Burn for Me (Hidden Legacy #1)(39)

He shrugged, a slow, deliberate movement. “It seemed like the most expedient way to obtain the information. And let’s be honest, you weren’t exactly harmed. I even took you home.”

“You dumped me on my doorstep. According to my mother, I looked half dead.”

“Your mother exaggerates. A third dead at most.”

I stared at him. Wow. Just wow.

Our food arrived. Record time.

“I have no idea where Adam is hiding.” I grabbed a piece of salmon roll, smeared some wasabi on it, and stuffed it in my mouth.

“I realize that now. Also the fact that you’re meeting him alone, without any means to capture him, indicates that House Pierce hired MII and you to talk him into surrendering himself into their tender embrace.” He leaned forward. His blue eyes focused on me, his gaze direct and difficult to hold. “MII employs combat-trained mages. Why would they send you? What are you? You’re something. Not a telepath, but something.”

Wouldn’t you like to know? I chewed enthusiastically. Mmm, mmm, yummy sushi. Sorry, can’t talk with my mouth full.

“What’s your take on Adam?” he asked.

I kept chewing, playing for time and trying to think of the right words.

“I promise I won’t share.”

I sipped my tea. “Adam is volatile and chaotic. Every emotion is intense. He craves attention and desperately wants to be seen as cool, almost like a teenager. He likes a challenge, so when someone isn’t instantly knocked off their feet with his sheer awesomeness, he’ll work to prove that he’s awesome. But, like a teenager, he is self-absorbed and can be cruel. He hates rejection, and his need to impress can flip into hate fast. He’s smarter than he lets on, persistent, and dangerous.”

“But you think you can talk him into surrendering himself to his House?”

“It’s possible.” I had captured his attention, which was in my favor, but he was lying to me, which wasn’t. “I cut off his money. Combined with the manhunt, it should put enough pressure on him. He’s flirting with the idea. What’s your take on Adam?”

“A spoiled rich brat with too much free time, a daddy complex, and a sadistic streak a mile wide.”

Okay. We were on the same page then.

Mad Rogan leaned slightly forward, focused on me. “What if I told you that he’s stringing you along?”

“What makes you think that?”

He took a small tablet out of the inner pocket of his suit and passed it to me. I took it, careful not to touch his fingers.

“A show of good faith,” he said.

True. A video was paused on the screen. I flicked it on with a swipe of my finger. A recording of the street in front of First National Bank, probably from a security camera. Was that the video the cops had? “How did you get this?”

“I have my ways.”

On the screen, two figures, one tall, the other shorter and slighter, walked into the camera’s view and stopped before the glass-and-marble facade of the bank. The taller figure, in a familiar leather jacket, set down a metal canister, pulled out a piece of chalk, and crouched, drawing on the asphalt. I couldn’t see what he was drawing, but my money was on a magic circle.

Thirty seconds later, the man spread his feet to shoulder width and raised his arms, elbows bent, fingers of the hands toward each other as if he were holding a large, invisible ball. The other figure opened the canister and began carefully pouring a thick, viscous liquid in front of the first man. A fire dashed through the stream, a quiet, golden flame contained in the invisible sphere between the first man’s hands. The shorter man kept pouring. The fire blazed brighter and brighter.

“Napalm B,” Mad Rogan said. “It’s a thickening agent that makes jellied gasoline.”

“I know. Benzene, gasoline, and polystyrene.” Grandma Frida had outfitted more than one House vehicle with a military-grade flamethrower. Napalm B also burned for almost ten minutes and generated temperatures that beat even Adam Pierce’s fire. It was one of the worst things humankind had ever invented.

Mad Rogan raised his eyebrows. I must’ve surprised him.

The ball of fire between the man’s hands had grown to the size of a basketball. It churned and roiled, a furious inferno contained by magic. The flame brightened to yellow, then blazed with white. The taller man turned, and I saw his face, lit up by the glow of the fireball. Adam Pierce.

The shorter man—probably Gavin Waller—raised his hands palms out and pushed. The fireball vanished. The windows of the bank shattered, and flames shot out. First National exploded from the inside out. The fire roared like an enraged grizzly.

That’s right, Gavin Waller was a short-range teleporter. Adam and Gavin stared at the flames, two dark silhouettes against the inferno.

Gavin’s image looked slightly distorted. The next second, the distortion disappeared.

Wait a minute.

I rewound the video a few seconds. Two minutes thirty-one seconds, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, missed it. Thirty-two, pause.

Gavin’s silhouette stood frozen on the screen. He was holding something rectangular, and it was bulging out on the left side. I zoomed in closer. A box. He was holding some kind of box. When did he get it?

I rewound the video back. The box popped into Gavin’s hands a millisecond after the fireball disappeared. “What is Gavin Waller holding? He teleported something into his hands.”