The Exit Strategy Bundle

by Jocelynn Drake

  “Then we wait for nightfall and go in. Pose as members of the cleaning crew and —”

  “Why wait?” Justin demanded, crunching through another piece of bacon.

  “You want to go now?”

  “Yeah, through the emergency room.”

  Gabriel stopped in the middle of pulling on a black shirt, his fingers holding either side as if he were about to button the first button. “As doctors?”

  Justin shook his head, his grin growing. “As patients.”

  Gabriel groaned and resumed buttoning his shirt. “We can’t use your wound even if you’re willing to open it back up again. It’s clearly a gunshot wound. They’d have to report it to the police.”

  “No, I was thinking a new wound. Something with lots of blood but not a lot of damage.”

  Gabriel finished buttoning his shirt and opened the drawer of a small bureau tucked in the closet to withdraw a pair of black silk boxers. “A real wound?”

  “Well, it would have to be.” Justin pushed off the edge of the bed where he’d been sitting and slowly walked over to Gabriel.

  Gabriel tensed, fighting the urge to take a step backward, but he was already trapped between the closet and the door leading into the hall. There was nowhere for him to go and certainly no way to obtain more space to maneuver. “And what new wound will you be acquiring?”

  “That’s just it,” he drawled, scratching his chin. “I’ve already got a bullet hole for this job. I thought it would only be fair for you to get the chance to bleed too.” Justin balled his hand into a fist and aimed a hard punch at Gabriel’s face. Throwing up his left arm to block the blow, Gabriel spun him around and slammed Justin against the door, pinning him there.

  Gabriel stared into Justin’s wide eyes, their faces only inches apart. He was surprised to find that the man wore contacts. Justin blinked, and they shifted just enough for Gabriel to see that his muddy brown eyes were actually blue. A haunting scent drifted up from Justin. A hint of cologne, sweat, and something that had to be pure Justin that caused a stirring in Gabriel’s groin. He jerked back an inch to find soft, full lips smirking at him. He’d been staring far too long.

  “Come on, let me break your nose,” Justin taunted.

  “Absolutely not,” Gabriel snarled, giving him another hard shove against the door so that it rattled in the frame.

  “It’ll just take a second, and they’ll be able to fix you up at the hospital.”

  “No.”

  “Chicken shit.”

  “Name calling will get you nowhere. I’ve been in this business far too long to allow my nose to be broken by a ridiculous bastard like you.”

  Justin snickered, letting his head fall back against the door, completely relaxed where Gabriel was holding him. “Well, I’ll give you that you’re pretty, but a broken nose will give your face character. I’m sure your personality isn’t exactly drawing them to your bed, but maybe a broken nose will get you a pity fuck or two.”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s your plan other than losing your towel?” Justin asked with a sneer.

  Gabriel didn’t flinch but continued to meet Justin’s narrowed gaze. He’d lost his fucking towel in the struggle, but he wasn’t willing to give an inch with this man. If he turned away for a breath, Justin would slam his fist down, breaking his nose. It wasn’t going to fucking happen.

  “I’ll slice my hand open. Some blood and a few stitches. Will that give you adequate time to get what you need to access their computers?”

  “Yes, but won’t you need your hand?”

  “I’m ambidextrous. I’ll manage,” Gabriel grumbled, moving away from Justin enough that he could step around him to walk back into the hotel room with his boxers clenched in one fist.

  “Being able to jerk off with either hand doesn’t make you ambidextrous.”

  A bark of laughter jumped from Gabriel’s throat, catching him off guard. There had to be zero filter between Justin’s brain and his mouth. It was completely disarming, making the man dangerous. How easy would it be for Justin to work past his defenses with his charm and ridiculous comments? And then he’d be dead in the blink of an eye.

  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.

  “You not get any sleep?” Justin called, still standing near the door to the hotel room.

  Gabriel dropped his hand back to his side, glancing over at his companion briefly. He 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 Six

  Justin’s hands tightened around the steering wheel as he directed the car up the curved drive leading to the emergency room. The mercenary stole glimpses over at the blood-soaked rag 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 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 asked. 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, “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 suggested his native tongue 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 from one place to another. People lined up to talk to the receptionist while others filled 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 set 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 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 in to slow the bleeding again.

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

  The nurse looked up at Justin for a translation and he smiled at her. “He’s worried 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 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 nodding at the nurse.

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

  With the bleeding staunched, 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 did sigh 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 than 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 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 an artful image near his throat that looked like 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 forth. She typed things into the computer while he cleaned up Gabriel’s hand. A topical pain relief w
as ordered along with some mild painkillers. 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 set. Both the doctor and nurse ducked out of the curtained area as screams and shouts pierced the air. 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.

  They strode 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.