oh, yes... there will be blood

Peter Strahm is a mob enforcer who can never reveal that he's an undercover cop working to topple the organization. Mark Hoffman is the heir to John Kramer's empire of crime who can never reveal that he's gay. Together, they are gasoline and a lit match, just waiting to meet.

Following a disastrous encounter during his pursuit of Mark Hoffman, Agent Strahm catches a cold. Hoffman drops by for a visit, then decides to take Strahm captive until he feels better. As one does.

Peter Strahm is not a stupid man. He knows that following Mark Hoffman alone to an abandoned building is a bad idea. He ends up doing it anyway... then he has to deal with the consequences.

This tape, this coffin are the tangible proof he's been looking for. Hoffman is using Jigsaw's method, trying to kill him without hiding his intent... but Peter tries to think of the man who had set up this trap and can only see someone else. It's a younger Mark, with sharper edges to his face and body, softer in some other ways, less menacing; the man who hadn't been corrupted by revenge and by his own brutality yet. His face is still showing through the features of the Hoffman Peter actually knows, like a fucked-up optical illusion. Is Peter seeing that man or just imagining him? Does that matter? Hoffman is close enough now that his footsteps are audible outside; no matter how softly and cautiously he's walking, a body like his wasn't made for sneaking around. Peter curses himself as he steps behind the room's thick metal door, not a second too soon.

Special Agent Peter Strahm has a secret extra ability to aid him in his investigations, which no one else knows about. When he meets Detective Mark Hoffman for the first time, this ability lets him know right away that some unknown danger is lurking between the two of them. Soon enough… Peter finds out exactly what's so dangerous about Hoffman.

Despite knowing that it's a very bad idea to get entangled with the FBI agent here to investigate his crimes, Mark Hoffman is irresistibly drawn to Agent Strahm. When he decides to act on that attraction, though, he realizes that he wants a different dynamic than what Strahm could offer him... and he gets a little lost trying to figure out what that dynamic could be.

Peter Strahm has seen it all... or so he thinks. After leaving the police to work as a private investigator with his secretary and unofficial partner Lindsey Perez, he has settled into a cynical routine of handling petty crimes for a living. But when their latest client, Amanda Young, asks for their help to clear her name in an infamous murder case, Peter finds himself having to solve a mystery that goes much deeper than it seemed. Then there's the problem of the way-too-attractive Detective Mark Hoffman, who has a secret hold over Peter that neither of them can acknowledge. Hoffman seems to have a strange interest in interfering with Peter's business, and when they start clashing over the Jigsaw case, it leads them both to a place they might not return from.

Three times Strahm and Hoffman accidentally get stuck together in tight spaces, and one time they do it on purpose.

To take a break from the Jigsaw case, Agent Strahm spends a truly unpleasant evening drinking with Detective Hoffman and his colleagues... and he doesn't expect Hoffman to offer him a lift home. Nor does he expect anything that happens after he accepts.

Agent Strahm finds Jigsaw's lair after an exhausting investigation, but he arrives too late: the only person he's able to save is Detective Hoffman, who he finds tied to a chair and waiting for rescue. As Strahm keeps returning the memory later, he starts to get a feeling that something was very wrong with that situation... and he has a harder and harder time avoiding the uncomfortable realizations it's stirring up inside him.