Read Online Bodyguard: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance (Snake Eyes Book 1) by Tabatha Kiss - Free Book Online Page A

his fingers wrap around my neck.
    “Fox!”
    He sits up fast and opens his eyes. Fear, anger — you name it, it crosses them. I tremble in terror as he recognizes my face and releases me from his strong grip. “Dani…” he sighs and pulls his hands away from me. “I’m sorry, I…”
    I feel my neck, pressing down for any bruising but it doesn’t hurt. “Are you okay?”
    He forces a laugh. “I’m fine, I just…” His eyes travel up to mine and he loses his words. Goosebumps spread across my skin as nostalgia carries me back in time. He’s looking at me now like he did on the night of my birthday.
    “Fox?”
    He glances away and clears his throat. “How long have I been asleep?”
    “A few hours, maybe,” I say, shrugging. I push my fingers through my hair to draw his attention upward again. “How did I do?”
    “It’s fine.” He steps off the bed and wanders away without looking at me.
    “Just fine ?”
    “You know what I mean, Dani. You look good.” He grabs the handle on the mini-fridge and takes the last tiny bottle of booze stashed inside.
    “Okay then…” I plop down on the bed. “What now?”
    “Now…” He twists the cap off the bottle and pours the entire thing down his throat as if he’s putting out a fire. “Now, we get out of town.”
    “Like, now now?”
    “Yes,” he answers, tossing the empty bottle into the trash.
    “It’s three in the morning.” I point to the clock on the bed.
    He reaches for his jacket hanging on the back of the door. “You can sleep in the car—”
    “Fox, please, ” I beg. “Can’t we just stay here for a few hours? I’ve had a pretty rough night…”
    His fingers twitch on his jacket and he casts a sideways glance at me. “Fine,” he finally says. “We can get a few hours rest and then go, but… only a few hours, okay?”
    “Okay,” I agree, nodding my head. I run my fingers through my hair, pushing it away from my face. It still feels so foreign and smooth, like it’s not even mine. I catch him staring and he quickly turns away. “Where are we going?” I ask.
    He paces by the bathroom. “When I escaped Snake Eyes, I took something with me.”
    “You escaped?”
    He nods. “I worked on Mercer’s squad for about a year and a half before I found a way out. It wasn’t easy and I almost got killed in the process…”
    I blink with wide eyes. “What happened?”
    “I was sent on a solo mission to take out the bodyguard of a Russian mob boss,” he begins. I lean back against the headboard and pull the blanket out from under me to drape across my feet. He watches, but pretends not to. “In and out, should have been easy for me — and it would have been but I had other plans. Before I left, I accessed Snake Eyes’ network and made two copies of their master file.”
    “Master file?”
    “It’s a list of all assignments given out to members and how much money exchanged hands. We’re talking decades of names, unsolved cases, and executions big and small. Billions of dollars in trade.”
    “And you have that?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Can I read it?” I ask, curiosity peaking.
    “No one can,” he says, his lips twitching with amusement at my excited eyes. “Not without the right decryption.” I sit back in disappointment. “Anyway, I made contact with the Russian, laid down arms, and I gave one copy of the file to him in exchange for safe passage back to the states.”
    “That sounds real freakin’ dangerous,” I say. “You’re lucky he didn’t shoot you.”
    “He did , actually.” I tilt my head in shock and he smiles again. “We had to make my disappearance look convincing so that later when Mercer tracked my whereabouts, he’d find my blood and figure I was taken out and disposed of. It was just a graze, nothing too horrible.” He runs a pointed finger along his bicep and I exhale the breath I’ve been holding for the last minute. “The Russians were supposed to use that file to make Snake Eyes