Read Online Cold Burn of Magic by Jennifer Estep - Free Book Online Page B

not, I bared my teeth at him.
    â€œYou touch me, and I will knock you into next week.”
    His eyebrows shot up, and his gaze flicked past me. Footsteps sounded behind us, and too late, I remembered his friends. I glanced over my shoulder. Sure enough, Felix and the older man had come up behind me. I backed up so that the four of us were standing in a loose circle, even though all of them were on one side with just me on the other.
    â€œYep, that’s her,” Felix said. “That’s the girl from the pawnshop. The one who saved Devon.”
    I opened my mouth to tell him that he was wrong, when my phone buzzed.
    â€œI imagine that’s your friend Mo, asking you to come along quietly,” the older man said, his rich, cultured voice tinged with an English accent. “Why don’t you look and see?”
    Even more suspicious now, I backed up another step. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and glanced at the message. Sure enough, it was from Mo.
    Â 
    Go with Reginald. Will explain more when I see you.
    Â 
    I glanced up at the three guys and texted him back.
    Â 
    You can’t be serious.
    Go with Reginald. No fighting. *Please*
    Â 
    There was that stupid please again. But really, I didn’t have a choice. I could take out Felix, but golden boy and the older man looked like they would present more of a problem. Besides, I was already getting enough strange looks from the kids streaming by on the sidewalk. They might not have noticed me before, but I was very interesting now.
    So I sighed and texted Mo back.
    Â 
    Fine. But if they murder me, it’s *your* fault.
    Done!
    Â 
    I glared at the phone. Trust Mo to be totally blasé about my getting into a car with three strangers. I waited but he didn’t respond, so I slid my phone into my pocket again.
    â€œWhich one of you is Reginald?” I muttered.
    The older man gave me a very deep, very formal bow. “I am, miss. William Reginald, with the Sinclair Family.” He gestured at golden boy. “And this is Grant Sanderson. I believe you know Felix Morales already.”
    I had to work very hard to keep from showing any sort of surprise. William Reginald looked and sounded like a glorified butler because that’s exactly what he was. As the Sinclair Family butler, he ran the mansion, overseeing the day-to-day operations of everything from the kitchen staff to the gardeners to who got admitted inside to have an audience with the higher-ups. I’d heard Mo complain more than once that getting past Reginald without an appointment was harder than selling life insurance to a dead man. And Grant and Felix were obviously more than just regular guards.
    This was turning way more serious than I’d thought.
    â€œAs I said before, we are with the Sinclair Family,” Reginald repeated, taking my silence for worry, which he was spot-on about. “We mean you no harm.”
    Yeah. Right. Because getting into a black SUV with Family goons always worked out so well for folks like me.
    Reginald tipped his head, his lined face neutral, while Grant flashed me a brief, but wary smile.
    But Felix did a most surprising thing—he winked, then gave me a slow, knowing grin, flirting with me just like he had in the pawnshop. I rolled my eyes, but that only seemed to amuse him more. I had a feeling that Felix Morales knew exactly how pretty he was and used it to get whatever girl caught his eye. Cute, cocky, and arrogant. A bad-boy combination if ever there was one.
    They didn’t ask me my name, I assumed because they knew it already. They wouldn’t have been here otherwise. Obviously, this had something to do with the attack at the Razzle Dazzle, although I couldn’t imagine what they wanted with me. I’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had been stupid enough to get involved. That’s all, and that’s all that I wanted it to be.
    Especially where the Sinclair Family was