Love and Wargames: A Bad Boy Hacker Romance Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Snake Eyes Reading Order

  Love and Wargames: A Bad Boy Hacker Romance

  Bonus Book

  Chapter 1: Boxcar

  Chapter 2: Caleb

  Chapter 3: Caleb

  Chapter 4: Boxcar

  Chapter 5: Boxcar

  Chapter 6: Caleb

  Chapter 7: Caleb

  Chapter 8: Boxcar

  Chapter 9: Caleb

  Chapter 10: Caleb

  Chapter 11: Boxcar

  Chapter 12: Caleb

  Chapter 13: Boxcar

  Chapter 14: Boxcar

  Chapter 15: Caleb

  Chapter 16: Caleb

  Chapter 17: Boxcar

  Chapter 18: Caleb

  Chapter 19: Boxcar

  Chapter 20: Caleb

  Chapter 21: Boxcar

  Chapter 22: Boxcar

  Chapter 23: Caleb

  Chapter 24: Boxcar

  Bonus Book

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Untouched: A Bad Boy MMA Romance

  Chapter 1: Who Are You?

  Chapter 2: I'm A Prisoner

  Chapter 3: Factory Equipment

  Chapter 4: Follow The Noise

  Chapter 5: Now Hit Me

  Chapter 6: It's Tradition

  Chapter 7: Promise Me Again

  Chapter 8: Get The Blood Off

  Chapter 9: You're Not A Monster

  Chapter 10: Start Over

  Chapter 11: Code Of Conduct

  Chapter 12: Girls And Bad Boys

  Chapter 13: I'll Take Care Of You

  Chapter 14: A Better Man

  Chapter 15: The Untouchable

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Tabatha Kiss

  Copyright

  LOVE AND WARGAMES:

  A BAD BOY HACKER ROMANCE

  SNAKE EYES | BOOK 3

  TABATHA KISS

  Copyright © 2016 by Tabatha Kiss

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form

  without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences only.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All characters detailed within are eighteen years of age or older.

  No characters engaging in sexual acts are blood-related.

  WARNING: This novel contains explicit descriptions of

  erotic and sexual acts that some may find offensive,

  including perverse adult language.

  Reader discretion advised.

  http://tabathakiss.com

  To sign up for exclusive updates on upcoming novels

  please click here: http://eepurl.com/bn_pKL

  The SNAKE EYES Series

  Stand-alone Romances.

  Interconnecting Stories.

  One Unforgettable Adventure.

  ::READING ORDER::

  #1: Bodyguard: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance

  #2: The Hitman’s Dancer: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance

  #3: Love and Wargames: A Bad Boy Hacker Romance

  LOVE AND WARGAMES:

  A BAD BOY HACKER ROMANCE

  SNAKE EYES | BOOK 3

  BY TABATHA KISS

  BOXCAR

  We got married two years ago.

  I haven’t seen her since.

  We met in Afghanistan. She was a soldier. I was a geek with a laptop.

  I never thought I stood a chance but a few secret trysts together proved otherwise.

  Tragedy struck and it tore us apart but I never stopped loving her.

  Now, Snake Eyes is looking for me and they sent two of their best assassins to track me down.

  There’s only one person I can trust to keep me safe and she hates my guts.

  Caleb Fawn. My estranged wife.

  This should be fun.

  CALEB

  I don’t believe in second chances.

  But this is Boxcar we’re talking about here.

  We met in Afghanistan. He was a smart-ass. I was his bodyguard.

  I wanted to keep it professional but just one look in his eyes was enough to melt my damn panties off.

  It couldn’t last. Being a soldier comes with a price and I wasn’t about to let him pay it.

  Now, Snake Eyes wants what he’s got and they’ll get it unless I help him.

  The only problem is that the two of us can’t be in the same room together without screaming at each other or tearing our clothes off. Sometimes both.

  Boxcar. My idiot husband.

  This should be a disaster.

  The SNAKE EYES Series

  Stand-alone Romances.

  Interconnecting Stories.

  One Unforgettable Adventure.

  After Love and Wargames, please enjoy

  Untouched: A Bad Boy MMA Romance

  as a bonus read!

  Thank you for reading!

  xoxo

  TK

  Chapter 1

  Boxcar

  Boston

  Present Day

  Rob from the rich. Give to the poor.

  It’s an ideology so beloved people have written songs about it. The classic tale of heroic vigilantism that people usually have no moral issues with despite it going against most standards of basic American economics.

  But I ain’t Robin Hood.

  And this rich prick had it coming anyway.

  Ian Botsford is the last in long line of assholes, assuming he never knocks up his young, co-ed girlfriend. On the outside, he seems like a pretty decent guy — your standard handsome, billionaire philanthropist — until you start peeling back the layers to discover a few particularly creepy traditions that reach pretty far up the Botsford family tree, including one annual party that’s so skeevy even I won’t touch it.

