by Tabatha Kiss
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“What other way is there to put it? My father, he’s…” She shakes her head. “The worst part about it is that I can’t complain at all. I’m rich, famous, pretty. It’s all because of him — right down to my freakin’ genes.”
I fight the urge to look at her chest heaving up and down. Her shirt hangs low with buttons undone, revealing the top curve of her breast. She’s so close to me, I could reach out right now and—
“You would never have gotten this far if I were in your life,” I say with closed eyes, fighting every urge in me. I keep my tone firm. “Think of all the people you’ve inspired; all the lives you’ve changed. The world wouldn’t be the same without Roxie Roberts.”
She frowns. “I hate that stage name.”
“I could tell.” A chuckle bounces in my throat. “Does anyone even call you Dani anymore?”
“No one except you.” Her cheeks flush wild with pink spots. I bet Bennett doesn’t let her drink much.
“I can call you Roxie, if you want,” I offer.
“No.” She shakes her head. “I like the way you say my name. Always have.”
A few short inches of air sit between us. I can smell traces of her scent around me; that blissful apple spice aroma that always drove me crazy. Her wet, cherry lips shimmer in front of me as she presses them together.
“You should do your hair,” I say quickly, leaning back. “We need to hit the road.”
Dani takes a quick step back and the pink fades from her cheeks. “Okay…” she mutters. Annoyance crosses her face and she grabs the hair dye, scissors, and comb off the bed with a wave of her hand. I can’t stop myself from looking at the gentle curve of her ass within my boxer shorts as she charges for the bathroom. She performs a short spin to glance back at me before closing the door behind her.
I fill my lungs with fresh air to rid myself of the apples lingering up my nose. My cock twitches with extreme disappointment but lays to rest against my thigh. Maybe her new hairstyle will work to my advantage. Her long, flowing hair has always been a turn-on for me.
I fall down on the bed and cover my eyes to block out the light.
Chapter 8
Dani
I stare at my new hairstyle in the mirror. I’ve never gone black before and I’m honestly not sure if I like it at all. I have naturally pale skin and this color just makes all my flaws stand out like a damn sore thumb. And I fucking hate it when it’s this short. It scrapes the top of my shoulders. Might as well just kill me right now, Mercer.
I turn away from the mirror and toss the empty dye box in the trash can.
“Fox?” I step out into the motel room. He’s lying on the bed with his arm draped across his eyes. His chest rises and falls. “Fox?” I walk over to him and shake his shoulder.
His arm juts out and 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 disappear.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because they were competition.” He shrugs. “A hitman can’t make any money if there’s someone better above them on the call list. The only issue was the encryption. I told him up front that I had no way of decrypting it but he just laughed and insisted he had a guy that could take care of that. He sent me packing with a bandaged arm and a new passport and I left…” he pauses, “after a few hiccups.”
“Hiccups?”
“It’s a long story,” he says. “But it ends with me making it back here.”
“How long have you been home?”
“Six months.”
Six months. He’s been back here for half a year now and he never said a word.
“Dani, I couldn’t come back to L.A.,” he says, reading my eyes.
“Why not?”
“Because if Mercer ever realized I was still alive, he’d go after my family first.” He looks at my cheek. “Looks like I was right about that.”
“How did he find out?”
“I’m not sure…” He runs his fingers throu
gh his beard and scratches an itch. “I’m guessing the Russian’s plan didn’t go so well.”
“So, he finds out you’re still alive and he comes after me,” I say. “Why?”
He takes a breath. “He knew how I’d react.” I say nothing, waiting for him to explain. “Mercer was… Friend might be too strong a word, but I guess it qualifies.”
“You were friends with the asshole that shot Lamb and cut up my cheek?”
“You make some interesting acquaintances when you work for an underground assassination squad,” he jokes.
I don’t laugh. “So… he knows that you have feelings for me?”
“Had,” he says with quickly, without the slightest hesitation. “I don’t anymore.”
