Oh, yes. By the time he was through, Ketcher Novak wouldn’t beg for his life. He would beg Anton to end it. Maybe Anton would grant his wish, maybe he wouldn’t. Playing with Novak could prove entertaining enough to warrant keeping the guy alive for a while.
Carlos, his brother’s right-hand man, now his right-hand man, straightened. “The hospital room was empty. Cleared out. There has been no activity in or around Novak’s apartment and his vehicle is parked in the parking lot. I would’ve been alerted if the car had been moved. There has been no movement for the last few days.”
“He’s too smart for that,” Anton spat. “Novak would know if his car had been tampered with.” And Carlos thought he was stupid. Anton had overheard plenty of conversations between Manuel and Carlos to know where the man stood. Now that Anton was in charge, Carlos would be sorry for every time he had tried to convince Manuel that Anton was a liability.
Carlos drew in a deep breath, as if talking to Anton annoyed him. “Which is why we haven’t tampered with it.” The idiot was implied by his tone, setting Anton’s teeth on edge. “We’ve had a visual. Until this morning, I had a man on his place.”
“Until this morning? Why isn’t he still watching? What if he comes back? I want him found!”
“There’s no point. Don’t you get it? Manuel is gone. The circumstances surrounding his demise have put our business on the radar of several federal agencies, with more to come. Now is not the time to call attention to the organization by going after Ketcher Novak. To do so would be suicide, not just for you, but for all of us. Not to mention the guy would fuck you up one side and down the other. You don’t have what it takes to go up against a man like him.”
Anton sniffed, insulted to the core. He’d been on the winning end of his share of brawls. Novak was just another thug who didn’t know his place. Big man with a gun, taking lives as though they didn’t matter. Manuel mattered. Someone needed to teach Novak some respect … before he died.
“I will not allow that man to live.” He didn’t need Carlos’ permission. “I’ve offered a substantial bonus for anyone who brings him to me. If you won’t do it, someone else will.”
Carlos shook his head. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
Anton erupted. How dare he insult him? He was in charge now, goddamn it, and he deserved the same respect as his brother had commanded. Anger made the words vibrate from his throat. “And what about what you’ve done? Or not done, as the case may be. Where were you when my brother needed you? Where were you while my brother was murdered?”
“I was doing exactly as Manual requested. My job.” Carlos took a step forward. “But you were there, weren’t you? Of course you were. That was part of the plan.”
Anton straightened to his full five feet eleven, several inches shorter than Carlos, but Anton refused to be intimidated by the larger man. “What plan?”
Carlos’ sneer was pure evil. “Your brother’s plan to take you out.”
Anton recoiled, unable to process what Carlos had said.
“Did you really believe Manuel wanted to groom you for the position by his side? You stupid motherfucker. Did you honestly believe you could replace me?” Carlos swore in Spanish and spit on the floor in front of Anton’s feet. “The position wasn’t up for grabs. Manuel was tired of your bullshit. He knew you were a liability and he was ready to do something about it. Why do you think he had you get a hair cut? Why do you think he gave you a suit to wear? He wanted you to look like him, to be mistaken for him.”
“Shut up!” Anton’s mind whirled. No. It couldn’t be true. His brother had loved him. Manuel had wanted Anton to change his image, that was all. To look more professional as he stood by Manuel’s side. Carlos didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.
“It was supposed to be you on that dirty concrete with a bullet in your skull,” Carlos continued. “While the feds scrambled to make sense of killing the wrong man, Manuel and I were set to leave the country. We spent months redirecting funds and shifting the operation. You were not supposed to make it out of that warehouse.”
Carlos crossed his arms over his chest, the arrogant fuck. “And yet here you stand, the lone survivor. The fucking coward who slipped out a side door and ran, leaving his brother to die alone.”
Anton’s anger thickened around him in hues of red and gold. He’d done what he had to do. The shouts. The gunfire. The chaos.
Carlos didn’t know the confusion that could mar a man’s judgment.