  Mr. Botsford and his wealthy, social elite buddies like to lure young ladies (the more jail-baity, the better) into his hotels to be auctioned off to the highest bidder for the night. I mean, I’m not exactly the picture of healthy morality, but come on…

  Gross.

  I’ve spent the last several weeks traveling to various Botsford Plaza Hotels around the country, inserting a special, completely undetectable, line of code into their payroll systems. Nothing too crazy, just a worm that eats up one percent of every dollar that passes through. Each Botsford Plaza moves — on average — one million dollars each month through their payroll accounts. So far, I’ve uploaded this worm to twenty-five of this bastard’s hotels. One percent of one million dollars times twenty-five. Let me do the math for you.

  Two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

  And I don’t even have to leave my desk.

  In the grand scheme of things, this will be a parking ticket for him. He probably won’t even notice the money is gone and by the time he does, I’ll be in Fiji doing jell-o shots off an islander’s voluptuous tits.

  Well… maybe not that last part but it still beats the hell out of Boston in May.

  I sit back in my desk chair and stare at the clock on the wall. Three minutes until midnight. The payroll department finalizes their transactions at twelve-oh-one east coast time every payday. They never miss it. It’s the very definition of clock work and quite possibly the most impressive thing about the staff at Botsford Plaza Hotels. They know their shit. From management to maids, those places are run tight as virgin priestesses.

  If only their C.E.O. wasn’t such a massive cunt.

  Twelve-oh-clock. Almost there…

  I crack my knuckl
es and sit up, looking through my own reflection staring back at me in my desktop computer monitor. It’s been a few days since I’ve shaved and even longer since I’ve hit the gym but I’ve been busy, dammit. What’s your excuse? I slide my glasses off and wipe the fingerprints clean before clacking the keyboard, preparing to activate the rather hungry worm slipping its way through twenty-five separate payroll systems. All I have to do is tell it to start chomping and my bank account fills up like magic.

  Twelve-oh-one. It’s showtime, Synergy.

  I move to activate the worm and my security system alerts loudly from my phone.

  Well, shit.

  I spin around in my chair and roll over to my second desk to check the monitors. Someone is outside of my apartment door — make that two someones — and they aren’t here to sell me girl scout cookies, that’s for sure. Unless the ladies changed their uniforms to include spec-ops black and tactical vests.

  One is male, mid-twenties with ash brown hair in desperate need of a trim — not that I’m one to talk about that. The other is female; petite but muscular with hair that looks like a beaten up red crayon. She stands in front of the security panel with a screwdriver in her hand, thinking she can probably brute force her way through my system. She can’t — but it’s cute that she’s trying.

  I enable voice decryption and flick on the microphone. “Um… Excuse me, madam,” I say. She instantly pauses and stares straight ahead into camera. “I don’t mean to alarm you two but the police have been notified and they’re on their way to this location.”

  “No, they aren’t.” She smiles at the camera.

  Say cheese.

  I open my facial recognition software and it goes to work, scanning every point and dimple of her little face. Now, I just have to keep her talking while it checks her against every law enforcement and identification database in the world.

  “Open the door, Mr. Carson,” she says. “We just want to talk.”

  “Oh, I’d love to chat with you, sweetheart,” I say. “Ditch the shadow and we’ll go have a drink. My treat.”

  She glances back and rolls her eyes at the guy as he chuckles softly. “Mr. Carson, we’re looking for a friend of yours.”

  My eyes shift to back to the facial recognition software. Sixty percent finished and not one damn match. “I don’t have any friends.”

  “Oh, sure you do.”

  “Which agency are you with?” I ask. “Let me see some credentials.”

  “We’re not with any agency. Our interests are more personal.”

  “You’re going to have to be more specific...”

  The software halts, matching her face to one name: Lilah Anne Hart. Deceased. Born in Madison, Wisconsin. Died in Madison, Wisconsin. And yet… here she is.

  “How’s this for specific, Bart…?” she says, her voice falling firmer. “Either you open this door and answer my questions right now or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll kick your fucking teeth in.”

  I raise my brow. “You talk a lot for a dead girl, Lilah.”

  She flexes her jaw in anger as I speed-read her file. Her parents died when she was seven, leaving her and her two brothers in the care of their ailing grandparents. No record of a home address, which is extremely strange… They went through a lot of trouble to erase it from existence.

  Why?

  I look back at the monitor. “And the gentleman behind you must be Elijah, your also dead twin. Hello there—”

  “Where is Fox Fitzpatrick?” she asks, cutting right to the damn chase.

  Holy shit.

  I cross-check their names against the master file — yeah, the master file, the one I cracked into to help Fox expose his former employer — the most deadly criminal organization on the planet.

  Snake Eyes.

  You saw the news that week. It was hard to miss. It all started with a dead almost-President and a kidnapped movie starlet and ended with her in the hospital and the F.B.I. announcing that an underground organization of assassins existed and anyone could be among them. The country has been a mess ever since. A modern day fucking witch hunt.

  And now, Lilah and Elijah Hart have come knocking. I scan their files again. Elite Snake Eyes agents. He’s a medic, for the most part, and she’s…

  Ah, crap.