“Oh…” I swallow a lump in my throat. “That’s good.”
He shifts on his feet. “Long story… still kind of long, but… I know someone that can probably decrypt my copy of the file.”
“Probably?”
“He’s the best chance we have. I’m hoping I can use it as a bargaining chip.”
“Bargaining chip with who?”
“Whoever will solve this Snake Eyes problem so I can take you back home.”
Home. Back to movie sets and the paparazzi.
“Get some sleep,” he says. “We have a long drive ahead of us.”
I glance around. “There’s only one bed…”
“I’ll take the floor.”
“You don’t have to,” I offer. “There’s plenty of room.”
“I’d prefer it.” His voice is firm, almost cold, but I’d rather not draw attention to it.
I nod and lower myself down to the pillows, kicking the blanket off my burning legs. My heart won’t stop racing. That black ink, those rock hard abs. The way the cobra tail swished across them, curling left and right before stopping just above his navel. I can’t get it out of my head. My fingers have been vibrating since the moment I touched him. It’s taking everything in me not to reach between my thighs right now and—
“Dani.”
I jerk out of my trance. “What?”
“Do you mind?” He points to the other side of the bed at the unused pillow.
“Oh — yeah.” I grab it and hold it out to him. He takes it and drops it to the floor at the foot of the bed. “Need a blanket?”
“No,” he says, disappearing below.
“Goodnight then…”
“Goodnight.”
I reach over and flick the lamp off, casting the room into total darkness.
***
Holy shit.
If I don’t touch him again soon, I’m going to explode.
I honestly can’t remember the last time I spent so much unsupervised time with a man other than my father. Even when Fox and I lived under the same roof, we rarely ever spent time alone together. I thought he hated me back then. I guess he was just hiding what he really feels.
Or felt. He doesn’t feel like that about me anymore. It was all just a teenage crush, apparently. Nothing more.
Why doesn’t he feel that way anymore?
I grab a pair of shoes, a package of socks, a few shirts, and some jeans, and walk straight to the checkout counter with the cash Fox gave me to find something to wear. It’s a low-end department store, somewhere I’d usually never shop but Fox insists that’s the point. I’m not Roxie Roberts right now. I’m just Dani. I’m not a movie star. I’m a normal person with thick sunglasses and short hair, buying some clothes because I have nothing else to wear other than a man’s shirt and boxer shorts. Just a normal girl with a target on her back.
Nothing to see here, folks.
“Do I know you from somewhere?”
I look at the cashier through tinted lenses. “I get that a lot,” I mutter, dropping my voice deeper than usual. She stares at me for an extra long second before finally shrugging and requesting seventy dollars from me. My heart resets to its normal rhythm and I get out as fast as I went in.
Fox waits outside for me, leaning against a new car by the curb. I’m not quite sure where he got it but I’m not about to question it. His eyes move back and forth in his skull on constant watch. Each passing person could be a danger. Each one another possibility for me to get recognized, however unlikely that is, especially with a fresh bandage covering half of my face. “So, where is this secret master file decrypter guy?” I ask.
“Denver.”
“Denver? Why aren’t we flying?”
He pops open the passenger side door. “Because that requires going through security, flashing IDs…”
“So?”
“So…” He jerks his head, gesturing me into the car. I step off the curb and lower myself down into it while he moves to the driver’s side. “Snake Eyes has access to those systems. Chances are we’ve already been flagged by them and the L.A.P.D.”
“Why them, too?” He glances at me out of the corner of his eyes, giving me a quick second to figure it out for myself. “Oh, right. My dad.”
“Bennett’s not stupid,” he says as he turns the ignition. “He knows how to track you down. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if our photos are all over the news right now. We need to stay as off-the-grid as possible or we’ll never even make it out of California.”
“It’s a good thing I look nothing like myself then…” I pull the visor down and flip open the mirror to look at my reflection. Black hair. No make-up. Giant gash on my cheek. I slide my sunglasses up onto my head to check my eyes. Still blue. That’s something, I guess.
