Justin looked over at Gabriel, who gave a little shrug. That was a damn good question. They had an answer that was mostly about them trying to clear their consciences after years of dark activities, but that answer wasn’t likely to make Devlin feel good. And it was doubtful that Devlin wanted his son hearing that kind of stuff.
“We’re both ex-military, as I said, and helping people like this allows us to do something good and use our skills,” Justin replied. It was the truth for the most part, and it would do for now.
“You don’t know us, but you need to trust us. This location has worked for now, but we need to get you somewhere that’s more easily defended. You’re too vulnerable here.”
“I know,” Devlin sighed. “I just didn’t know where to go. Didn’t want to risk the lives of any friends. I’m afraid that family will be the first place someone looks for us.”
“We would like you to come to our home in Colorado.”
“What?” Devlin’s head snapped up and he looked from Justin and Gabriel, his expression making it clear he thought they were insane.
“I’ve set up a top-of-the-line security system with cameras and motion sensors. We can keep you and Jake safe while we try to uncover the person behind the threats so we can stop them.”
“We also have two large dogs and two fat cats who will enjoy having more company,” Gabriel added.
“How big are the dogs?” Jake immediately demanded.
With a huge grin, Justin pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dropped to one knee next to Jake. He loved showing off pictures of his babies. “This is Pete and his brother Repeat. They’re both German shepherds. Not quite a year old yet. They love to play fetch and get belly scratches.”
“Justin has also trained them to protect,” Gabriel added, looking at Devlin.
Poor Devlin was starting to weaken. His eyes didn’t stray from the happy expression on Jake’s face. He was positively glowing at the promise of playing with those dogs.
“Oh! Those are the biggest cats I’ve ever seen!” Jake exclaimed. “Do they play fetch too?”
Justin laughed and Gabriel couldn’t stop a snort. His fluffy princes did not play fetch.
“No, but they do like to chase a laser light every once in a while,” Gabriel said.
“They sleep a lot and like their heads scratched,” Justin said.
“Please, Dev! Can we go see their pets? Please! Just for a little while,” Jake pleaded.
Devlin looked from Gabriel to Justin, his expression unsure. “We are trained for this. We can keep you safe. You can sleep, rest for a little while,” Justin said.
“You’re not going to be our prisoner,” Gabriel whispered. “You can leave at any time if you want. Just look at this as a break while we come up with a new plan.”
“But…how am I going to repay you for this? Putting your lives in danger for us.”
Gabriel placed his hand on Devlin’s shoulder and looked the man directly in the eye. “Finish your work. Make this world a better place for everyone.”
“Really? After everything…”
“Yes,” Justin said. “Do it for your husband.”
Devlin nodded. Gabriel dropped his hand from Devlin’s shoulder, and Devlin sat a little straighter on the couch. He seemed stronger, more sure of himself than he had since they first saw him. “What should we do next? Should we leave tonight?”
“No. It’s late and I’d rather drive out of here in sunlight. We’ll stay here tonight. You’ll get a good night’s sleep. Gabriel and I will keep watch. We’ll leave early tomorrow morning and should make it to our house by late afternoon or early evening.”
“How far?”
“About seven hundred miles. We should be able to do it in less than ten hours.”
Devlin chuckled. “You’ve never driven with a six-year-old, have you?”
Justin looked down at Jake, who was smiling up at him. He looked like a great, innocent child. How much trouble could he be on a car ride…for ten hours?
Oh, fuck. They were definitely in trouble.
It was going to be a very long trip back to Colorado.
Chapter 7
Gabriel stepped out of the cabin, tightening his fist around the keys in his hand. Justin had elected to stay behind and work to settle the last of Devlin’s worries with pictures of the pets and the house. He was even giving Devlin Jess’s cell number so he could call her for character references. His golden boy had a way about him that seemed to set the world at ease.
Over the past several years, he’d used the skill to get close to his targets and kill them. This time he was using his charm to ease the mind of a frantic father desperate to protect his son. It was quite a leap for Devlin to decide to go with them after just meeting them, but that fast decision spoke to the man’s desperation.