  A chill of fear crawls down my spine. I don’t feel it often anymore but it definitely makes itself known whenever Snake Eyes is involved and right now there’s two of them standing at my damn door.

  “Who?” I ask, stalling.

  “Fox Fitzpatrick,” she repeats. “We know you know him. We know you were with him at the hotel in Colorado. Just tell us where he is now and I’ll leave your index fingers intact so you can keep—” she points her fingers and flexes them back and forth “—tapping away at those keys.”

  I stand up and grab my messenger bag off the floor. “I assure you, you are quite mistaken,” I say, rushing to unplug my laptop and shove it inside.

  Again, her lips curl on her smug, little face. “That’s all right. Our mistake. We’ll just go ask your wife instead. Perhaps she knows where her old army buddy is.”

  I freeze. “I don’t have a wife.”

  “Oh, we both know that’s not true.”

  Fuck.

  My heart tightens. I bite my tongue until I taste blood.

  Lilah’s eyebrow inches upward. “Mr. Carson?” she sings.

  I throw my bag over my shoulder and grab my phone, feeling completely torn in half by the fight-or-flight stand-off wrecking my sympathetic nervous system. There are two options here: I can stay and fight or I can crawl through the window and slide down the fire escape before they realize I’m gone — hopefully.

  I should stay. It’s the heroic thing to do, right? Stand my ground. Protect what’s mine. Once more unto the breach—

  “Mr. Carson?” Her eyes get even narrower as her impatience comes to a head.

  I step over to my desktop computer and activate the worm, filling my account with a quarter of a million untraceable dollars to run away with.

  See? I told you I wasn’t Robin Hood.

  My name is Bartholomew Eugene Carson — but you can call me Boxcar.

  Everyone else does.

  Chapter 2

  Caleb

  Los Angeles

  Present Day

  “Hey, sweetie — how much for the 9-iron?”

  I twitch. Nothing pisses me off more than when random, strange men start firing terms of endearment at me but I can’t risk losing another sale right now.

  I throw on my best customer-serving smile and crane my neck to get a better look over the counter. “Oh, that one is two-hundred and fifty.”

  “Dollars?!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He waddles towards the counter and his bulbous gut quivers beneath his shirt. “It’s a damn golf club.”

  “It’s an antique,” I point out, still smiling.

  His eyes blink as if I just spoke some foreign language. “It’s a golf club.”

  I hold my breath, trying very hard not to sigh with annoyance. “It’s a really nice golf club, sir...”

  “I’ll give you twenty for it.”

  Are you fucking kidding me?

  “I’m sorry, sir. Prices are final.”

  He scoffs and tosses the club to the floor. “What the hell kind of pawn shop is this? I want to speak to the manager.”

  I clear my throat. “You’re looking at her.”

  His cackle travels through my ears and down my spine. “No, honey. I mean the owner—”

  “Yeah. That’s me.”

  He looks me up and down and his eyes pause just a hair too long on my cleavage. “You? What are you, like, four-foot-nine?”

  “Five-five in heels but that’s not really relevant to the one-hundred-year-old golf club you just dropped on my damn floor.”

  “Yeah,” he chuckles, “and what are you gonna do about it, huh?”

  “Pick it up.”

  He keeps laughing an
d little drops of spit hit the counter between us. “Yeah, sure, honey — I’ll get right on that once you’re done sucking me off like a good, little girl.”

  I inhale a deep breath. Saturdays always bring in the absolute worst customers, especially the last ones of the night. There’s something about this city that attracts the most worthless scum in the world but I guess that’s one of the reasons why I strayed out here in the first place. It’s easy to get lost in the fray and blend in with the bright lights of old Hollywood Boulevard.

  City of Angels, my ass.

  “Pick it up,” I repeat.

  He steps back, humoring me. “Okay, okay…” He waves his hands and bends over to grab the club.

  I watch him closely — looking for any sudden flexes in his muscles. His fingers wrap around the thin grip, instantly going white with his tight squeeze. There’s a stiffness in his abdomen as he clenches up and he quickly inhales.

  Yep. That’s what I thought.

  He rises fast, spinning around to strike me with the club. I’m sure he has his reasons; an uppity woman having the audacity to “disrespect him” most likely reigning at the top of his list. I’ve dealt with insecure fuckwads like him in the past and I’m positive he won’t be the last of them.

  I easily block the blow with one hand, wrapping my fingers around his wrist and holding it in the air. He tries to tug away but he can’t. The surprise in his eyes is absolutely delicious.

  “Apologize,” I say, calm as standing water.

  “What the fuck—”

  I twist his hand, bending it just a touch more than its meant to, and he squeals like a little, pink piglet. The club slips from his hand and I grab it as his instincts kick in. He tries to fight back but not before I pull him down to the counter and hold him against it with the club, pushing it hard into the back of his neck like a rolling pin.

  “Porky, I’m going to ask again and then I’m going to get mad,” I say. “Apologize, please.”