Justin flexed his right hand where it rested on the passenger side door of the truck, while Gabriel paused at the main gate to Iaso’s complex. He would have preferred to drive, but as much as he hated to admit it, this part of the operation was Gabriel’s. He had to relax and let the man do his job so that he could focus on his—taking down the security system.

Gabriel had perfectly handled acquiring a truck, the keycards, and the uniforms, while Justin had studied the blueprints and what he could find of the security system. The landscaper had access to the company’s wifi, which had allowed Justin to get in and sneak around for a bit, but he didn’t find what he was looking for. They needed to get into the offices of Elba and Hamilton. If they didn’t find what they needed in those offices, then they’d go to their homes.

When the gate lifted allowing the truck in, Gabriel looked over at Justin and smirked before he pressed the gas pedal, moving them forward.

“I can hear you grinding your teeth,” Gabriel teased.

“I’m not grinding my teeth. I’m fine.”

Gabriel snorted. “This has been my life for the past three weeks while I waited for you to hack into shit.”

“Oh, screw you! You got laid too.”

“Mmmm….and fed. I’m thinking I should have put in a request for a celebratory dinner after we were done. Maybe that beef bourguignonne you mastered.”

“Only if I get to fuck you against the counter while it’s cooking.”

“Done!” Gabriel declared with a laugh.

Justin rolled his eyes and sighed, but it was while hiding a smile. “This is why I don’t work with a fucking partner. You can’t sneak when you’ve got a goddamn hard-on.”

Gabriel pulled the truck into an open spot near the entrance of the building and put it into park. Iaso’s complex had two buildings and a separate parking garage. The eight-story glass building held most of the corporate offices for sales, marketing, and management, while the smaller three-story building was mostly laboratories. From the notes they could find from the builder, both Elba and Hamilton had offices in the corporate building. Elba was on the sixth floor, while Hamilton was up on eight.

“Ready?” Gabriel asked. The laughter and teasing were gone from his expression, and Justin found himself looking into the cold, distance face of the man he’d met for the first time more than three weeks earlier. He was still handsome and intriguing, but Justin found himself surprised at how much Gabriel had changed before his eyes in such a short time span. He needed the laughter and frustration and all the other emotions that Justin tucked out of him. They both needed it.

But the first step to get back there was finishing this contract at long last.

“Let’s do it.”

They both climbed out of the truck and grabbed some watering cans and a large bag that looked as if it contained some other plant care supplies. Weapons were stashed on their bodies, but Justin was also carrying his own laptop and a few other useful gadgets that might come in handy if he struggled to take down the security system. Worst-case scenario, he was pretty sure that he could just knock out the power and they’d finish with a smash and grab from the two offices.

Their keycards worked on the front door and they stepped into the posh lobby of polished marble, shining steel, and cold glass. The two-story opening likely shone during the day with sunlight glinting off all the surfaces. In the center of the room was a softly splashing fountain that would have only added to the lightness. There was an overwhelming opulence to the place that reminded Justin more of some five-star hotels he’d stayed in on occasion when they fit the role he was playing. This lobby didn’t make him think of a pharmaceutical company, but then he’d not spent a lot of time digging around the health care industry other than making trouble in hospitals.

As they entered the building, they made a point of checking and watering the various ferns, palms, and flowers that decorated the space. They each gave a wave to the security guard at the side desk, and the man in the dark uniform returned a small nod before looking down at his phone again. If they were lucky, all the guards roaming around the building would be as diligent, but Justin wasn’t counting on it.

At the next door that led deeper into the first floor, Gabriel unlocked the door and motioned for Justin to precede him. “Are you ready?”

“Left. Three offices. Another left,” Justin replied, repeating the directions to the security room that Gabriel had been sure to drill into his brain for the past two days.

“Don’t be slow,” Gabriel said with a smirk. He then backed up, allowing the glass door to shut and separate them. Gabriel was to use the elevator to go straight to the eight floor and Hamilton’s office. When he reached the office in approximately two minutes, Justin was to have the security room under his control and the security system down or the power supply shut down so they couldn’t be recorded. If it was the latter, Justin then had to take care of the remaining security guard on the first floor.

They stared at each other for a heartbeat, but it felt like longer. This was the most dangerous part of their entire undertaking. They had no earwigs or other forms of communications. They couldn’t risk cellphones or even walkie-talkies to warn each other for fear of whatever surveillance the company had set up would pick up on it. Each had to perform their assigned task to perfection and then escape before the time was up. If one was injured, the other would not know it until it was too late.