He was a freaking materials engineer. He’d said himself that he was more accustomed to labs and computers. What did he know about people hunting him down and proper security measures? Not a damn thing.
On the other hand, Gabriel and Justin were confident that they could be better off knowing a little less.
Cutting back to the road, Gabriel briskly walked to where they’d stashed Justin’s SUV. He needed to grab some of their supplies. Might as well enjoy a hot shower since they had access to a cabin. They’d take turns sleeping on the couch. He was hoping that Justin was convincing Devlin to leave his truck behind, forcing them all to travel in one vehicle. It wasn’t so much that Gabriel worried Devlin would try to lose them once they were on the road. He was more concerned that they wouldn’t be able to effectively intercede if someone attacked Devlin’s truck.
The sun had finished setting while they talked to Devlin. The woods had grown dark. Shadows thickened between the trees. Crickets and frogs sang in an unending chorus. The last of the day’s heat was fading faster now that the sun was gone, taking on a sharp chill.
And there were eyes on him. Human eyes. He could feel it. Gabriel wasn’t sure where the person was, but he was sure that someone was watching him walk down the side of the road. He turned on the flashlight app on his phone and swept the bright light around. Shadows twisted and jumped out of the way, but they didn’t reveal the person watching him.
The rear lights on the SUV reflected his flashlight. He was relieved to find that the tires were still intact. They had a way out of there. That was always a good sign. He’d check it in the morning for explosives and tracking devices.
Stopping at the rear of the SUV, he stood with his thumb on the unlock button, looking out into the darkness. On second thought, he shoved the keys into his jeans pocket and turned toward the woods. The feeling of someone watching him was closer there. He wasn’t sure if he’d heard something or seen something out of the corner of his eyes. Didn’t matter. He’d learned to trust his instincts. They’d kept him alive this long.
As he passed a tree, he felt a shift in the wind. He twisted at the last second as something came down toward his head. He reached out, grabbing his attacker’s arm. He shifted into a judo hip toss that would have sent his opponent tumbling to the ground. The only problem was that the person grabbed his arm, forcing him to go down as well. They rolled in a tangle of arms and legs until Gabriel’s spine slammed into a tree trunk. A grunt of pain exploded from his lips. He hissed and brought his knee up.
The man howled as soon as he made contact with his balls. “Fuck you, Prescott! I’m trying not to kill you!”
He knew that voice. “Kai?” he gasped.
“Yeah, Kai,” his attacker snarled before hitting him in the jaw with his fist.
Gabriel’s face snapped to the side. Stars flashed in front of his eyes, lighting up the darkness. To hell with this shit, he needed to get to the gun tucked in a holster. He wasn’t going to kill Kai, but he was starting to think putting a bullet in his shoulder might slow the asshole down. Of course, that was assuming Kai didn’t get the same idea first.
“What are you doing here?” Gabriel demanded.
He grabbed the man’s wrists and was trying to push him away, but he was trapped against the damn tree and couldn’t get proper leverage while pain screamed in his back.
“Oh, I think you know why I’m here,” Kai said. “I heard you’d fucking retired. What the hell?”
Gabriel wasn’t sure if Kai was surprised that he was retired or that he was at the cabin that held a contract target. Didn’t matter. His main concern was that Kai had gotten one wrist free and was in the process of bringing his elbow down onto Gabriel’s nose.
Getting one leg set in the dirt beneath him, Gabriel pushed off with as much force as he could muster, rolling them across the rocky ground. Gabriel tried to stop them when he was on top, but Kai was smart enough to keep them moving, jockeying for the best position. They only stopped when they hit another damn tree. But at least it was Kai’s back that hit the rough bark.
“Son of a bitch!” Kai snarled.
Bright light shone down on them. They blinked and stopped fighting, instinctively grabbing for their weapons as they turned in a tangle of arms and legs toward the light.
