The Exit Strategy Bundle

by Jocelynn Drake

  Justin’s arms tightened around Gabriel, and he wished he could take away the old pain he could hear in his voice. He didn’t care about the men who’d been in Gabriel’s life before they found each other. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he held Gabriel’s heart now.

  “I’m glad he didn’t,” Justin murmured.

  Gabriel laid one hand on Justin’s wrist and squeezed. “So am I.” He cleared his throat and his voice was stronger when he continued. “Later that morning, news hit that a rich businessman was found dead in his flat. It was just blocks away from where I’d first started following Kai. I must have spotted him fresh from his kill and he was in a good mood. Had to have been the only reason he decided to fuck me instead of kill me. It was only later that I heard that the death was attributed to him.”

  “And maybe Kai finds you as sexy as I do,” Justin teased, trying to lighten Gabriel’s mood.

  Gabriel just sighed. “Every time I think I’ve told you all the hideous things from my past something new crops up, and I have to wonder if this will be the thing that finally tips the scale for you.”

  “Never going to happen,” Justin said firmly. “I didn’t fall in love with you because you’re some squeaky-clean angel. I love exactly who you are. You’re strong, brilliant, and so very softhearted. We both knew we weren’t virgins when we met. I would prefer it if you didn’t meet some of my past partners, but I don’t think you’d stop loving me if you did.”

  Gabriel’s body finally started to relax, and Justin looked around him to see a smile pulling at his lips.

  “Had some real winners?”

  Justin groaned extravagantly. “Alcohol and boredom are such a dangerous combination.”

  “I love you, Justin,” Gabriel whispered.

  “Love you too, G Love. Not gonna change.” He pressed another kiss to Gabriel’s neck and tightened his arms, hugging him from behind. “Now if Kai decides he wants a second night with you, I will put a fucking bullet in the back of his skull and call it a day.”

  Gabriel chuckled. “Highly unlikely.”

  “Just setting the ground rules.”

  Releasing Gabriel and stepping away from him, Justin finished prepping his mug of coffee. They needed to get moving. There was so much they needed to prepare before they got on the road. Just getting to Billings, Montana would take more than eight hours, and he wasn’t sure how lucky they were going to be at finding Relic in such a big state. He had a feeling that the key was going to be his six-year-old son. The boy was going to limit the places Devlin Relic could hide and for how long.

  Besides the threat of Kai, they were also working against the season. It was already mid-September and the potential for snow in Montana was rising with each day. The start of Great White Death could hold off until October, but Justin didn’t want to bank on it. He wanted to get them out of Montana before any snow hit. Snow meant blocked roads and potentially being trapped in locations that were much harder to defend. Justin and Gabriel would need to get father and son south as quickly as possible.

  But even with all that weighing on them, Justin appreciated the few minutes they could steal together in their quiet house. It really was turning out to be the perfect life.

  Yet, was it the life that Gabriel wanted?

  He worried about his lover. Everything seemed to happen so fast for them. They met for the first time just over a year ago, and they were more likely to kill each other at that time than trust each other. Now they were living together. Gabriel had been adamant about leaving the mercenary life behind. He couldn’t tell Justin what he wanted to do with his life, and Justin understood that. The poor guy needed some time to get used to the idea that he was free after wiping out a good chunk of his murderous family.

  But mixed in with the house hunting, the cross-country move, and the remodeling of the house, they’d been taking contracts from Marilyn despite telling the woman that they were “retired.” Justin was on cloud nine working with Gabriel. He was an excellent mercenary and a great person to have at his back. Justin could continue in this manner of remodeling the house, having sex, and taking contracts from Marilyn for years.

  Was it enough for Gabriel?

  He had a feeling if he asked Gabriel flat out, his lover would say yes. But that was right now. It would work for right now.

  Would he still tell Justin when this life didn’t make him happy any longer? Would they grow apart?

  Maybe they had moved too fast.

