Justin’s car roared up the curved drive leading to the emergency room, stealing glimpses over at the blood-soaked rag that Gabriel was holding tightly to his left hand. Mentally, he swore at the man. The damn wound had looked too deep when he pressed the blade into the meaty heel of his palm. He was pretty sure that it didn’t look like a kitchen accident. It looked like the motherfucker had been in a knife fight. Goddammit!

“Please don’t hit the pedestrians,” Gabriel calmly said, as Justin slammed on the brakes. The car came to a sharp halt just inches away from some visitor stepping outside to smoke a cigarette. When the guy finally moved his slow ass out of the way, Justin quickly swung the car into a parking spot. The lot was reserved for those in the emergency room and would hopefully keep his car from getting towed.

“How are we doing this?” Justin demanded. They should have settled this before they’d gotten in the car, but they’d gotten into an argument over where Gabriel should cut himself and why Justin wasn’t allowed to help. “Family?”

“Like you could fake your way through pretending to be related to me,” Gabriel sneered.

Justin tried not to think about the fact that his companion was already starting to look pale. How much blood had he fucking lost? “Lovers?”

“No,” Gabriel snapped. “My interpreter. You’d have to stay by my side.”

“Sure. What do you speak?” Justin said as he jumped out of the car. He rushed around and opened the door for Gabriel.

“Spanish.”

“Nope. Common around here. I’m sure half the ER speaks it.”

“French.”

Justin shook his head. “My French is really weak. I can’t fake that.”

Gabriel growled and narrowed his eyes on Justin as he got out of the car. He clutched his hand to his chest, the blood soaking into his black button-down shirt. “Russian.”

“Da!”

Gabriel muttered something under his breath that sounded a hell of a lot like a “I hate you,” in Russian. Justin’s spoken Russian wasn’t perfect, but he could fake it better than French and it was the little tidbit of information that he’d been looking for when it came to Gabriel’s accent. There was something in the R’s and the occasional vowels that his native language was one of the Slavic languages. He didn’t necessarily know if Gabriel was Russian, but he was definitely from that region. And he was pretty sure he’d be able to pick out more clues the more he heard the man speak.

As they walked to the ER entrance, Justin kept close to Gabriel’s elbow. He didn’t look steady on his feet, and Justin hated to admit that he wasn’t sure if it was an act or if the blood loss was affecting him more than Justin had expected.

“Are you really injured?” Justin asked in Russian.

Gabriel looked over at him like he’d lost his mind and held up his bloody hand. “Da!”

Justin wanted to elaborate but the automatic doors had already whooshed open and they were surrounded by coughing, crying, shouting people. Hospitals workers rushed for one place to another. People lined up to talk to the receptionist while others filed out paperwork. Everyone looked miserable in some form or fashion. Gabriel walked up to the first person he spotted in scrubs, held up his dripping hand and started shouting in Russian. The poor person instantly paled and took a step backward like he was waving around a gun.

“My friend has deeply cut his hand. We think he needs stitches,” Justin said calmly, placing a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder as if to calm him. He forced himself to ignore what Gabriel was saying in Russian because it sounded too much like a translated nursery rhyme.

“Oh, yes. Yes. This way,” the nurse said, motioning toward a pair of double doors that led out of the waiting room and in to treatment.

“Keep up the scary act because I really don’t think you can be seductive. That woman obviously has no interest in your dick,” Justin instructed in Russian as they followed the nurse.

“I’m not trying to be seductive, you fucking asshole. I’m in pain. And your accent is horrible,” Gabriel snapped back.

Justin pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. They followed the nurse through the busy ER to an open station with a bed and a small selection of machines. Curtains were pulled around them to give privacy and then she snapped on a pair of latex gloves. “What’s your name?”

“Ivan Denisovich,” Justin quickly answered, earning a dark glare from Gabriel. He’d picked the same name as the main character in the famous Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn novel. It was the first thing that came to mind and they both knew that the nurse wasn’t going to buy the name of Gabriel Prescott when Gabriel only spoke Russian.

“Well, let’s see what we’ve got here, Mr. Denisovich,” she calmly said. Grabbing up several clean pads and gauze, the nurse edged over and carefully took the napkins Justin had wadded up and pressed to his hand. She tossed them away and nodded before pressing the pads into slow the bleeding again.

“She’s going to make a record, right? Get on her computer?” Gabriel demanded.

The nurse looked up at Justin for a translation and he smiled at her. “He’s worried that the cut is too deep. That he’s going to lose strength in his hand,” Justin lied.

“Oh, no. I don’t think it’s that bad. He’s going to need stitches, but he should be able to recover completely. We’ll get the doctor to take a quick peek at it and then get it fixed up.”

Gabriel could easily understand her, but Justin still had to reply, pretending to be translating. “Don’t be an idiot. Let her try to get you fixed up. Everything has to go into the computer.”

