Burn for Me: A Hidden Legacy Novel Read Free

start screaming. Some might freeze—those are your fear biters. Push too far and they will go crazy. John Rutger went flat. All emotions drained from his face. His eyes opened wide, and behind them a hard, calculating mind evaluated the situation with icy precision.
    “Okay,” John said quietly. “Let’s talk about this. It’s more than us. It’s also the kids. Come, I’ll take you home.” He reached for her arm.
    “Don’t touch me,” she hissed.
    “Liz,” he said, his voice perfectly reasonable, his eyes focused and predatory, like the hard stare of a sniper sighting his target. “This isn’t a conversation for the hotel lobby. Don’t make a scene. We’re better than that. I’ll drive.”
    There was no way I could let Liz get into his car. His eyes told me that if I let him gain control of her, I would never see her again.
    I moved fast and put myself between them.
    “Nevada?” Liz blinked, thrown off track.
    “Walk away,” I told her.
    “Who is this?” John focused on me.
    That’s right, look at me, don’t look at her. I’m a bigger threat. I body-blocked Liz, keeping myself between them.
    “Liz, go to your car. Don’t drive home. Go to a family member’s house. Now.”
    Muscles on John’s jaw bulged as he locked his teeth.
    “What?” Liz stared at me.
    “You hired her to spy on me.” John shrugged his shoulders and turned his neck like a fighter loosening himself for a fight. “You brought her into our private life.”
    “Now!” I barked.
    Liz turned and fled.
    I raised my hands in the air and backed away toward the exit, making sure the camera in the hotel lobby had me in plain view. Behind me the door hissed as Liz made a break for it.
    “It’s over, Mr. Rutger. I’m not a threat.”
    “You nosy bitch. You and that harpy are in it together.”
    At the desk the concierge frantically mashed buttons on a phone.
    If I’d been on my own, I would have turned and run. Some people stand their ground no matter what. In my line of work, a stint at the hospital, coupled with a bill you can’t pay because you’re not working, cures that notion really fast. Given a chance, I’d run like a rabbit, but I had to buy Liz time to get to her car.
    John raised his arms, bent at the elbow, palms up, fingers apart, as if he was holding two invisible softballs in his hands. The mage pose. Oh shit.
    “Mr. Rutger, don’t do this. Adultery isn’t illegal. You haven’t committed any crimes yet. Please don’t do this.”
    His eyes stared at me, cold and hard.
    “You can still walk away from this.”
    “You thought you could humiliate me. You thought you’d embarrass me.” His face darkened as ghostly magic shadows slid across his skin. Tiny red sparks ignited above his palms and flared. Bright crimson lightning danced, stretching to the tips of his fingers.
    Where the hell was the hotel security? I couldn’t take him down first—it would be an assault, and we couldn’t afford to be sued—but they could.
    “Let me show you what happens to people who try to humiliate me.”
    I dashed to the side.
    Thunder pealed. The glass doors of the hotel shattered. The blast wave picked me up off the floor. I saw the chair from the lounge fly at me and I threw my hands up, curling in midair. The wall smashed into my right shoulder. The chair hit my side and face. Ow.
    I crashed down next to the shards of a ceramic pot that had held a plant two seconds ago, then I scrambled to my feet.
    The red sparks ignited again. He was getting ready for Round Two.
    They say a hundred-and-thirty-pound woman has no chance against an athletic two-hundred-pound man. That’s a lie. You just have to make a decision to hurt him and then do it.
    I grabbed a heavy potsherd and hurled it at him. It crashed against his chest, knocking him off balance. I ran to him, yanking a Taser from my pocket. He swung at me. It was hard and fast, and it caught me right in the stomach. Tears welled in my eyes. I lunged forward and jammed the