  And now Justin was terrified he was going to lose the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  Chapter 4

  Gabriel rubbed his tired and burning eyes before trying to get them to focus on the menu in front of him once again. The little diner looked as if it had been lifted out of the fifties, with its polished chrome and white-and-blue leather booth seats. There was even a tiny jukebox on each table that offered up popular songs from the fifties. According to the advertisements on the walls and on the menu, the place boasted the best milkshakes and pies in the entire state. He could do without the weight of a milkshake, but a slice of banana cream pie sounded like heaven after spending nearly nine hours in the car.

  When it came to partners, Gabriel knew he’d gotten lucky with Justin. The man was the perfect companion for long drives. He’d discovered that while they’d crisscrossed much of Europe in pursuit of his family that winter. Skilled at navigating and smooth driving, Justin knew when to strike up an interesting conversation and when to let silence rule the vehicle. In Europe, silence had largely been the order of the day. He’d given Gabriel plenty of room to stew in his own thoughts about his family and his life.

  But the drive from Colorado to Montana was different. The job was a grim and serious one, but the mood between them was not. They managed to get out of the house well before noon, the SUV packed with a wide variety of supplies since they could only guess at what they might need. Justin had loaded up the camping gear, and Gabriel was praying it wouldn’t come to that. There were plenty of rental cabins and simple hotels throughout the area that could serve their needs. But Gabriel was all too aware that they might have to hike for a bit to get closer to either Kai or Devlin without them knowing it.

  Gabriel didn’t mind hiking and camping, but it wasn’t his idea of vacation or pleasure. He felt no embarrassment in admitting he liked high-thread-count sheets and room service. He preferred to track his prey in the city where they were much easier to follow while staying hidden within the crowds of people.

  Of course, judging by the overall giddiness that was still bubbling out of Justin, Gabriel was willing to bet that this setting was just the kind of thing that Justin lived for.

  “Oooh…the country-fried steak sounds amazing. Or maybe the chicken pot pie,” Justin murmured.

  Gabriel looked up from his menu and smiled to see the man opposite him practically bouncing in his seat. He couldn’t understand how he wasn’t exhausted from the long day in the car, but Justin seemed to have hidden reserves.

  “You’re not going to be able to move if you eat that,” Gabriel warned.

  Justin shrugged. “We’ve got a motel room for the night. Can’t do anything more to locate Devlin or Kai until tomorrow. How much moving are you expecting me to do?” Justin leaned forward, his grin turning wicked. “Or do you have dirty, evil plans for me when we get back to the room?” he asked in a whisper.

  Gabriel shook his head and looked down at the menu. “Shower and sleep are really all I have planned for the rest of the evening. We need to get an early start tomorrow. We have to assume Kai is already in the state.”

  Before Justin could say anything else, a waitress with a pleasant smile stopped by their table and took their orders. Gabriel handed over his menu and turned his attention to the tablet he’d placed face down beside him. He flipped through a few pages, shuffling through the information Marilyn had sent over that morning. She had promised to have more for them the next morning. As it was, there wasn’t a lot to work with.

>   “Relic is from Washington, not far from Redmond. He’s heading east,” Gabriel murmured. He was mostly thinking out loud, but he’d welcome any insight Justin could offer.

  “For now. Places like Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas offer a lot of wide-open space and places to hide. Not a lot of tech acting as potential surveillance.”

  “Devlin has worked for a few tech companies over the years, but his latest focus was supposedly batteries. Particularly ones used to store power generated from renewable energy sources.”

  “What about his husband? What did he do?”

  “Teacher. Middle school. They were married in early 2013 and adopted their son Jake a few years later, when he was three. From every appearance, they looked to be an average, happy middle-class family.” Gabriel turned the tablet to Justin to show him a picture that looked as if Marilyn had pulled it from Facebook. The two men and their son were sitting at a picnic table in a sunny park with other families. Probably a summer cookout or Fourth of July celebration. All three looked happy. It was sad to think their lives were torn apart over money.

