He then switched gears and started shutting down the different layers of security that locked the doors down, starting with the eighth floor. Each minute, he would work his way down to the next floor. By the time he reached the fourth floor, Gabriel was supposed to be hitting the sixth and Elba’s office. When he reached the ground floor, Gabriel was supposed to be hitting the first floor and they were leaving.
When Justin hit the fifth floor, he noticed Gabriel’s lithe form jogging down the hall from what looked to be an executive office to the elevators. He was also running a bit behind, but it was a relief to see that no one appeared to be pursuing him. The bag he had slung over his shoulder looked a little heavier and his watering can was missing, but it didn’t matter. Unless Gabriel found what he was looking for, he was moving down to the sixth floor.
Justin hesitated, unable to decide if they should stick to their original timing or if he should give Gabriel an extra minute before moving lower to shut down the next level of security. He looked down at the sixth floor where Gabriel was headed. The security camera revealed more dark offices and a couple desks, likely for personal assistants. All was quiet…except for the back office. There was a light on.
Frowning, Justin leaned closer, trying to tell himself that maybe someone left the light on after leaving for the day. But then a shadow moved across the open door. Someone was in one of the offices, and Gabriel was headed right for it. And there was nothing Justin could do to warn him.
Gabriel hoisted the bag hanging from his shoulder a little higher and shifted from his left foot to his right as he waited for the elevator to descend to the sixth floor. Hamilton’s office hadn’t provided him with a lot of useful information. He did find a file dedicated to the drug’s FDA review, but there wasn’t enough time to read it all, so he just grabbed the entire thing and stuffed it into his bag. He spent another minute checking the office, but there wasn’t much that stood out. Well, except for the post-it note that had a quickly scrawled note which closely resembled a password. He snapped a picture of that. Justin could definitely use that.
He glanced down at his watch. He was late. But then, he’d noticed that the light next to the security panels for each of the doors took an extra couple of minutes to go down. There had been a problem in the security room. He didn’t know if that meant there was trouble with Justin taking down the the guard or if Justin had been hurt. It was killing him not to talk to him.
Growling at himself, he quickly surged out of the elevator as the door soundlessly opened at the sixth floor. He needed to fucking focus. This was why he didn’t work with partners. This was why he didn’t let his heart get involved with people. They were a distraction. They stole his concentration from the job.
But even as he scolded himself, he knew he wasn’t looking forward to walking away from Justin when this was all over. Assuming they could both walk away from this job at the end. His passion for the work had certainly waned since meeting Justin. Working without him definitely felt dull now…and lonely.
It took a hard shake of his head to get the last of the wandering thoughts out. He’d worry about Justin and his own future later. He needed to concentrate on the job, and the next step was finding Elba’s office. The elevators opened onto a smaller lobby with a few desks that looked to belong to personal assistants. Beyond them were a couple narrow hallways lined with office doors.
Gabriel started down the first hall, his footsteps silent on the marble floor, but slowed when he reached the office at the end of the hall. A soft yellow light glowed out through a crack in the open door. He stopped when a shadow shifted through the light and there was the soft clack of keys. Someone—possibly Elba—was working late.
Quietly placing the bag outside the door, Gabriel pulled the gun hidden inside his uniform and slowly pushed open the door. A small lamp glowed on the desk, casting its light on an older man with thinning gray hair and round, red cheeks. He squinted through a pair of small glasses at his computer screen as he furiously tapped on the keyboard. Sweat glistened on his forehead and his dark tie hung loose around the collar of his white shirt.
“Dr. Elba, I presume,” Gabriel said as he stepped into the room.
The old man’s head popped up and his watery blue eyes widened behind the thick frames. He seemed to gasp and sputter for a moment, his gaze jumping from Gabriel’s face to the gun pointed at his chest.
“W-Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I think we need to have a word or two about your newest research project.”
The surprised fear drained from his expression in an instant, and his lips thinned as he pressed them together in rage. He gave a little shake of his head and then said, “I’m assuming you’re talking about Siltryptrose.”
“That would be the one.” Gabriel took another few steps into the room, coming around to the side of the desk so that he had a clear shot of the doctor.
“And you would be the one that bitch Gretchen hired to get Weiss’s data. The one that fucking assassin couldn’t kill. We should have never hired that idiot. It’s one thing to take out a couple annoying doctors who won’t follow orders, but a professional should be able to take out other professionals.”
It was on the tip of Gabriel’s tongue to warn him that you get what you pay for, but he was more concerned about Elba’s ‘we’ in his earlier statement. They’d been assuming that either Elba or Hamilton was working alone. But apparently Elba had an accomplice.
Unfortunately, the realization came to him a second too late. Something hard pressed against the back of his head. He shifted his gaze slightly from Elba to the windows behind the desk to find a man in a suit standing directly behind him with a gun pressed to the back of his head.
“And shall I assume this is Dane Hamilton with a gun to my head?” Gabriel calmly drawled. He silently berated himself for not checking the rest of the room before approaching Elba. The man might have looked alone, but apparently Hamilton had been just out of eyesight. A cold sweat trickled down the back of his neck, but he remained calm. He’d been in worse situations and still come out alive.