“You’re the idiot,” Gabriel murmured but he was smiling and nodded at the nurse.

“He’s grateful for your care,” Justin said, smirking at his companion.

With the bleeding stanched, the nurse hurried over to the computer on the mobile station, pulling off her bloody gloves as she went. They both nearly sighed with relief. “I just need to get some basic information.”

Justin joined her at the computer and sighed with relief to see her type in her password. He knew that some hospitals were changing to bio-passwords like fingerprints, retina scans, and vein scans. He quickly memorized her keystrokes, running it again and again through his head. It was Caroline#May2010. He was willing to bet it was her daughter’s name and birthdate. Not the most original of passwords but definitely more complicated that some of the dumbass things he’d seen people do and it likely met all the requirements set by the hospital’s IT team.

The nurse asked some basic questions about “Ivan” and Justin either made up an answer or repeated the question in Russian, to which Gabriel told him to suck his cock or some other variation in Russian. And then Justin made up an answer for the nurse.

After a moment, she stepped away to get a doctor and Justin wandered back over to Gabriel’s side.

“Did you get it?” Gabriel asked softly. He was still speaking in Russian so that no one could eavesdrop on their conversation.

“Da.” Justin carefully reached over and looked at the cotton pads pressed against Gabriel’s hand. The same hands that had carefully removed a bullet fragment from his gut and sewn him back up again. His fingers were rough and calloused with several long scars from cuts and other injuries over the years. He didn’t have any tattoos on his fingers. They started farther up his forearms and were sprinkled across his chest. There was one artful image near his throat that looked to be wings. But the majority were names and words written in Cyrillic script or dark images, all of it in thick, black ink. He was sure that the tattoos for Gabriel weren’t about art. They were reminders.

“Are you going to be able to hold a weapon in that hand?” Justin asked, releasing Gabriel’s hand.

“The wound won’t impact my use of a weapon.” Gabriel flashed him a rigid smile. “I still have your back.”

Justin nodded. “I know.”

“I’m sorry about yesterday. I…I should have been faster,” Gabriel started. Tense lines dug deep furrows in his face, making it appear even more harsh than normal.

Justin stared at him a moment in surprise. It took him a moment to realize that Gabriel was tying his injury to his promise to watch his back, keep him from being shot.

“Yesterday wasn’t your fault. I should have been more careful. I wasn’t expecting them to be a car full of idiots.”

“I should have expected that.” Gabriel shook his head again and then swayed for a second where he sat. “We did not live this long by not being prepared for anything.”

He swayed again, and Justin caught him by the shoulder. “How much fucking blood have you lost?” he hissed.

“Not that much.” Gabriel growled again, but Justin didn’t get the impression that it was directed at him. “I have not eaten or slept much in the past several days. This…” he paused, holding up his injured hand, “was poorly timed.”

Justin wanted to comment that they could have waited a day, but a doctor—and he used the term lightly because the kid looked like he was barely out of high school—pushed back the curtain and was followed by the nurse. Gabriel sent a dark look to the doctor and then glared at Justin.

“Are they letting children play in the emergency rooms now?” Gabriel snarled. “He does not have his license.”

“That shouldn’t bother you. I thought they didn’t bother with medical school in your country,” Justin teased.

Gabriel’s eyes widened and he released a long string of curses that Justin couldn’t even begin to translate. It was probably best that he didn’t. He just turned his attention back to the nurse and doctor who were watching them with looks of confusion.

“Ivan is wondering if you could give him something for the pain,” Justin said with a smile to the medical team.

“Umm… yeah, of course,” the doctor said. He dropped onto a rolling stool and moved over to sit in front of Gabriel. “How did this happen?”

“Ivan was making dinner for me and some friends. The knife slipped and went straight into his palm. Totally broke up the dinner party,” Justin quickly explained. “Blood was everywhere. One guy fainted. Steaks were ruined. I think they were just going to order some pizza while they waited for us.”

The doctor nodded and made some noises, but Justin didn’t think the guy was actually listening. He and the nurse conversed back and both. She typed things into the computer while he cleaned up Gabriel’s hand. A topical pain relief was ordered along with some mild pain killers. The hand was sewn up with little fuss and a new bandage was put into place.

And it was just their luck that chaos followed as soon as the bandage was put into place. Both the doctor and nurse ducked out of the curtained area as the screams and shouts pierced the air of the large area. Justin followed behind them, peeking his head out to see several people being wheeled in on gurneys, their clothes torn and covered in blood. It looked like some kind of car accident. At least, he hoped it was a car accident and not something far, far worse.

“What is it?” Gabriel called.

