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)
“Shit!” Justin swore a breath before Gabriel crashed into him, throwing them both to the gravel-covered pavement. They hit hard and kept rolling, moving in between the Mercedes and the sedan beside them. The quiet of the day was shredded by the blast of firepower as bullets pummeled the car. Tire after tire exploded as it was punctured by the bullets.
Gabriel’s heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in the back of his throat. Justin swore, his right hand pressed against the wound on his side while he crawled behind the sedan. Gabriel followed close behind him, pulling his gun from where it rested under his left arm, but he was keeping his head down. They weren’t in a good position to defend themselves. They couldn’t counter that kind of firepower, and there was no telling how many people were in the truck.
Tires squealed on the asphalt, but it sounded like they were moving away from them. Gabriel slowly lifted his head while keeping one hand on Justin in case he needed to shove the man in a particular direction. The black truck was speeding out of the parking lot and toward the expressway entrance. With the gunfire complete, he could now hear panicked shouts and loud sobbing.
“They’re gone,” Justin said, patting the hand Gabriel had clamped on his shoulder.
He quickly tucked away the gun and looked around at the people rushing out of the various stores in the shopping center. Police sirens sounded far off, but they were steadily growing louder. People would be descending on them in a matter of seconds.
“Are you okay?” Gabriel asked.
“I might have torn a stitch or two, but fine otherwise. You?”
“I’m fine,” he murmured as he walked around the bullet-riddled car. It was a shame. The silver Mercedes had been a nice car, but now it looked more like metallic Swiss cheese. “How were we found? Were we followed from your house?”
Justin shook his head. “No. Maybe Gretchen is being watched.” He looked past Gabriel toward the store and likely the growing crowd of gawkers. “But we’ll talk about it later.”
“Anything we need to hide from the cops?” Gabriel muttered under his breath as he stood next to Justin.
“Nah. The car is clean. Fucking bastards. This was not how I wanted to break it in.”
“Why do I feel like your first choice would have been sex in the back seat?” Gabriel asked. Justin looked up at him and managed to lift one corner of his mouth, which was pathetic for this man. To his own surprise, he put his arm around Justin’s wide shoulder. “We’ll get even.”
Chapter 15
The shooting had successfully killed their moods for both dinner and sex. The mushrooms and other supplies had survived the shooting as well as the police inquisition that followed for the next couple of hours. They hadn’t been pleased that neither Gabriel nor Justin could provide a good answer for why their vehicle had been shot up. And there had been very little lying involved when it came to their answers because they didn’t know who the hell was trying to kill them.
It seemed strange to Gabriel that they had someone on their tail with this contract. How could anyone have already known? He tried asking Justin if there was a chance that this was something more personal directed at him, but the man wouldn’t even consider the idea. Gabriel was tempted to contact Marilyn, just to double-check there wasn’t a contract out on Justin’s head. And not because he was looking to take it. But if there was another player on the field with a completely different goal, then Gabriel wanted to know about it.
Dinner plans fizzled to a frozen pizza while they retreated to their separate corners to focus on work for the rest of the night. Gabriel hated to admit that he was disappointed to watch Justin disappear into the basement with the promise to continue working on the hack into Iaso as well as trying to break into the doctor’s stolen hard drive.
Gabriel contented himself with digging around in the information he could find on Dane Hamilton and Dr. Saul Elba. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much out there beyond the usual fluffy public relations pieces and a few research articles published by Elba. No smoking guns or neatly written confession letters.
By midnight, Gabriel was rubbing his eyes as he wrote out a few notes from his research. Just a couple of thoughts on things to check on the next day after he’d had a few hours of sleep. Not that he was at all looking forward to attempting to sleep. He’d had little sleep since arriving in the United States, and the quality was getting worse each night. Last night’s hand job might have helped to send him into a nice, dreamless sleep, but the nightmare that had him sleepwalking earlier was not something he wanted to relive. Yet, he was fairly sure it would return yet again.