  “So the guy starts to get close to upsetting energy companies and the oil industry. Someone among them threatens him. He ignores it. Maybe they try to kill him and get the husband instead.”

  “Or maybe it was a warning,” Gabriel said, flipping the tablet around so he could see the screen. “He gets framed for the death. It slows down his work and probably scares him. But it’s not enough.”

  Justin nodded. “But that’s not enough. They take a contract out on the guy, probably after he goes on the run.”

  “Someone is either afraid that he knows who’s behind his husband’s death or they are afraid he’ll resume his work. Either way, he needs to be eliminated.”

  “We need to find him and his son.” Justin took a drink of his iced tea and set the glass on the table, but he continued to stare at the condensation sliding down the glass, a frown deepening on his face.

  “We will.”

  “But that won’t be enough.” Justin’s eyes darted up to Gabriel’s face. “We have to find Kai as well. Convince him to walk away from the contract. Or better yet, string along the contract owner until we can get Devlin and Jake to a safe place.”

  Justin was right. It wasn’t enough to simply convince Kai to walk away from the job. Someone else could just as easily accept the contract, putting Devlin and Jake back in the crosshairs. If Kai promised to hold the contract but not kill the target, then it would buy Justin and Gabriel time to find a way to protect them both permanently.

  “We’ll figure it out. We just have to find at least one of them first.”

  With a grunt, Justin lounged back in his seat and smiled at Gabriel. “You look tense,” he observed, surprising Gabriel. It wasn’t what he expected to hear out of his mouth next.

  “What do you mean?”

  Justin waved one hand absently at Gabriel. “You know? Tense. Your shoulders are all bunched up, and I can feel you tapping your foot under the table. You were calmer when we were hunting down your family. What’s up? You didn’t seem this tense earlier. Are you still wound up about finding Kai?”

  Glancing down at the tablet, Gabriel frowned and turned off the screen. The job wasn’t making him tense. The odds were stacked against them that they’d be able to locate Devlin or Kai, but they’d faced worse odds and come out on top.

  He knew down in his bones that it was their current location and where they were headed. Turning his head to the left, he could see out the window that lined the front of the diner. The sun had set, and the sky was dark orange with hints of deep blue and rich purple. The lights were already on in the parking lot. Across the street was a gas station of about a half dozen pumps. A few other stores lined the street and then nothing. Just trees, rolling hills, and the highways snaking through it all.

  “I feel…isolated here,” Gabriel ventured. “There are too many places for snipers to hide. Places for scores of assassins to lurk undetected. Even Devlin could slide right past us and we wouldn’t know it. It feels like we’re on the edge of the world. One wrong step and we’ll fall off.”

  Justin cocked his head to the side and Gabriel held his breath, waiting for him to start laughing. He knew he sounded ridiculous, but Gabriel didn’t spend a lot of time wandering around in the woods. He was trained for it, but that didn’t mean he liked it one damn bit.

  “Do you find our home unnerving too?” Justin asked quietly.

  “What?” Gabriel snapped in shock. “No! Of course not.”

  “But our home is in the middle of nowhere. The house is set back on thirty acres with woods and mountains around us. It takes us ten minutes to drive to Jess’s house every time we have to drop off the dogs, and she’s our closest neighbor.”

  Gabriel reached across the table and placed his hand over Justin’s. “No. I love our place.”

  “But—”

  “Yeah, it’s a lot like this place, but the key difference is that we chose it.”

  Justin narrowed his eyes at Gabriel. “That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

  “We chose it as our spot. You’ve put up security so that we both feel safe. We know who’s on our property. And if I’m feeling too isolated, I can drive twenty minutes to the nearest shopping center and get a freaking massage.”

  Justin snorted. Gabriel watched his lover’s shoulders slump again, his body relaxing. “That is true.”

