work with the old woman,” Tavio said.
“Not so fast. I have plans for her. Do not rob me of my fun.” Camila smiled and pointed to a spot along the curb ahead. She ordered Tavio to park down the block from the ER. “Rafferty knows my face. I cannot go inside, but I want both of you to report what happens. Get close enough to hear everything.”
Camila knew that the faces of identical twins would stand out in anyone’s memory if they were seen together, but if one of them broke into a supply room and stole surgical scrubs and a mask, the novelty of twins would not be noticed.
Tavio and Amadeo did as they were told, but not before selecting their weapons of choice and extra ammunition from the cargo hold and concealing them under their clothes. After they left the vehicle, they split up and entered the hospital from different directions. Camila had the keys to the SUV and moved into the driver’s seat. She turned off the engine to not draw attention and let raindrops bead and trickle down the windshield.
After time passed, the rain stopped and the sun lingered on the cloudy horizon at dusk. When she didn’t hear from the Vega brothers, she sent them a text, with no reply. Her phone call earned her only static. She’d expected a report by now from one of the Vegas, informing her of what they witnessed inside the hospital.
But when Sam Rafferty rushed out of the ER and climbed into the Fish and Wildlife truck parked in the emergency loading zone, Camila was taken by total surprise.
She kept her eyes on everything he did. At first she thought he might only move the vehicle, but when he drove off hospital grounds and headed away from the medical center, Camila didn’t have time to text her men again. She couldn’t lose her prize.
She turned the key in the ignition to start the engine and followed him, cursing his soul. With a sideways glance, she kept an eye on the laptop, opened on the passenger seat next to her. Rafferty had his phone on and the signal moved with him.
“What is so important that you leave your mother behind, guapo?” she muttered under her breath as she drove into the lengthening shadows of a dying day.
With adrenaline coursing through her veins, Camila felt the weight of her handgun pressed at the small of her back, tucked into the waistband of her pants—and the feel of the knife sheathed in her boot. She played out scenarios in her mind, all of them with her standing over the body of Rafferty, before she reached for her knife and carved off her pound of flesh. She prayed Geneva would live long enough for her to show the old woman what had become of her precious son.
In the cargo hold of her SUV, the Vega brothers had stockpiled weapons with impressive firepower. Camila would have more than enough munitions to surprise an unsuspecting Navy SEAL.
“You have made this too easy, cabron.”
***
Thirty minutes later
“Pendejo.”
Tavio cursed under his breath as he caught a glimpse of his ridiculous attire in the glass of a framed art print when he rushed down the hallway of the hospital, dressed in blue scrubs. His dark hair was covered in a ridiculous cap that looked like something an o
ld woman would wear in the shower. A surgical mask dangled under his chin, ready to use at a moment’s notice if he needed it. He tipped his face down as he headed toward the elevators.
Geneva Rafferty had been assessed by an ER doctor, but now they were taking her to surgery. Her blood pressure had been so low, because of blood loss, they almost lost her. Tavio didn’t care either way. He only wanted what pleasured Camila.
When he followed the signs and reached the surgical floor, he found Amadeo waiting. His brother had taken off his sport jacket and looked like an anxious son or husband, waiting for word in a room meant for the families of patients.
Tavio nodded, a subtle gesture, and his brother nudged his chin in reply. No words were spoken and Tavio would not draw attention by speaking to him. He only raised his cell phone, knowing his brother would understand what he meant to tell him.
He couldn’t reach Camila. Several attempts to text her messages had failed. When he tried to call her, he heard only static on the line. Something interfered with his cell signal. Perhaps the hospital blocked calls for the safety of patients to insure medical equipment worked properly.
He raised his chin to communicate to his brother. He had to make another attempt to reach her. Tavio would try outside for better reception or make contact with her directly by risking a face-to-face at the SUV where she was parked. He rode the elevators back to the first floor and walked down the front steps of the hospital.
He followed the sidewalk to where he’d left the car, but Camila was nowhere in sight.
“Ay dios mio.” He searched the streets and the parking lot, walking at first until he broke into a run. Camila was not there and the SUV was gone.
Tavio’s mind raced with all the possibilities that would put Camila in harm’s way and he had a bad feeling. He and Amadeo did her bidding, but she meant more to him than that. He couldn’t fail to protect her. His life had been linked to hers when her father, Hector Borrego, had found the Vega brothers living on the streets of Cuba, selling their bodies to tourists and old men, doing anything to survive. They did not have a life without her.