“Are you the asshole who released the data? Are you the fuck who contacted the FDA?”
“I am. You were killing people when you promised to make them better.”
“They have cancer! Of course they’re dying. The drug is supposed to give them some hope!” Hamilton shouted. He pressed the gun closer, digging it into the back of Gabriel’s head. Interestingly, the man hadn’t demanded that he drop the gun he still had trained on Elba. He was too lost in his own rage about being beaten.
“People can’t beat cancer on hope,” Gabriel calmly said. He subtly shifted his own weight from his left foot to his right, readying his body for his one opening. And he was sure there was only going to be one shot at this.
“No, but Siltryptrose would have given us time and data to perfect it,” Elba countered. “The chemical is so close, but we need more time to perfect it. To research it.”
“While using the entire population as a guinea pig.” Gabriel sneered. “I think you misspoke earlier. You’re not doing this for time and data. You’re doing it for the money.”
“A lot of fucking money,” Hamilton snarled. “Billions of dollars.”
“So, when Weiss and Jones wouldn’t turn a blind eye to the deadly side effects, you decided to hire a hitman to take them both out and hide the data?”
“Except we hired the wrong damn hitman,” Elba muttered.
“Not that you’re looking any better,” Hamilton added.
“Oh, I’m much better,” Gabriel said with a smile. Elba frowned, and he thought he heard Hamilton laugh. The pressure holding the gun to the back of his head grew lighter and that was enough of an opening.
Shifting all his weight back to his left foot, Justin ducked low and swung around to face Hamilton. His free left hand came up and clamped down hard on Hamilton’s wrist, keeping the gun pointed toward Elba, while bringing up his own gun. He quickly squeez
ed off two rounds straight into the man’s chest. Hamilton reacted in panic, squeezing the trigger on his own gun. With no suppression, the gunshot echoed loudly through the office. There was a sharp cry, but Gabriel didn’t take his eyes off Hamilton until he was sure that the shots fired into his chest were fatal.
Straightening, he released the man’s arm, allowing him to fall flat on his back. He was just turning back toward Elba when the door exploded open. Gabriel swung his gun up and swore when he saw Justin run across the threshold, his own gun at the ready.
“Are you okay?” he demanded.
Gabriel smirked at his companion. “This was not part of our plan.”
“Neither was your company, so I improvised.”
Gabriel shook his head and turned back to Elba, completely expecting to find the man cowering under his desk. What he found was a corpse. Hamilton’s wild shot had struck the man in the center of his chest, killing him. Well…fuck, that was tidy.
“It’s Elba and Hamilton, right?” Justin said, coming to stand next to Gabriel. He likely recognized both men from their pictures on Iaso’s website.
“Yes. They were working together. They joint hired the assassin to take out Weiss, Jones, and us.”
Justin’s rough hand came up and cupped the side of his face. “Don’t scare me like that anymore, G Love.”
Gabriel smirked. “Yes, dear.” He might have teased Justin, but he went willingly when Gabriel tugged him in for a quick, brutal kiss.
“Let’s get this cleaned up so we can go home and celebrate,” Justin murmured, his lips brushing against Gabriel’s.
Home sounded good, but they had more to settle than just a couple dead bodies. Gabriel nodded and pulled away. It killed him, but he pressed his own gun into Elba’s right hand, resting it on the desk in Hamilton’s direction.
“Any coroner worth their salt is going to be able to tell the shooter was a shit-ton closer when Hamilton was shot than where their bodies ended up,” Justin criticized.
“Yes, and there’s evidence of a fucking break in,” Gabriel snapped back. He glared over his shoulder at Justin who just stood in the middle of the room with his arms folded over his chest and his eyebrows lifted in question. “The point is to get them investigating Hamilton and Elba and away from looking for us. With any luck, they’ll find evidence to point them in the direction of that Peter bastard.”
Justin grunted, his arms loosening. “Okay, that doesn’t sound too bad.”
Gabriel groaned and shoved Justin toward the door as he approached him. “You’re such a pain in the ass.”
“You fucking love my ass, G.”
Gabriel shook his head. “If that’s true, then let’s get back to your place so I can show you exactly how much I love your ass.” It would at least keep him from thinking about having to say good-bye for a few more hours.
Chapter Nineteen
Gabriel stepped out onto the deck at the back of Justin’s house. The sun was already sinking below the trees and there were the first hints of the fireflies blinking on and off in the shadows. Justin was sitting in one chair with his feet propped up on another, an open beer in front of him on the table.
Walking over to the railing, Gabriel stared down at the woods, and for the first time, his initial thought wasn’t about who might be watching them, but the peacefulness of the neighborhood. There was a distant dog bark and the wind through the leaves of the trees, but nothing else. No people. No cars. The rest of the world just seemed so very far away.
“You get packed?” Justin asked.
“Yes. I’ve got a flight out to New York tonight, and then another tomorrow morning.”
“Marilyn has contacted the contract holder with the information we uncovered about Elba and Hamilton. The rest of the payment has been processed. Your half should be in your account now.”
