Brian snorted. “I can’t believe you just said that with a straight face.”
He wanted me to be afraid. Well, he was messing with the wrong witch. “This is my building.”
“Only because your boyfriend stole it from me.”
“Landon didn’t steal anything from you.” I was beyond furious. “You moved on me. Either you didn’t realize the town would stand with me or you didn’t care.”
Brian’s eyes narrowed. “You set me up. You had me fire you because you knew it would work out in your favor.”
That was the most ludicrous thing I’d ever heard. “I didn’t set you up. You did it to yourself. William stipulated in his will that you had to keep me on. You tried to oust me the first chance you got.”
“You wouldn’t get with the program,” Brian seethed, clenching and unclenching his hands. “I told you what we needed to do to save the newspaper. You refused to get on board with my plan ... and now I’ve lost my family’s legacy.”
“You didn’t want to save the newspaper,” I argued. “It brings in good business, especially considering how other newspapers run so close to the margins these days. The Whistler has a built-in advertising pool that brings in steady income. You wanted more.”
“Is that so terrible?”
I shrugged. “It’s unrealistic. This newspaper can’t deliver what you want it to. Your grandfather realized that. I think that’s why he demanded you keep me on. He knew you wouldn’t be able to wrap your head around the businesses in this town.”
“Is that what you think?” Brian’s tone was cold, to the point I reassessed my situation. He’d effectively cut me off from the exit. That felt deliberate. This felt more dangerous than I initially grasped.
“Obviously you feel differently,” I said. “I don’t know what to tell you, Brian. I don’t know what it is you want to hear.”
“I want my business back.”
“No.”
“No?” His eyes went wide, and for a moment I thought his pupils were much larger. I wrote it off as a trick of the shadows, but a small flame of doubt niggled at the back of my brain.
“It’s my newspaper.” On this one point I would never back down. “I put the stories together. I deal with the advertisers. I schedule profiles ... and business stories ... and I lay out the front page. You never did any of that.”
“I was the brains. You were the labor.”
“And yet now I’m both.”
The growl that gurgled up in his throat had my blood running cold.
“You stole my business,” he seethed. “You stole my birthright. You and that second-rate FBI agent. You cast a spell on him. That’s how you got him to steal my newspaper. At first, I thought it was him. Now I realize it’s you. You made him do what he did.”
I worked my jaw, uncertain. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
“Don’t lie to me!” Brian exploded and took a menacing step toward the desk. My heart rate picked up. “You’re a witch,” he insisted. “I knew the truth before I left. Your aunt cursed me a few times.”
“I ... think you should probably lay off the drinking before five o’clock,” I offered softly. “You’re talking nonsense.”
“And you’re lying. I get it.” He shifted his head so I could get a better view of his eyes in the limited lobby light and my heart shuddered when I saw they were black. “I didn’t understand when I was here before. I couldn’t figure it out.”
My throat was dry. “You couldn’t figure what out?”
“All of it. I didn’t understand why my grandfather included you in my inheritance. I didn’t understand why everybody in this town seemed so enamored with you. Even I was enamored with you for a few minutes ... and then you brought in the fed.
“What do you see in him?” he continued. “I’ve been over this in my head a million times. I figured if I couldn’t beat you, I could join with you and take control of the newspaper that way. But he was always in the way.”
“You’ve been taken over by a shade,” I said. “Did you make a deal with him? Did you call him to you?” A horrible thought occurred to me. “Did you do this just to get back at me?”
Brian exhaled heavily and looked to the ceiling. “Everything always comes back to you, doesn’t it, Bay? This entire town is your playground and the rest of us are supposed to bow as you lord it over us.”
“That’s not true.”
“No?” Brian brought his eyes back to mine. “Things are about to change, Bay.”
My stomach rumbled. “How do you figure?”
“Because I no longer have to wonder how you stole my life. I’ve given up trying to figure it out.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To take it back.”
I stretched out my fingers, aching to use my magic. “You’re not taking anything from me,” I said. “You should just leave now.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” he confirmed with a snake-like hiss. “I’m here to take back what’s mine. You’ll no longer be part of the equation when I’m finished.”
“Then I guess this was inevitable.” I flung a cloud of blue magic at his face. “Obscuro,” I muttered before bolting to the right.
He viciously swore as he tried to peer through the murk I’d created. I was already in the hallway, lying in wait and prepared to strike.
If he thought he was going to attack me on my turf, he had another thing coming. He was done taking things from me.
27
Twenty-Seven
Landon would’ve wanted me to run.
Instead, I slipped into the hallway and erected a magical barrier to pen Brian in the lobby while I remained safe on the other side.
I had questions, and only he could answer them.
“What was that?” Brian called out when he’d recovered from the confusion spell I threw at him. A normal human wouldn’t