“I let you out of my sight for two minutes, G Love, and this is how I find you,” Justin said in a grumpy voice.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, asshole,” Gabriel sighed. He turned his head away from the light and rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t see shit, but he had no doubt that his lover was holding a gun on Kai.
“You’re the one rolling around in the dirt with an ex.”
“What?” Kai cried, sounding both equally shocked and horrified.
Gabriel wanted to laugh at the panic he heard in Kai’s voice. Justin was being an asshole because he could. “Not an ex and you know it. I’m assuming you’ve got this.”
“If this fucker keeps his hands where I can see them,” Justin replied in a steely tone.
Kai sighed and lifted his hands to rest on the top of his head. “Not holding a weapon.”
“Other than my boyfriend,” Justin grumbled.
“Not fucking touching your boyfriend,” Kai snapped. He was clearly growing more irritated by the second, and Gabriel couldn’t help but softly chuckle.
“You’re not helping,” Justin warned.
Gabriel pushed away from Kai, who was lying on his side with his hands stacked on the top of his head. “It is kind of funny.”
He sat up and rubbed his back where he hit the tree. He then rubbed his jaw, wiping away a trickle of blood that was falling from a cut in his bottom lip. That was going to make kissing Justin’s ass a little more difficult. The man wasn’t going to let him live down Kai getting the drop on him.
“Looks like I’m not the only one on this contract,” Kai muttered.
“Trust me, you don’t want this one,” Gabriel said.
“Twenty-seven million?” Kai snorted. “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot first.”
“True,” Gabriel conceded. With a suppressor screwed to the muzzle, Kai could have put one in the back of Gabriel’s head, and Justin wouldn’t have known until Kai was already making a move on the cabin.
“Probably wanted another shot at your ass,” Justin muttered.
“Justin! What the fuck?” Gabriel shouted. Okay, now he was pushing too far. He’d never given Justin any reason to believe that he might be unfaithful. Justin was the only one he wanted, and he felt that he’d made that perfectly clear.
“Sorry,” Justin immediately said, sounding contrite at least. “He’s cuter than I was expecting.”
“Seriously?”
“Holy shit! You two really are dating,” Kai said in surprise.
Gabriel groaned. This was not how he imagined this moment going. Everything was just spiraling out of control. “Justin, can you please lower the light? You’re giving me a headache.”
“And give him the chance to kill us both in the dark? Fuck that!”
“Kai?” Gabriel said, his voice full of aggravation. His head was really starting to throb, and he was considering putting a bullet in both Kai and Justin.
“Truce. For the next hour,” Kai agreed.
Justin made a little growl in the back of his throat before he lowered the light, plunging the area into blessed darkness. He shined it toward the cabin, giving them just enough glow to better see the shadowy outline of Kai’s face. He leaned against a tree, his long legs bent in front of him. He’d dropped his hands from his head and was resting them on his knees.
Gabriel didn’t doubt that Justin still had his gun drawn and pointed toward Kai. Gabriel remained on the ground next to Kai. He wanted to be able to throw his body between Kai and Justin should the assassin decide that an hour was too long for a truce to stretch.
“Kai, this is Justin Mallory,” Gabriel introduced.
Kai laughed. It was a rough, rusty sound, as if it was something he rarely did. “Are you serious? You’re dating the Chameleon? Of course you fucking are. What’s scarier than the Reaper teaming up with the Chameleon? Any world domination plans on your agenda?”
Gabriel looked over at Justin. “The Chameleon, huh?”
Even in the darkness, he could see that Justin stood a little straighter and taller. “Not a bad one, right? Not as sexy as Reaper, but still cool.”
“Yes, darling. It’s very cool.”
“Dear God,” Kai groaned.
“You need to drop this contract, Kai,” Gabriel said, his voice turning deadly serious.
“What? Because you two have already laid claim to it? Fuck that. I’m not walking away just because you’ve teamed up.”
“Your handler didn’t vet the contract,” Gabriel said evenly.
“What?”
“You need a better handler, bro,” Justin said, and Gabriel couldn’t help but roll his eyes.
