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

would react if the questions made him uncomfortable—or if he tried to lie to her.
    “Is your T-shirt red?”
    “No.”
    “Are you at Omega Team headquarters in Tampa?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you related to Athena Madero?”
    Rafe didn’t answer right away. He winced.
    “Unfortunately.” With a flash of dimple, he shrugged.
    “Yes or no, please.” Jacquie smiled.
    “Yes.”
    “Have you ever committed a felony?”
    Silence. Rafe didn’t answer.
    Jacquie looked up from the spiked readings projecting across her laptop screen and found Rafael tensing his jaw. He drew a ragged breath and stared dead ahead at the wall. His body grew rigid.
    “Have you ever committed a felony, Rafael?” Jacquie repeated the question and fidgeted with her eye glasses.
    “What’s wrong, Rafe?” Athena’s voice erupted over the speaker and jolted him into action.
    “I can’t do this.” He yanked at the electronic leads and pulled them from his body.
    Rafe pushed out of his chair and turned to leave, but stopped at the door. When he glanced over his shoulder, he locked eyes with Jacquie and it felt as if time stopped and the rest of the world faded away. In that moment, his sexy cockiness had vanished. He let her see a glimpse into something connected to his past that she knew nothing about—and he didn’t try to hide his pain.
    “I’m sorry.”
    Without any more explanation than his apology, he bolted from the interview room. When his sister called after him from down the hallway, Jacquie ran to the door and watched Rafe walk out of Omega headquarters. Not even Athena could make him stay.
    What happened to you, Rafael? Jacquie wondered.
    The man definitely had secrets—ones he wouldn’t lie about.
     
    ***
     
    Omega Team Headquarters – Tampa
    Late afternoon
    Jacquie made her way through the converted warehouse that housed her employer, the Omega Team. The wide open space had exposed red brick walls and metal ductwork with steel catwalks and stairs to link the floors. Industrial chic, she called it, but team founders Grey Holden and Athena Madero didn’t spend their money on trendy. The practical and Spartan workplace had Jacquie’s state of the art computer command post at its core— nerd central —with various interview rooms, open offices for their operatives, a workout area, and a break room.
    One of her favorite locations in the building was locked behind closed doors—a highly secured video conferencing center used for tactical strategy planning, satellite surveillance and confidential communications with clients from all over the world. They called it the War Room . The War Room was bracketed by the offices of the Omega Team’s founders, Grey and Athena.
    Jacquie knocked on the open office door of Grey Holden, a former Delta Force team leader in covert ops. He sat behind his desk, focused on his computer until he saw her at his door. Then she had his full attention.
    “Come in, Jacquie. What’s up?”
    Grey Holden and Athena Madero had started the team and built the organization on their uncompromised ethics. In a world where corruption seemed the norm, Jacquie found it refreshing to work with a group of people she could count on to do the right thing.
    But that very strength of character made Jacquie worry about what had happened with Rafael. If he had something to hide—something his sister didn’t seem to know about—how could Grey and the team trust him the way they’d need to on a mission.
    She held Rafael Madero’s file clutched tight in her hands.
    “You asked for his file.” She handed him the folder.
    When Grey reached for it, Jacquie got a look at the nasty scar that traced down from his left elbow to his wrist. It matched another one on his cheek near his eyebrow. She tried not to stare, but took the liberty of another glimpse as he read the Madero file.
    Grey’s body was a constant reminder of how dangerous their missions were. Every man and woman in their organization had a story and had