“Put those back on until we get out of the city,” Fox says as we start rolling down the busy street. I do as he says and shield my eyes again before tossing the bag of new clothes into the backseat and sliding back there with them. “Dani, what are you doing?”
“I’m changing,” I say, flicking the buttons free on his borrowed shirt. “Just keep your eyes on the road.”
“We have windows, you know.”
“I’ll be quick.” I grab a black t-shirt out of the bag and lay it open on my lap. “It’s not like you’ve never seen it before anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks quickly.
I smirk to myself as I throw the shirt over my head, covering my exposed breasts in less than a second. “Candy Crushers?”
Fox sighs, keeping his neck stiff and his eyes locked forward. “I wasn’t looking at you.”
“You see, here’s what doesn’t add up to me, Fox…” I slide both legs into the jeans and pull them up and over the boxer shorts. “You’re out there, watching from across the street, but you turn away — like the honorable man that you are — and focus on Smith while I’m all exposed. Am I right so far?”
“That’s exactly what happened,” he confirms.
“Then why didn’t you help Smith?”
He pauses. “What?”
I take the shoes and a pair of socks from the bag and climb back into the front seat. “If you were staring so intently into my kitchen to avoid seeing me naked, then you — an honorable man and all — would have taken out Mercer before he got to Smith.”
“Dani…”
My lips twitch. “You had a clear shot. I know you did because you shot the guy in the doorway right between the freakin’ eyes. The only possible explanation is that you missed Mercer breaking in because you were staring at my tits—”
“That’s not what happened!”
“Then why didn’t you shoot Mercer before he attacked Smith? It would have saved us heaps of trouble…”
“I was checking the stairwells and missed it.”
“Is that right?”
“You can only see one target at a time through a scope,” he explains. “I missed it. It was bad timing on my part.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.” I narrow my eyes at him, studying his bearded face for any secret tells while keeping my laughter at bay.
He glares at me with sideways eyes. “I don’t know what to tell you, Dani.”
“You can tell me they looked gr
eat.”
“I really have no idea how they looked.”
A chuckle finally escapes my lips. “Okay, fine. I believe you.”
“Thank you.”
“For now.” He cranes his neck, exhaling a soft breath in frustration, but says nothing more. I slip on my socks and shoes. “Time to hit the road?”
“We need to make a quick stop first.”
“For what?”
“Supplies.”
“Like what? Snacks?”
“Guns.”
I blink. “Oh.”
“It won’t take long. My dealer knows I’m coming.”
“You have a dealer?” He nods. “What’s his name?”
Fox pauses for a moment as we change lanes. “Her name is Caleb.”
“Caleb? Your gun dealer is a girl with a boy’s name? How cliche.”
He smirks and licks his lips. “Tell me all about it, Dani.”
“Short for Danielle. At least, my mother wasn’t a hippie.”
“My mother is not a hippie.”
“She named you Fox.”
“It’s a cool name,” he defends. “Don’t get me started on Danielle Roxanne Roberts. I mean, what the hell is that?”
I pause, unable to contain the laugh in my throat. Nostalgia silences me even more. It’s strange how quickly old habits take over again. We’ve haven’t spoken in five years and we’re already tossing insults back and forth like nothing has changed.
Like siblings.
I reach for my left cheek to scratch an itch without thinking and my nail scrapes against the stitches holding my skin together. “Ouch—”
Fox looks over at me. “How’s that feeling?”
I check the mirror and peel back the bandage to be sure I didn’t do any more damage to it. “It’s all right.” I sigh with annoyance. “Any idea why he chose the face of all places?”
“I have the same scar.”
“You do?” I eye his dark beard and he slides a finger down his left cheek.
“Right here. He knew I’d make the connection.”
“When did you get it?”
He furrows his brow in thought. “It happened during my first mission in Snake Eyes. I screwed up and got made. The target had a thing for knives and managed to sneak in behind me, but…” His voice falls. “I was faster.”