“Our distraction,” Justin said, motioning for Gabriel to join him at the curtain. Justin watched as trauma specialists ran from one place to the next, gathering supplies, calling in for more help. Putting his hand on Gabriel’s arm, he pulled his companion along, weaving them through the chaos toward another set of double doors that would lead them deeper into the hospital. No one noticed them. Justin was more worried about Gabriel silently leaning on him for support. The guy needed to get some food and rest if he was going to be of any use to either of them.

Down one hall and then another, weaving their way along. The corridor was mostly empty. Just a couple nurses checking rooms. The second they came to a bank of elevators, Justin stopped and hit the up button.

“Where are we going?” Gabriel asked, still speaking in Russian.

“Up.”

Gabriel glared at him and Justin couldn’t hold in his little laugh. “There’s counseling on the upper floors. No one should be up there at this hour. I want to borrow their computers.”

Gabriel grunted and led the way onto the elevator when the doors slid open. He leaned heavily against the back wall, cradling his hand against his stomach. Justin punched the button for the seventh floor and then the button to close the doors. He wanted to avoid running into anyone else in the hospital if at all possible.

“Should we have stayed for the drugs the doc promised?” Justin said, finally switching over to English. It was hurting his brain to stay in the Russian. He was too out of practice.

Gabriel shook his head. “No. Just need some sleep.”

“I’ll try to keep this quick.” When the doors parted again, they stepped out onto an empty floor. The reception area was dimly lit, and the receptionist’s desk was dark. Justin hurried, jumping over the desk to land other side. Gabriel more sedately walked around to standing next to him as Justin woke up the computer from its end of the day slumber. He typed in the nurse’s login, not quite sure if it was going to get him in or if the computers were locked off from the various different departments. The employees in billing usually didn’t have access to the same software as the nurses and doctors. Receptionists and clerks usually only had access to billing, check-in, and appointments. But nurses, he reasoned, likely had access to a lot of different things so they could fill in all the important information for all the other departments and doctors.

Hell, he’d never tried to hack the system at UCMC. He could be way off.

But this time…he wasn’t.

He nearly shouted his relief when he got into the system. It took him several minutes to stumble his way around until he found a directory. And then a list of names and vital information for the various research projects that were being conducted at the hospital. It wasn’t full records, but it looked like those might not be actually stored on the same server. Grabbing a notepad, he scratched out some critical information that would help to speed along his search. But it would have to be done from his home office. They were too out in the open in the hospital and he didn’t want to catch the attention of security.

“Find what you need?”

And then there was Gabriel. He just sounded exhausted and in pain. The guy needed to get back to his hotel room for food and sleep before he could be of use to both of them.

“It’s a start. It’s going to take me a lot longer to dig through these files and find something we can use.” Justin tore off the sheet of paper and the one below it, shoving them into his pocket. “I’ve got enough that I can use to hack into the system and snoop around from the safety of my own home.” Pushing back to his feet, he motioned for Gabriel to lead the way back to the elevator.

With his eyes closed, Gabriel leaned against the wall. “Two doctors dead. A miracle drug that’s potentially not a miracle,” Gabriel quietly listed.

“You mean a drug that stands to be a multi-billion-dollar blockbuster. I can understand why someone might want to make sure the FDA approves it. Iaso would own the market, and that’s a damn big market.”

“Sounds like something a CEO would push for,” Gabriel said. “He’s got the most to gain…and lose if the drug doesn’t live up to expectations.”

“True, but a lot of people who work on these teams get bonuses for drugs that successfully make it through drug trials and get FDA approval. Then there’s company insiders, board of directors. Iaso is a big company.”

“If you think I’m just going to start gunning down executives to save a little time—”

“Whoa there slugger,” Justin said, pressing his hand into Gabriel’s chest. “I know you’re not just gonna whip out your weapon and mow down an entire C-suite for shits and giggles. We’re just brainstorming here.”

“And this job isn’t just a matter of finding out who ordered the hit on the two doctors,” Gabriel said, sounding incredibly stiff. “We need to discover what they’re hiding about the drug as well. Preferably before your FDA approves it on what has to be falsified data.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Justin stepped back as the elevator neared the ground floor.

“A plan? What plan?”

“You will go back to your hotel room and get some rest. Order a little room service. I’ll go home and start digging into the research files they have here. I want a list of the doctors that worked on it along with a look at some of the patient files. Maybe there’s something there that will give away what’s so bad about this drug.”

Gabriel grunted. He didn’t seem happy around the suggestion, but he didn’t argue and Justin was grateful. It was bad enough that Gabriel had stayed up most of the night watching over him after he’d taken that bullet fragment. The lack of sleep and blood loss were definitely fucking with the man.

“Tomorrow, we meet and make a new plan,” Gabriel said in Russian the second the doors slid open, revealing a busy lobby area to the hospital.

“Da, comrade.”

“Fucking asshole.”