Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 93984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Gabriel stopped on the opposite side of the room, boxers still in his hand, as he rubbed at his eyes and the bridge of his nose, trying to soothe away the pressure he could feel building there. He couldn’t think like that. He and Justin had agreed to a truce. He had to trust that Justin would hold to that promise.
And maybe it wasn’t so much his life that he was truly worried about any longer.
“You not get any sleep?” Justin called, still standing near the closet.
Gabriel dropped his hand to his side, glancing over at his companion briefly. Justin was leaning against the door, his muscular body appearing relaxed, but there were new lines of tension cutting through his face. He had to be in pain from the bullet wound. The painkiller would have worn off hours ago. But Justin’s eyes were unwaveringly locked on his face, reading…something. He wondered what Justin saw, but shoved the thought aside and quickly pulled on his boxers.
“Some.”
“Well, I can’t exactly take you to the hospital in my holey, blood-soaked shirt. How about we meet up here around seven tonight? You can get some sleep. I can get some clean clothes. By then, the emergency room should be busy with weekend stupidity. It’ll be easier to get what we need in the chaos.”
Gabriel gave a quick, sharp nod. A few hours of sleep and maybe a little scouting of the city would put him on more even footing. A little space from Justin might also help to get his head on straight.
Chapter 6
Justin killed the engine to his car and listened to the garage door rumble closed behind him. He released a heavy sigh of relief; he was safe at home again. Closing his eyes, he dropped his head back against the headrest and groaned. Well, that had turned into a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
What the ever-loving fuck?
It wasn’t like he’d been particularly surprised they’d run into trouble after leaving the doctor’s house. But getting shot? Please, he hadn’t actually been shot in a couple of years, which was a damn good thing. Getting shot fucking hurt.
And this hadn’t really been getting shot. This had been more like Lady Luck laughing her sparkly ass off at him because he’d grown too cocky.
Oh, he’d definitely been cocky around Gabriel Prescott. The stuffy and stiff assassin had taken a quiet pleasure in looking down his nose at Justin from the first moment they’d set eyes on each other in the restaurant.
So why did he let it get to him?
Nope. He was not allowing his mind to go there. That was a rabbit hole Alice could keep for herself.
Justin snatched the hard drive from the empty passenger seat, carefully climbed out of the car, and shuffled to the door leading into the house. He’d have to wash the paint off the car later. For now, his thoughts were focused solely on a shower and his own bed.
Except he needed to start on the hard drive.
Standing in the hallway with the garage door behind him, Justin stared at the hard drive in his hand. He could pop down to his secret computer lab and hook up the hard drive. The case file had said that the doctor’s computer had been encrypted. Justin was willing to bet the hard drive was encrypted as well.
At the very least, he could hook up the drive to the decryption program so it could start the process of hacking inside. That would also give him the opportunity to check on a few things he had running for Iaso before grabbing a shower.
The hard part would be walking away. He was very bad at that. There was no point in making himself any promises about “just five minutes.” Something would always capture his attention, and he’d be lost for hours at a time when he really needed a damn shower and some sleep.
With a weary sigh, Justin unlocked the basement and turned off the security system so he could slip into his secret lair. There he had a wall of computer screens, private servers, and a couple of whiteboards covered in brainstorming notes for this job as well as other things he was keeping his eye on.
He carefully dropped into his comfortable leather rolling chair, plugged the hard drive into the system, and assigned the decryption program he’d developed to it, getting it started on breaking in. With a few more keystrokes, he glanced through other programs that were crawling over Iaso’s security system, searching for holes. He was hoping to avoid a brute-force attack, which would undoubtedly raise red flags. It was better if Iaso didn’t know they were being targeted.
With everything he needed moving along for this job, Justin knew he could push away from his cluttered desk and retreat to the master bath for a scalding hot shower and a long nap.