  “We’re also not hunting a target on our property. Our home is our refuge from the world. I don’t want to change that.”

  “But here?”

  Gabriel gave a little shudder. “Too many unknowns.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “What about you? Does this bother you?”

  It was Justin’s turn to glance out the window, but Gabriel didn’t see him tense up the same way Gabriel had when he thought about their location. “It’s quite an uphill battle ahead of us, but this place doesn’t bother me. Reminds me a little of boy scout camping trips.”

  Gabriel released Justin’s hand so he could take a drink of his water. He leaned back in his seat, trying to appear relaxed when his heart was really hammering in his chest. Justin didn’t talk about his youth. “You were in the Boy Scouts?” Gabriel asked, sounding stunned but trying to put off an air of only casual interest.

  Justin smirked at him, indicating that he saw straight through his ruse, but he still continued. “Are you really surprised?”

  Gabriel shrugged. The guy certainly seemed perpetually prepared for anything, but he assumed it was a result of his years in the military.

  “Two years. The best two years of my childhood.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Justin picked up the utensils still wrapped in the paper napkin and rolled it back and forth between his fingers. “I was staying with this one foster family. They had five kids. Only two of them were their own. They had a big farm and we all helped out. I was good about my chores and there were a lot of them, but I didn’t get along so well with my siblings.”

  “Too bossy?” Gabriel teased, trying to lighten Justin’s tone without stopping his tale.

  “Never felt included. Truly wanted. Especially among my siblings. There had been too many times where we feared someone else would be chosen. It was more of a competition than comradery.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Justin shook his head, brushing off Gabriel’s sympathy. “It’s okay. I wasn’t an easy kid. Liked to stir up trouble so they would get rid of me. My way of rejecting them before they could reject me. All that kind of psycho mumbo jumbo.”

  “But the boy scouts?”

  “My foster dad made me join. Me and one of my brothers. He said it was to get us out of his hair for a couple of hours a week, but he wasn’t that type. I’d had those types of foster parents before. I think he was really hoping it would be something we liked and gave us direction.” Justin paused and a fond smile passed over his lips. “He was right. I loved being in the scouts. We le
arned so many things about nature and survival. I was great at map reading and pitching a tent. It was the first time I found something that I really excelled at.”

  The waitress brought their food over and for a moment, they freed their silverware from the napkins and properly salted and peppered things. Justin had chosen the chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and green beans, while Gabriel had gotten the chicken pot pie, fully expecting Justin to “sneak” a few bites.

  “Why did you stay with it only two years? Were you too old?”

  Justin shoved a bite of steak into his mouth and moaned, slumping a little in his seat. Gabriel smiled as he basked in the taste of the good food. And he was right. The food was better than he’d been expecting. Good enough to have him contemplating ordering a slice or two of pie to go.

  “I was sent back to the boys’ home,” Justin replied when his mouth was empty again. “The foster family owned a farm and they had a really bad harvest that year, I think. Or maybe the price of the crop crashed.” He shrugged. “I don’t really know. I was just a kid. But from what I could understand, the family was likely to lose the farm. They couldn’t afford to support the foster kids they’d taken in. They were terrified they wouldn’t be able to support their own kids. The poor dad, Kevin. He pulled me and the other foster boy aside one night after dinner, told us privately. I’ve never seen a man so broken up over it. It was the first time in my life that I realized that maybe all adults weren’t assholes.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  Justin nodded, continuing to devour his food. “They were good people. I looked them up a few years ago. They managed to keep their farm, but it looked like it was only through some loans at some truly ridiculous rates.”

  Gabriel paused, his fork halfway to his mouth, and stared at Justin for a second. “You helped them out, didn’t you?”

  “I had to. Those loans were freaking predatory.” There was no missing the slight color rising in his cheeks. Justin was proud of how he helped people, but they were always strangers. This was a rare time where he helped someone he’d known.