Justin stood in the front of the refrigerator, his right hand on the top of the open door. He reached across with his left hand and rubbed his bare shoulder while staring into the sad contents of his fridge. He’d not completed an actual grocery run in nearly a month and he couldn’t use work as an excuse. It had been nearly two weeks since his last job and that had been just a little hacking work.

No, the lackluster collection of old take-out food, wilting lettuce, and beer held little interest for him. He didn’t want to order out again and he didn’t want to go to the grocery. He was a sad sack and there was only reason for it. Gabriel Prescott.

Sighing loudly, he dropped his head back and closed his eyes. He needed to pull his head out of his ass and figure shit out instead of worrying about Gabriel’s recent radio silence. Nearly six months ago, Gabriel had walked out of his house, promising that he’d be back when it was safe. Justin didn’t ask for more details nor did he dig for them, no matter how much he wanted to. He wanted Gabriel to tell him.

For the first four months, they talked regularly. They texted. They had some of the dirtiest video calls that left him panting in his bed, covered in jizz, and aching to wrap his arms around Gabriel. But in the last few video calls, he noticed the darkening shadows under Gabriel’s eyes and the lines of strain and worry digging into his handsome face.

A month ago, the video calls stopped, and the text messages became shorter and more sporadic. Gabriel warned him that it might be a while before they talked again.

And then silence.

Justin slammed the fridge door shut and paced over to the sink. He held the edge of the counter because it meant that he wasn’t marching down to the basement and his secret rolodex of contacts. He knew with a few calls, he could discover Gabriel’s location, but it would mean putting people on Gabriel’s trail when the man didn’t need more people looking for him.

“Fuck!”

He never should have let him walk about the door. Not without making him tell Justin his plans. Tell him once and for all everything about his past. Justin would have spilled everything about himself…well, nearly everything…probably.

Fuck, this was hard. Why couldn’t he just have Gabriel safe? Then they could figure everything out.

A hard, sharp knock on the front door jerked Justin from his dark thoughts. He pushed off the sink and crossed through the house to open the door for the last person he expected to see standing there. Marilyn. His handler. The person who supplied him with a steady stream of contracts. And apparently, the same person who supplied Gabriel with contracts.

“You need to pack a bag now,” she said as way of greeting.

“I’m on a break,” he growled. He’d made that clear to her when he finished his last contract. He wanted to be free in case Gabriel needed him for something. That…and just maybe he’d lost his taste for the work.

“Gabriel is in trouble.” She stepped past him into the house, but after her announcement, she could have just pushed him over and he’d have done nothing to stop her.

“What?” he finally said, shutting the door behind her and hurrying to catch up to where she was laying out photos from a manila folder.

“Gabriel? You remember him? The man who apparently decided to clean up his past so that he could have his happily ever after with your sorry ass?” she snidely said with narrowed eyes.

Justin’s mouth fell open and he nearly stumbled as he walked into the kitchen. He’d never expected to hear those words tumbling from Marilyn’s lipstick-pink lips. “What? He said that?”

Marilyn rolled her eyes. The woman looked the part of the happy middle-class housewife with perfect hair and outfit, but there was a cold knowledge resting in her dark brown eyes. Justin didn’t doubt that she had her own dark past that he couldn’t even begin to fathom.

“Not in so many words. But I set you two up on one job together and when he’s done, he tells me that he’s out. He wants the names on all the contracts for his head. He’s cleaning house. Two days later, you contact me and tell me that you’re getting out.”

Justin could feel the wobbly smile pulling at his lips and his heart giving an erratic skip of joy.

She sighed loudly. “You both make me sick.”

“This isn’t a bad thing.”

Marilyn slapped a grainy photo down on the counter. “Right now, for Gabriel, it’s a very bad thing.”

Justin looked down at the picture and his heart stopped from an entirely different reason. Naked from the waist up, Gabriel sat tied to a chair. His body was badly beaten, with several long lacerations across his chest. His eyes were nearly swollen shut and face bruised, but Justin could tell it was him.

Hundreds of questions poured through his brain about how Marilyn had known, how she’d gotten the information, and why she was even trying to help them, but none of them were important as the one he finally forced past the lump in his throat.

“Where is he?”

“From what I’ve been able to gather, he’s outside of Berlin. They’ve moved him twice and if they keep up with their current schedule, you’ve got about a two-day window before they move him again.” Reaching inside her folder, she pulled out a plane ticket. “Your flight to Amsterdam leaves in three hours. I’ve also got reservations for a rental car set up.”

Justin stared at the ticket in shock. He hadn’t expected this. Not from Marilyn. She was a handler. She handled contracts for him, played the middleman and got a percentage of the bounty. That was it. She didn’t arrange travel and she certainly didn’t assist her mercs when they got into trouble. If anything, she cut them loose because they were a liability.

“Well?” she snapped when he didn’t move.

Justin snatched up the ticket then pulled her into a hard bear hug, squeezing an “oof” out of her.

“Yes. There. There,” she said, giving him a little pat on the shoulder. “Go get your boy. When you get back, we can discuss how much you both owe me.”

Justin spared Marilyn a quick nod before he was racing up the stairs to pack a bag. He had a safe house set up not far from Berlin. He could make a stop on the way to get Gabriel for more weapons. God help whoever had their hands on him, because he was going to make them all regret they ever laid a finger on his G. Love.

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