“Our handler dug into the contract. The dead man’s family doesn’t have the resources to pull together a twenty-seven-million-dollar bounty. Devlin Relic has been threatened for a while now as a result of his research. They want him to stop. When he didn’t, they killed his husband and framed him for it. Now they are threatening him and his son.”
Kai was quiet for several seconds after listening to Gabriel. They held their breaths, but Gabriel wasn’t surprised when Kai shook his head.
“No. You just want me to walk away from the bounty. This is bullshit—”
“I didn’t take you for the type to orphan a kid and kill an innocent man for a nice payday,” Justin sneered. “I’ve kept my ear to the ground. You’ve never taken a dirty contract. You’re gonna start now?”
“There’s no kid,” Kai snapped.
“Will you walk away if we prove to you there’s a kid?” Gabriel asked.
“My handler never mentioned a kid. He knows my requirements. There’s no kid,” Kai said adamantly.
Gabriel looked over his shoulder at Justin, who shrugged at him. For Kai, there had to be no kid. This all had to be a ruse, or he had to face the fact that a lot of what he knew about this contract could be wrong. Gabriel felt reassured that his instincts about Kai had been right. He and Justin knew very little about the secretive man, but they’d both been confident that Kai wouldn’t go after a man with a kid. He wouldn’t put a child in danger.
“Then let’s go meet Devlin and Jake,” Justin said. He motioned with his gun for Kai to get to his feet. “Just keep your hands on your head.”
“And if you’re wrong, my target has now seen my face,” Kai complained.
Gabriel climbed to his feet and extended his hand to Kai. “I’m sure you’ll find a way around that, Ghost.”
Kai accepted his help, swearing under his breath. Gabriel felt for him. If he met Devlin now, then the target would know to look for him. It did make Kai’s job a little more difficult, but they were sure they could convince the mercenary to walk away from the contract.
Gabriel led the way to the cabin with Kai walking between him and Justin. He paused at the door and looked to see Kai place his empty hands on the top of his head with an irritated huff. With a smirk, Gabriel slowly op
ened the door and poked his head inside. He found Devlin standing at the back of the cabin, his large frame placed in front of Jake and the shotgun in his trembling hands.
“It’s okay,” Gabriel said, still not entering the cabin. “Justin and I found someone who needs to meet you. Can you lower the shotgun?”
“Who?”
“It’s complicated. You can keep the gun, but I’d prefer it if you’d at least point it at the ground. We promised him safe passage.”
“Oh…okay. If you say so.” Devlin lowered the gun, pointing it toward the floor while moving his finger away from the trigger.
Gabriel opened the door and walked into the cabin followed by Kai. Justin remained behind Kai, his gun pressed into the man’s back. Gabriel was pretty sure from his angle Jake couldn’t see the gun, and for that, Gabriel was grateful. The boy had been through enough already.
“Devlin Relic, this is Kai. An…associate of ours,” Gabriel introduced.
“He’s…he’s in the same line of work?” Devlin asked delicately.
Jake poked his head out from behind his father and Gabriel heard Kai suck in a harsh breath. “You’re a private detective like Gabriel and Justin?” Jake asked.
Well, that explained how Devlin described their presence to his son.
“Sort of,” Kai said softly.
Gabriel’s heart went out to the man. He’d become frighteningly pale as he stared at Devlin and Jake. He’d almost made a terrible mistake, and it would have cost a little boy the only parent he had left. Swearing softly to himself, Kai dropped his hands from his head.
“Hey!” Justin snapped.
“I’m out,” Kai snapped at him. He looked over at Devlin and shook his head before looking down at the floor. “I’m out,” he whispered. Disgust laced those two words.
Gabriel turned his gaze on Justin who grudgingly put his own gun away before Jake could see it.
Kai slowly looked up at Devlin. Gabriel glanced over at the other man and was surprised to find a flush to his cheeks. He reached to put a hand on his son’s shoulder, but there was no missing the way he swallowed hard as he stared at Kai. Surprisingly, it didn’t look like fear was causing Devlin to tense up.
The Exit Strategy Bundle Page 53