Undercover (7 page)

“Rafe, what’s wrong?”

Rafe reached out and grabbed Niko’s shoulder. “Pop’s dying.”

The room spun again. “What?” Niko tried to climb to his feet, but his wounded leg wouldn’t support him and he fell back on the pallet. “How? Why?”

“Pneumonia.
Mamá
said he’d been working long hours on a new case and she thinks his immune system was weakened.”

Niko stared into his brother’s eyes. “He can’t be dying. It’s just pneumonia, right?”

Rafe shook his head, the bleakness of his expression telling Niko all he needed to know. His brother was the optimist. If he’d lost hope, then the situation was bad. “So what the fuck are you doing here? You should be with him.”

Rafe nodded. “I know. But he told me to get you. Said he wanted both his sons together. So Ryker helped me track you down.”

Christ. Dying. It would take them days to get back to the States. Even if Ryker, their boss and the director of the privately run special operations group the Surgical Strike Unit, managed one of his famous miracles and had private transport waiting for them, there wasn’t any guarantee they’d make it back in time.

Still, Niko had to try. “Help me up and we can go.”

Once Niko was on his feet and not wobbling too much, Rafe said, “That’s not all.”

“What?” Niko growled.

Rafe gave Niko a wary look. “Jaime Alvarez just got out of prison…”

Niko’s story continues in
Vengeance
, Book 1 of the Surgical Strike Unit series. Keep reading for an excerpt.

Excerpt from
Vengeance

by Vanessa Kier

Thursday, Early Morning

Pasadena, California

N
iko Andros stared down at the newly-turned grave, tears clogging his throat. He hadn’t consciously decided to aim his morning run toward the cemetery, but now that he was here, he was glad to have a chance to say good-bye to Pop away from the curious eyes of his family.

And even though he’d seen the open casket on display at the funeral home, there was a small part of Niko that still expected Pop to roll his wheelchair up to the grave and shout, “Just kidding!” He took a deep breath of early morning air and finally accepted the truth. This wasn’t one of his father’s infamous practical jokes. Pop really was gone.

He still couldn’t believe his father had died of pneumonia, for Christ’s sake. He’d always thought Pop would die on the job. Go down under a bullet or a knife.

Not be killed by a bacteria too tiny to see and too strong to fight.

He bowed his head and was surprised to find a Greek prayer for the dead rolling off his tongue. Moisture blurred his vision, but today’s sky was clear, so he couldn’t blame it on rain.

Finally, he raised his eyes and confronted the grave head-on.

“You were a hell of a guy, Pop,” Niko said in Greek. “The DEA was lucky to have you as an agent and I’m damn proud to be your son. Wherever you are, I hope you understand that. I hope you’re having a hell of a party. I’m sorry I didn’t make it back in time to say good-bye.”

Niko had been feverish, recovering from a bullet wound to the thigh while waiting for transport out of a remote Afghani village when Rafe, his younger brother and fellow SSU agent, had shown up and given him the news that Pop was critically ill. Rafe hadn’t found Niko in time, though. Pop had died before their plane reached the States.

“I love you, Pop,” he said softly.

Jesus, it was a good thing he was alone. His fellow SSU agents would bust a gut laughing if they caught him talking to a grave. Yet oddly, as the sun broke through the high-flying clouds and warmed his hair, he felt a degree of peace creep into him.

“Thanks, Pop.” Niko gave a two-finger salute to the sky, then wiped the last of his tears away and turned to go.

He’d only gone a few steps when a black stretch limo with tinted windows pulled alongside him. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled and his hand went automatically to the pistol under his left arm.

His sixth sense knew who was in the car even before the window rolled down to reveal Jaime Alvarez’s broad, gloating face. A familiar mix of shame, helplessness, and frustration surged through Niko. But then his brain kicked in, reminding him that he wasn’t undercover any more. He’d never again have to stomp down his conscience as he followed Alvarez’s orders.

“So, Niko, finally your father is dead,” the crime lord said in Spanish. The corner of Alvarez’s mouth deepened in a satisfied smile, but his eyes spoke of retribution. He’d ordered Leander Andros killed when Niko was thirteen, but the shooter’s aim had been off and his dad had ended up paralyzed instead.

“Now who will protect your mother?” Alvarez said silkily.

Niko’s skin flashed hot with fury. “Step out of the limo and we’ll find out,
pendejo
.”

