Let's Sit Back and Watch the Bed Burn |Virgato|

Chapter 6

There's a loud knocking on the door the next morning, the continuous rapping making Chris want to rip the head off of whoever is causing it. He finally has a day to himself after yesterday's mission gone wrong and he just wants to sleep the day away until he figures out a plan to execute whomever it was that destroyed his opportunity to kill Conway.

"Babe, door," he groans, hugging his pillow as the knocking continues. He doesn't feel anyone move from the bed, making him turn to see that Joel wasn't even there. Chris sighs, running a hand through hi messy hair before noticing the green sticky note attached to Joel's nightstand. Gone out on a morning run and to get some more groceries, love you!

Chris can't help but smile as he places the note back on the nightstand, pulling a shirt on over his head before running downstairs to open the door. He unlocks the deadbolt before opening it to reveal an out of breath Richard, who's holding a piece of paper. He looks disheveled, almost panicked as he sighs with what sounds like relief at the sight of his best friend.

"Thank God you're still alive," he says, stepping into the house and shutting the door behind him and locking it. He pushes past Chris in a mad dash to shut all the blinds in the house before double checking all the rooms, Chris following him with his curiosity piqued. "Please tell me Joel isn't home and that he's at work or something."

"Or something," Chris responds, nonplussed. "Any why is it a good thing I'm still alive? Did you finally manage to track down the dumbass that shot me yesterday? Is that why you're here?" He makes sure to sound as frustrated as possible, mostly because his best friend interrupted the sleep Chris had been needing for months.

Richard stops his rushing around the house, biting his lips as he turns to Chris. His stance is what makes Chris even more nervous: his eyes are everywhere but on him, he's twiddling his thumbs, and the piece of paper in his hand looks like it had been folded so many times it's about to fall apart. He's anxious. His best friend takes a deep breath, unfolding the paper and casting his eyes down to his feet. "You know the laptop you brought in for me to look at, see who owned it? I, um, I figured out who exactly the owner is."

Chris doesn't like the way Richard delivers the news. His voice is shaky, and his stance is off. "Rich, this is great news. I can now figure out who the bastard that shot me is and get rid of him. You should be happy about this. We'll be taking out someone who is a threat to our agency!" His eyes drift to the paper in Richard's hand, still clenched tightly in his best friend's fist. "Let me see the name."

Richard releases the death grip he had on the single sheet of paper, slowly handing it to Chris. He's shaking as he does so, Chris furrowing his brow as he takes the paper from his friend's hands and unfolding it to see the name of the person he's going to make his next target.

His heart plummets the minute his eyes scan the address and name attached to the serial number of the laptop.

Joel Pimentel, Pimentel Contracting, CEO.

His vision begins to blur as he looks at the name over and over again, hoping he read it wrong, that it was a mistake. There wasn't any possible way that it was his husband that tried to kill him, Joel could barely even handle a weapon. It's a knife to the heart as he remembers one of their first dates, taking Joel to a carnival where he failed to shoot the target and win a stuffed penguin he had his eye on. Had it really been a ruse the entire time, a ploy to lure Chris in just to murder him in the end?

"Chris," Richard whispers, his voice soft as he steps forward and puts a hand on Christopher's. "I'm really sorry. I spent all night checking to see if I was wrong, like maybe someone set him up to take the blame or something, but all I got back was the same thing over and over again."