Anton had watched his beloved brother go down, his white dress shirt soaked with blood. Manuel wouldn’t have wanted the same end for him, so yeah. He ran. He escaped to avenge his brother and carry out his legacy.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Flapping your gums to the first available ear was the first of many mistakes these last few days. Manuel’s people aren’t loyal to you. They are loyal to me.” Carlos’ expression pinched in disgust. “You aren’t fit to sit behind that desk, and you certainly aren’t fit to lead this organization. You’re a fool if you believe I’ll step aside and let you take control.”
Anton jerked open the top desk drawer and palmed the pistol his brother kept there. He raised the weapon, hands shaking with fury. “The choice is not yours to make.”
Carlos’ eyes flared in surprise and Anton felt a surge of satisfaction. Before Carlos could reach for the pistol on his belt, Anton pulled the trigger, sending a bullet straight into the other man’s forehead.
Carlos crumpled to the floor in a spray of blood and brain matter.
Rage melted into powerful satisfaction. Anton aimed at the dead man and pulled the trigger two more times.
Didn’t see that coming did you, asshole?
The stench of death and gunpowder filled his nostrils. He drew it in, let it consume him. The tingling returned to the base of his spine.
There would be more of this to come. So much more.
The warming sensation traveled down the crack of his ass. Anton tightened the hole there, intensifying the feeling. His dick began to stir. He pressed the heel of his palm against the front of his slacks, encouraging the process, yet knowing he wouldn’t see it through to the end. He had other matters to attend to. Calling for a clean up, for example.
Anton stared at the mess on the floor, allowing himself a few gluttonous rubs over his cock.
Carlos got what he deserved, the lying son of a bitch. Anton would never believe his brother had wanted to kill him. His brother loved him. It was up to him to avenge Manuel’s death, regardless of what lying Carlos had said.
Anton abandoned the front of his pants with a grunt. Funneling the sexual frustration from his dick to the task at hand, he placed the gun on the desk and pulled open a file drawer. He fingered through the tabs on the hanging files until he found the tab he was looking for. The Omega Team. He flicked through the individual folders before pulling the file labeled Ketcher Novak and placing it on the desk.
Manuel kept detailed files on anyone who had ever gotten in his way. The Omega Team had been in Manuel’s crosshairs for months. He’d told Anton so. He said he kept an eye on them not because they had been a problem, but because they could become a problem.
Know your enemies, Manuel had said. Be proactive, and show no weakness.
Anton opened the file and flipped through the contents of his new enemy, searching for something, anything, that would lead him to the man.
What have we here?
He picked up the photograph of a group of men and women dressed in various forms of camouflaged clothing. A group of military men and women. It was a candid shot, taken in what appeared to be a temporary mess hall or whatever the hell they called it. A place to eat. Outside. In the desert. Whatever. The setting wasn’t what drew Anton’s interest. There was the big, red arrow drawn onto the photograph. The arrow pointed to a woman. There was a name underneath.
Regan Daniels.
Of the eight people in the photograph, everyone was looking at the camera.
>
Everyone except them.
Regan was smiling into the eyes of the man standing close to her side. Standing very close to her side.
Ketcher Novak.
Anton picked up the phone. He punched a button and waited for the call to be answered.
“I need you to run a name,” he said to the man on the other end of the line. “Regan Daniels. I want to know everything. Oh, and Carlos made a mess in my office. Send someone in to clean it up.”
Chapter Six
For minutes, hours, days—he had no idea—Ketcher fought the darkness. Sometimes, the dream would appear. Regan would come to him and he would stop fighting, content to let her stroke his face while she murmured words he couldn’t quite understand. He wasn’t one to sit on the sidelines, but he learned if he touched her she would disappear and the darkness would swallow him whole. So he kept his hands to himself. And waited, taking control of the situation the only way he knew how.