Alvarez shook his head. “Ah,
hijo
, how you wound me with your disrespect.”

“I’m not your fucking son.” He wanted to reach through the window and wipe the smug smile off Alvarez’s face. His father had been a strong, honorable man who’d never stopped loving Niko, even when his son had been little better than the brutal, ruthless men he worked to bring down.

The crime lord’s eyes glittered with malice. “I loved you like a son. You should have been my successor. My ultimate revenge against your family. Instead, you betrayed me.” His nostrils flared and a vein ticked under his eye. “You, who spent time in prison, who knows what it is like to be locked in a cage like an animal—”

For the first time since he’d known Alvarez, Niko let all his hatred for the man show. He sent the man a cold smile. “It’s precisely knowing where you were headed that kept me going all those years. Did you really think I’d come to respect you? To enjoy the life you led?”

“I gave you power. Money. Trust. In return, you dared—” Alvarez’s voice cracked. “You
dared
to turn me in to the authorities. For those ten years I spent behind bars, you will watch your family die.”

Alvarez paused.

“You should have killed me when you had the chance.” Alvarez’s lips turned up in a chilling mockery of a smile. “I will enjoy watching you suffer. You remember how skilled I am at making death come slowly and with great pain, don’t you,
hijo
?”

Niko kept his face impassive, though his instincts urged him to attack. Alvarez didn’t make idle threats. Niko had hired guards for his family after the crime lord’s release from prison, but he still felt a twist of fear in his gut at the implied danger.

Yet he knew better than to betray his fear by so much as a twitch of his eye. Instead, Niko crossed his arms over his chest and assumed a bored expression. “Yeah, well, your power is highly overrated, old man. You’re not top dog any more. Go back to Mexico and dream of the good old days.”

Alvarez reached up and briefly fingered the jagged remains of his left earlobe, a sign he wasn’t feeling as confident as he appeared. Yet his next words gave none of his insecurity away.

“You won’t be so disrespectful once you watch this DVD.” Alvarez threw a slim box onto the grass at Niko’s feet. “Sleep well, tonight,
hijo
… I will.” The window slid up with a hiss and the limo moved away.

Niko let out the first full breath he’d taken since the limo pulled up. He’d been lying about Alvarez’s decreased status. Since his imprisonment ten years ago, Alvarez had slowly regained much of his power even from within one of the United States’ most secure prisons.

Until finally he’d been strong enough to blackmail a judge into reversing his sentence of life without parole. The judge had been arrested and the state attorney general was working on getting the sentence reinstated so they could put Alvarez back behind bars, but the damage was done.

Niko bent to retrieve the DVD, dread burning in his gut like three-day-old coffee. For Alvarez to gloat like he did, the contents were going to be bad.

Niko shoved the DVD in the pocket of his windbreaker. As he ran back toward his mother’s house, the partially healed wound in his leg throbbed. But he was used to ignoring physical pain. What he needed to do now was pick up a double helping of Greek pastries to keep his mother and sister distracted. Because much as he hated jumping at Alvarez’s command, instinct told him to view the DVD. Now.

Before the crime lord’s latest evil got any worse.

Book List

The Surgical Strike Unit Series

Undercover
- Prequel

Vengeance
- Book 1

Betrayal
- Book 2

Retribution
- Book 3

Payback
- Book 3.5 (coming soon!)

Aftermath
- Book 4 (coming January 2014!)

About the Author

V
anessa Kier has been creating stories in her head since childhood. Now she writes romantic thrillers, using her worst-case scenario thinking to put her characters through the emotional wringer. When she’s not writing or listening to music, she writes the occasional
Tech Talk
column for her local RWA chapter's newsletter, and takes long hikes in the nearby hills.

For more about Vanessa and to sign up for her newsletter, please visit her website
www.vanessakier.com
.

Twitter:
http://twitter.com/vanessakier

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vanessa-Kier-Author/1395777640643440

Acknowledgments

A
huge thank you to Kristin Miller, Jasmine Haynes, Valerie Susan Hayward and Angela Pike for helping make this a better book. Thanks also to Frauke Spanuth of Croco Designs for creating another awesome cover.

Most of all, my continuing gratitude to all the readers who have made this series a success!

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, brands, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Undercover
Copyright 2013 by Vanessa Kier

ISBN: 978-0-9889147-6-6

Excerpt from
Vengeance
Copyright 2013 by Vanessa Kier

All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express permission of Vanessa Kier.