Gabriel grunted. The money was nice, but it seemed a poor substitute for what he was losing when he walked out Justin’s door.
“You got time for a beer?”
Gabriel smiled and turned around to find Justin holding up an unopened bottle. He wasn’t a great lover of beer, but he’d happily drink one more with Justin. “Sure.” He walked over to the table and sat in one of the open chairs before accepting the beer from Justin.
They sat in silence for several minutes, sipping their beer and watching the sky turn from pale blue with hints of pink to a navy with wide swaths of orange as the sun burned in the wisps of clouds. If this was the last time he saw Justin, he wanted a quiet moment like this.
Not that Justin was ever known for being quiet.
“We worked well together,” Justin started again.
“For the most part,” Gabriel teased.
Justin groaned and placed his nearly empty bottle on the table. Sweat from the bottle ran down along his fingers and made a ring on the wood. “Well, you’re not exactly handy with a computer, but you’ve got a knack for guns.”
“Thanks.”
Justin shrugged. His eyes were on the bottle as he picked at the label. “If I had to work with someone again, you wouldn’t be the last person on my list.”
Gabriel chuckled. “You’re such an ass.”
Justin looked up and flashed him a mischievous grin. “All part of my special sauce, G Love.”
Lifting the beer to his lips, Gabriel took a long, deep drink before setting it down and looking over at Justin again. He was staring out at the woods, looking as lost as Gabriel felt. And he couldn’t leave like this.
“What would you say if I said that I wanted to stay?” Gabriel asked, his rough voice barely over a whisper.
“If you were to say that you wanted to stay, then I’d likely say that we should celebrate…in bed.” The smile that crossed Justin’s lips was small and tentative, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to react to Gabriel’s question.
“And after bed?”
“Sorry, I can’t think past sex.” Justin shook his head as if trying to clear it. “What do you mean?”
“If I stayed, would we date?”
“Yes, like normal people. Dinner. Movies. Cookouts with the neighbors. Sex.”
“I understand the sex part.”
The laughter and teasing left Justin’s expression and he finally turned serious. “What’s got you confused?”
“Dinner and neighbors and a normal life…”
“Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
A little sigh stumbled from Gabriel. “Do we really walk away from the lives we built to try dating?” They barely knew each other. Sure, they’d grown close, and Gabriel could admit that on many levels he trusted Justin, which was something he hadn’t done with another person in a long time. But to give up the lives and careers they’d built for something that was so unknown seemed to be quite a stretch.
Justin’s expression clouded, and he scratched his jaw. Gabriel wasn’t sure if it was an angle that he hadn’t thought of, or if he was just at a point in his life where he was more willing to leave it all behind. “I guess we don’t have to right away. We could try dating…with the other.”
“And what about when one of us has to travel for a contract? Would it bother you to not know where I was, if I was still alive?”
“Would it bother you?”
“Yes!” Gabriel said, lurching forward in his chair to stare across the table at Justin. He couldn’t hold the words in any longer. “Yes, it would drive me crazy to know you were out on a job and I didn’t know where you were or who the fuck was shooting at you.” When they’d separated in Iaso, fear had gnawed ceaselessly at Gabriel’s brain, driving him insane. He should have been there at all times to watch Justin’s back, to protect him.
And the thought of doing it time and time again when they were dating, it was sickening. He knew it would break him in the end, break what they were trying to build.
Justin dropped his feet to the wood deck with a heavy thud and quickly walked around to where Gabriel was sitting. He had enough time to spin in his swivel chair to f
ace Justin before his face was grabbed. Justin’s mouth touched his, and he sighed as that wicked tongue tangled with his own. The kiss deepened, taking everything Gabriel had to give until he was clinging to Justin’s shoulders. But what Justin gave back wrapped tight around his heart, getting it beating once again.
It felt almost reluctant the way Justin broke off the kiss and pressed his forehead against Gabriel’s.
“You kill me,” Justin panted.
“I’ve tried hard not to,” Gabriel joked. He brushed his lips against Justin’s for another quick kiss. “It’s hard enough leaving here today knowing that you’ll take another job and you’ll be alone. I’m supposed to be there to watch your back.”
Justin grinned wide. “Then stay here. Watch my back. And my front. Fuck, watch all of me, because I would love to watch every inch of you.”
Gabriel smiled and kissed him again. He really wanted to laugh, but in that moment, it was more important to kiss him.
“So, are you staying?” Justin asked when they came up for air again.
The happiness Gabriel found slipped a little. “Soon.”
Justin jerked away a little bit and frowned at Gabriel. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s part of the exit strategy. I have to leave and take care of a few things so that it’s safe for me to come back and stay.”
“You want me to help?”
“No, I need to do this on my own, but will you…will you wait?”
Justin smirked. “Wait for you to stay? I don’t know. I mean, I’ve got so many other mercenaries lined up to get in my bed and I—”
“Fuck you, asshole,” Gabriel snarled before kissing him again. This time he dominated Justin’s mouth until the man was moaning and melting into him. He slowly pulled away again, nibbling at his lips for a second.
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