Sure enough, little by little, the darkness receded. He recalled things like being wounded, leaving the hospital, and traveling to Texas. He remembered the cottage. The pain and…son of a bitch. Had he passed out in front of his buddies? Why yes, yes he had, and wouldn’t that be a gigantic pain in his ass once the ribbing started. To top off his humiliation sundae, he recalled that his buddies had taken turns helping him into the bathroom.
He would never hear the end of it.
Pushing through the last vestibule of fog clouding his brain, Ketcher opened his eyes. The blinds were drawn on a set of windows, but there was enough light coming in to indicate daylight. Not knowing what day it was or how long he’d been out of it made his skin prickle.
Drained, but alert for the first time in…again, no idea…Ketcher pushed into a sitting position. He was unprepared for what he found.
The bedroom he occupied was large enough to contain the two twin beds, one of which protested under his weight, with a nightstand in between. In typical lake house fashion, there was a largemouth bass mounted on the wall next to accordion doors he assumed hid a closet. Nothing there to raise his hackles. The goddamn I.V. contraption stuck in his arm—while annoying—didn’t get him either. Oh no. What fired his blood to molten levels was the half-empty vial he spied sitting next to his shaving kit on the nightstand.
Ketcher picked up the vial and read the label. With a curse and a quick jerk of his wrist, he sailed the bottle across the room where it shattered against the wall.
He’d been fucking drugged.
Something grabbed onto his heart and squeezed until he couldn’t breathe.
Bad things happened when he was unaware.
When he was sixteen he awoke from a medically induced coma to learn his parents hadn’t survived the car accident that had landed him in the hospital.
The roads had been covered with snow and ice. Ketcher couldn’t remember all the details—God, he despised having holes in his memory—but he’d been told a truck careened out of control and hit them head-on. The guilt over being behind the wheel at the time had almost ruined him, regardless of the circumstances. Could anyone guarantee, with one hundred percent certainty, that he couldn’t have done something to avoid the accident? The answer to that was a big hell no.
With no living relatives to speak of, Ketcher and his younger sister Kelly had been shuffled into the system. Ketcher started to drink. He didn’t much care what he poured down his throat as long as it numbed the pain and guilt of killing their parents. Kelly wouldn’t speak to him. She’d been riddled with her own grief and Ketcher had been too young to help and too drunk to care. A year later, after a twelve-hour self-pity swim through countless bottles of rotgut whiskey, he woke to find Kelly lying on the living room floor of their foster parent’s house, dead. An overdose from the same shit Manuel Barzaga peddled.
Funny, but losing Kelly had been the wake-up call he needed. Ketcher had given up alcohol that day, refusing to be caught unaware again. He joined the Marines, determined to make the world a better, safer place. When his time came to an end, he joined the Omega Team to continue the crusade.
He had a lot to atone for.
With a sense of déjà vu, Ketcher removed the I.V. from his arm. There was a certain Texan who was about to get his ass kicked.
He threw back the sheet, grateful to find he was wearing pants. Not his. Red- checkered flannel wasn’t his style, but they were better than nothing. As he turned to get out of bed, the door opened and a distinctly feminine gasp filled the room.
“What are you doing?” came the voice from his dreams.
Only he wasn’t dreaming now. He was wide fucking awake as the woman he spent the last four years trying to forget rushed to his side. Anger momentarily forgotten, Ketcher drank her in. Her long hair. Her classically-formed face and pouty lips. Her amber-colored eyes crinkled with concern as she looked him over, too.
She wore a skull and crossbones top that drew snug across her breasts as she reached back and with one fluid movement secured her hair at the base of her neck.
The shirt seemed out of character for the girl he’d known. Less Regan, more rebel. All sexy.
Ketcher’s body responded out of sheer starvation. Inside the lumberjack sleep pants, his cock stirred. At once, he remembered touching her. He hadn’t been dreaming, had he? He had actually kissed her and then slipped his hands under her shirt, and Regan hadn’t stopped him. Not at first. Had he imagined the way her belly fluttered as he caressed over her skin?
