Page 20 of Business vs. Pleasure

There were some shrieks and screams from behind them, and the smell of burning nylon was getting worse, but soon enough someone would remember that fire extinguishers existed. They’d be fine.

August rammed the panic bar on the door to the stairwell with his hip and hauled Bremmer in behind him. He took a second to make sure no one else was immediately visible, then released the knife from its custom wrist sheath that Ricardo had given him on their first anniversary, turned around, and⁠—

The sound of the gunshot was secondary to the sensation of blood and brains spattering across his face, his neck, his suit. August stared, shocked into stillness, as Jaxon Bremmer collapsed in front of him with an almost finger-sized hole in the top of his head and blood flowing out beneath what was left of his jaw.

Jesus Christ. What the fuck was Ricardo thinking, using a large-caliber gun in such a confined space? The ricochet alone could have killed August. As it was, his ears were ringing so hard he almost didn’t hear the click of a closing door farther up the stairwell. There his husband went, making his getaway and leaving this mess for August to clean up on his own.

Forgive me, L’Avia. I’m going to have to murder your favorite grandson.

The door right beside him opened, interrupting August’s revenge fantasy with distasteful reality. He sighed, then flicked his knife back up into the sheath as he pretended to lose his shit for the incoming audience.

“Five hours!” August stalked into their hotel suite at a painfully aggressive pace. His body wanted to slow down, but his sense of rage wouldn’t let it. “Five fucking hours being interrogated by the least competent police force in the continental United States!”

Ricardo stood from where he’d been perched on the edge of the couch, his expression taut and wary as he took in the disheveled hellscape that was his husband.

Good, you should be worried! “Five hours, and yet they’re still not as incompetent as you are!”

“August, what⁠—”

“What the fuck was that shot?” he demanded, driving his index finger into the center of his husband’s chest. “What, you dilly-dallied too long with the sniper rifle so you decided to haul out a .45 in the stairwell? Look at me!” He indicated himself with hands shaking from anger and creeping fatigue. The nap he’d had yesterday afternoon might as well have been a dream after the evening he’d had… morning… he’d lost track of what time it was. “Look at my suit! I’ll never be able to get all of this out. The best cleaner in the world wouldn’t be able to get this out.”

“August—”

“Look at my hair!” He ran a hand over his blood-encrusted hair. “I’ve had bits of that toxic pustule in my hair for hours! On my shoes, on my hands—I got some of him in my mouth, Ricardo, and if that’s not the punishment in one of the lowest circles of hell, you’ll have to let me know after I send you there.”

Ricardo reached for him, but August smacked his hand away. He wasn’t ready to be appeased, not when he’d suffered for this level of umbrage. “You could have killed me!” That was the worst of it, the part that still stung right in the middle of his chest. “I thought you were joking about pointing a gun in my direction, but you could have…” Oh fuck, there went his voice, it was going to break and then he was going to break and he couldn’t break right now, not when he needed to be strong.

“I didn’t kill Bremmer.”

August stopped breathing for a moment. “What?” he whispered.

Ricardo stepped forward, slow and careful like he was ready to dodge a knife. Which, ha, he should be, and yet… “Sweetheart, I didn’t take that shot. I texted you a few minutes after we talked. I told you to get out of there and meet me back here.”

August reached for his phone with a shaky hand. There were no new texts from Ricardo. He held up the damning log. “Prove it.”

Ricardo nodded and pulled out his phone. “Look.” He showed the message to August, who had to shut his eyes after he read it.

Oh, thank God. His husband hadn’t betrayed him. He hadn’t gotten lazy or careless with him. He hadn’t put the job before August. When Ricardo’s hands gently closed on his shoulders, August didn’t pull away. He let Ricardo reel him into a hug and gave into the urge to let him take some of the weight.

“Well,” he said once he could speak again. “That was the shittiest evening I’ve had in a long time. Awful company, terrible chef, negative stars for the whole place. But,” he added a bit more brightly, “at least Bremmer’s dead.” He lifted his head and tried to smile. Judging from the way Ricardo just scowled harder, August wasn’t fooling him, but it had been worth a shot. “Let’s try sticking together on the next one, huh?”

“Next one?” Ricardo asked.

“Of course.” They couldn’t go out like this. It would spoil every memory August had of being an assassin. “We’re going to take another job, and we’re going to kill it. Literally and figuratively.”

Right after he had a shower and slept for twenty-four hours.

CHAPTER 7

By the time they went to bed, Ricardo had a faint glimmer of hope that maybe things would be better in the morning. Or at the very least that they wouldn’t be worse. August had calmed down minutely. When Ricardo told him Heidi was happy to hook them up with another gig, he’d calmed down even more.

“Well.” He’d pushed out a haughty little breath as he brought his overpriced cognac to his lips. “We’ll just have to make sure this one goes down in glorious fashion.”

Seemed reasonable enough. Murphy’s Law had had its way with them on this job, but odds were, the next one would play out better. They could even put a few extra contingencies in place in case their work was again disrupted by a micromanaging vacation rental owner or an incompetent tableside chef. Hell, things like that made this job interesting; any competent assassin knew to expect the unexpected, even when it was the wildly unexpected like everything that had happened this time. Maybe August and Ricardo were just rusty after being out of the game for so long.

Well, whatever. They’d get another gig, and they’d accomplish this one, as August had put it, in glorious fashion. And then they could go back to retirement. Or something. Because they couldn’t be assassins forever, but holy shit, retirement was boring.

That was a problem for Future August and Ricardo, though. For now—next gig, expect the unexpected. That was all Ricardo needed to think about now.