Please let him be safe.

Justin knew that Gabriel had likely survived multiple scenarios that were far more dangerous, but he couldn’t stop the thought from passing through his brain. He nodded once and then continued down the corridor alone.

The first floor was had several offices along the outer wall while the interior appeared to be an old-fashioned cubicle farm. It looked like it might be some sort of call center for possibly customer service. The cubes all looked relatively uniform with their waist-high walls and bland, light gray desks. Occasionally he might see a splash of color from a calendar or a birthday card, but it was largely an ocean of monotony. He couldn’t understand how more people didn’t go absolutely postal after working a lifetime in this vast wasteland of boring.

Of course, he was confident that not many people would have preferred his life’s pursuit of car chases, explosions, shoot outs, and sketchy meetings in bars and lonely cabins in the middle of nowhere. But then, to each his own.

After the third office, he reached a cross-section where the row of cubicles opened into an aisle on his right and a new hallway to his left. He took the hallway. On the right wall, he passed doors to the men’s and women’s restrooms. And then on the left was a door marked “security.” How convenient!

He knocked on the door and then switched his watering pail from his right hand to his left. As the door opened to reveal a stern-looking man with a buzzcut and grizzled features, he palmed his stun gun from his pocket.

“There’s nothing to water in here,” the guard barked as soon as he got a look at Justin’s uniform. He was closing the door again when Justin stepped forward, blocking the path of the door.

“What—”

He didn’t get any farther. Justin thrust the stun gun into his gut and pressed the button, delivering intolerable pain to the man. The guard cried out and dropped to the ground, twitching and jerking in agony.

“What the fuck! John?” called a panicked second voice.

Fuck indeed. They’d not planned on there being a second person within the security room. He wasn’t positive there was enough of a charge to take down a second large man. When he’d tried out this new model of flashlight and stun gun combo, he’d only used it on one person before charging again.

As the second guard stepped over to his coworker, Justin brought the watering can down hard on his head and then deliver a second hard blow to his temple, using the base of the stun gun. The man staggered backward into the room, but he wasn’t out. Justin rushed him. Grabbing a handful of his uniform, he swung him around and slammed him head first into the door. It wasn’t pretty and the thud was louder than he’d wanted, but the man went down to the ground unconscious.

Justin turned toward the various monitors and quickly located the guard stationed in the lobby. He was still staring down at his phone. Apparently, there was some damn good soundproofing for call center, because the man apparently hadn’t heard a thing.

Digging in his bag of tricks, he quickly wrapped blindfolds around each man and then secured their arms and legs with zipties.

Without even looking at his watch, he knew it was running late. The second guard had cost him precious seconds. He should have already started taking down the security system, because Gabriel should already be reaching the top floor. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He dropped into one of the chairs positioned in front of the keyboard. There were about six monitors spread out before him flashing different parts of the surrounding grounds, the parking garage, and the various parts of the building. The only thing he didn’t see was the labs in the other building, but he was willing to guess that the laboratory building had its own separate security system. And he was really praying they didn’t have to go over there, because he was pretty damn sure that they wouldn’t get out alive. Now that the guards were tied up, he guessed they had a matter of minutes before someone checked in with the security room and he couldn’t count on faking his way through that encounter.

Gritting his teeth, he forced his brain back to the task at hand. He knew computer programs and he was damn good with security systems. He’d designed a few over the years and the majority were incredibly similar in how they were laid out. The first task was to shut down all forms of recording and erase everything that had been stored already that day. Both he and Gabriel were wearing gloves and now the video cameras had lost their images. If they were lucky to get out alive, there was currently no trace of who they were.

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 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 saw Gabriel’s lithe form jogging down the hall from what looked to be an executive office for the elevators. He was also running a bit behind, but there was 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 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 that closely resembled a password. He snapped a picture of that. Justin could 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 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 that 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 felt dull now…and lonely.

It took a hard shake of his head to get the last of the wandering thoughts out of his head. 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 into 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 he 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 thick frame. He seemed to gasp and sputter for a moment, his gaze jumping from Gabriel’s face to the gun pointed at his chest.

“Who-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 of 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 outside of eyesight. A cold sweat trickled down the back of his neck, but there was deeper 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 going to be only 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 that 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 squeezed off two rounds straight into the man’s chest. Hamilton reacted in panic, squeezing the trigger on his own gun. With no suppression, the gun shout 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 to see 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, 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 jointed 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 brutal, quick 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 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.