Christ. Don’t think about that. She’s probably the one who drugged you.
The idea pissed him off, but didn’t do anything to cool his arousal.
“What’re you doing here, doc?”
Regan flinched at his use of the nickname the other guys had given her. Ketcher had made a habit of avoiding it, finding the use of her name to be much more intimate. With a subtle change in his inflection, he could convey a wealth of information. Her name could become a command, a warning, a question, or a plea. Put a little fire behind it and she would hear his hunger, his need, loud and clear. He could wrap a hundred different messages in that one little word, and she had become an expert in deciphering his code.
So, until he had some fucking answers, doc it was.
“My job. Taking care of you.”
The weight of a decision made years ago pressed down on his shoulders. “I’m not your responsibility.”
“You are if you’re sick or injured.” She pressed her hand to his forehead as he realized she had done several times before. “The fever has broken.” She glanced down at his arm with a frown. “You were dehydrated. Since you’ve disconnected the I.V. I’d like you to start drinking the sports drinks Brandon stocked in the refrigerator to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
Ketcher jerked away from her touch, ignoring the hurt that flickered across her features. He was having a hard enough time separating dreams from reality and her hands on him made it more difficult to think.
“How long have I been out?” His tongue felt thick. He dug into his shaving kit and pulled out his travel bottle of mouthwash. He needed a proper shower and a toothbrush, but for now he’d make due. He took a swig and swirled it around his mouth.
“Thirty-six hours, give or take.”
Jesus. He’d lost a day and a half. Another gaping black hole in his memory that would probably come back to haunt him. And shit, if he didn’t check in soon Grey would send reinforcements.
Ketcher picked up the trashcan and spit the mouthwash into it. He glanced around for the duffel containing the burner phones.
“I need to check your stitches.”
His gaze swung back to Regan. She didn’t smile, didn’t lower her gaze. She stood, expressionless, and laced her fingers together, waiting.
He arched a brow. “Are you asking?”
“That depends. Can you act like an adult for five seconds and not pull away?”
She might as well have laid down the gauntlet at his feet. He suddenly felt the need to punish her for haunt
ing his dreams, for making sex with other women empty and unsatisfying, and for possibly being the person who had goddamn drugged him.
Ready to take up the challenge, Ketcher stood and stepped right into her personal space, forcing her to take a step back or stretch her neck to look up at him. She didn’t do either. She kept her gaze glued somewhere in the vicinity of his sternum.
“I can act like an adult for as long as you need, baby. Care to try me?” Her gaze followed his hand as he trailed it down his chest, coming to rest over the bandage. “I won’t pull away…” he leaned down and put his mouth close to her ear. “I won’t even pull out.”
Her nostrils flared. “I’m trying to help you. There’s no need to be an asshole.”
“Did you drug me?” The question came out with more venom than he’d intended, but the idea that he’d been rendered vulnerable and helpless didn’t set well.
Regan finally took that step back. “If you’re asking if I gave you the necessary medications your body needed to heal, then yes. I did. Your incision had become irritated and I had to repair some of the stitches. You had a fever. You were at risk of developing an infection that would have been extremely difficult to fight under these conditions. So, yes. You could say I ‘drugged’ you. Or, you could say I made it possible for you to rest soundly and pain-free while six of the most lethal men I know stood guard.”
She glanced up at him through thick eyelashes. “I would never leave you vulnerable,” she whispered, reading his mind. “And nothing bad happened. Everyone is safe.”
The irritation left him in a rush. Regan was the only person who knew about his family. He’d told her the story one night after binge-eating cookies and then working off the calories by having sex until neither of them could stand. She asked, and he’d been too content and relaxed to deny her the answer. When he was through talking, she climbed onto his lap and hugged him. Just…hugged him.
She’d offered him comfort without judgment.
Ah, fuck. She’s right. I am an asshole.
The Omega Team: No Control (Kindle Worlds Novella) (The Martin Family Book 3) Page 4
