Stepbrother Thief by Violet Blaze Read Free Book Online Page B

for a moment and I turn away, giving him time to get his emotions in check. Luckily, he's a master at it, and it only takes a second.
    “I wanted to talk to you about the short-term.”
    “Short-term?” I ask, looking up at the hotel. It's a local place this time, somewhere I've never heard of, but it looks nice. “You mean here?”
    Gill takes a deep breath and walks along beside me, his boots squishing into the earth, leaving marks that my bare feet don't. He keeps his gaze straight ahead, but the muscles in his neck are tight, like it's an effort not to look over at me.
    “I mean a safe house, some place you and Dad and Solène can stay while we wait for things to settle down. We talked about this before, remember?” I search my mind, but I come up with a dozen plus conversations about this and that and the other thing. Honestly, when Gilleon first showed back up, I was so stunned that I didn't know what to do. Our initial conversations are all blurred generalizations in my brain at this point.
    “Uh, I guess?” I brush some hair back from my face, but the wind grabs it again and twists it into a mess of honey blonde strands. “Why can't we just stay at the hotel?”
    “Because there are credit cards involved and no matter how good Aveline is at what she does, at some point, someone could find you here. I won't risk that.” He snarls that last bit out, passion lacing his words and drawing goose bumps up on my arms. Interesting. I raise my face to the sky, to the gray clouds and the small shafts of sunshine that manage to sneak past them.
    “Okay, so can I go out and buy a place or something?” I look over at Gill and try to smile. “You promised me big money, brother.” His lips twitch, but he doesn't let the expression take over his mouth.
    “I did, yes, but a house purchase is big, traceable, especially one that happens in cash.” Gill runs his tongue across his lower lip. Uh oh. I'm not going to like what he's going to say. Great. “For a few weeks, maybe a few months, I need you to stay in a safe house.”
    “Gill,” I start, trying to keep my calm, trying not to let the freak-out that I can feel looming beneath my skin come loose. “I left my apartment in Paris. I left my job. I left my boyfriend.” Breathe, Regi, breathe. “Please tell me I'm not going to regret all of that.” I did it for you. I don't want to think like that, can't think like that. I won't hold Gill responsible for my decisions, not even if he had an influence on them. And I won't start pitying myself either. I can, however, let myself get pissed at deviations in the plan. “I thought this was all set in stone, Gilleon.”
    “It was,” he says, his voice low and dark. I have a feeling most people would shit a brick at the sound of it. But even if he's a stranger, I know him well enough to know that this is Gilleon going into defensive mode. “But some things have come up that I'd hoped wouldn't happen. It doesn't mean the plan isn't going as it should, only that we're on a slightly curvier path than before. The safe house I'd planned for you isn't good enough. I need you closer to me.”
    The fine hairs on my neck stand up straight and I suck in an involuntary breath.
    “All of you—Dad, Solène.” Gill stops and turns to me, his eyes so intense that I have to look away. Ouch. All of that ice in there, that pain, when does it stop? Why does he have to keep directing it at me? “You'll stay at my place until things blow over.”
    My heart stops.
    “Your place?” I ask, imagining some small, featureless apartment that Gill probably uses once a year or less. He travels all over the world, that much at least I do know. When I'm having a good day and Cliff doesn't think it'll upset me, he'll toss a tidbit or two about Gill out there, just some general he's in Germany right now, Bavaria actually or something like that. I didn't even know that he had a place in Seattle.
    “I know what you're thinking,” he tells me, but I