Page 99 of Burn With Me

“I-I need a moment…” My mother bites down on her lower lip as she cuts him off and once again avoids his touch when he moves toward her.

“I wanted to tell you in private,” I say, making it up as I go along. “I didn’t want to say it like this, but—”

“Please, Aurora.” She lifts her hand, stopping me. “Not now.” Her head pops up and she glances around. “Carmen? Where’s Carmen?”

“Emmy?” As if she was waiting for precisely this moment, Aunt Carmen appears with Marcus at her back.

My mother leaves me and lurches towards her. I watch her go, feeling bereft and helpless. It was cruel but necessary, I tell myself. Whatever it was, though, I don’t have long to contemplate it because as Carmen’s arms go around her, my mother stumbles from the room. Carmen looks back with a frown creasing her brow. The moment she’s out of earshot, a hard hand grabs my arm, roughly jerking me to the side.

“You little fucking cunt,” Damien snaps, his voice lowering.

A sharp pain squeezes my bicep as he squeezes to the point of twisting my skin in his grip. I resist wincing in pain as I glare up at him. “Is that mask of yours finally dropping?” I taunt him.

“You have no idea what you’ve just done,” he says.

“I saved my mother from a man like you,” I reply. “I know exactly what I’ve done.”

His grip tightens further until I can’t hide my grimace. Damien leans in, dropping his voice until only I can hear. Even as Marcus approaches, his expression raging—Damien speaks, “You just earned yourself my wrath, little girl,” he says, “and I assure you, the wrath of a man such as me is not to be taken lightly.”

I recoil from him, and when I pull my arm from his grasp, he lets go. “I’m not afraid of you,” I snap.

“Rori.” Marcus steps between us as Damien arches a brow at him once before returning his attention to me.

Damien looks like he wants to say something, but instead of doing so, he merely straightens his suit coat and then turns away, striding off with his head held high like the blue blood that he is.

Marcus and I both watch him. My arm aches and when I glance down, I note the red marks that will, no doubt, grow darker over time.

“Are you okay?” Marcus asks. Before I can answer he glances around and gently takes me by the shoulders to turn me towards the exit. “Come on, let’s talk outside.”

I look back, scanning the room for Isaac, but he’s gone. I don’t see him at all. Or his friends—either of them. Marcus pushes me towards the exit and out into the hallway.

“What the hell did you say to him?” Marcus barks, distracting me. “What did you say to Mom?”

My heels click along the hard floor of the corridor as we head back the same way we came at the beginning of the night. I sigh. “I told her that Damien was cheating on her,” I admit.

Marcus jerks to a stop, but when I keep walking, he hurries to catch up. “He is?”

I shrug. “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe. Probably.”

Marcus is quiet for a moment as I head towards the coat check. He doesn’t say anything as I retrieve my coat from the lady behind the counter and then he does as well. In fact, he stays silent until we reach the abandoned front porch of the mansion.

“So, you lied to her?” Marcus clarifies. “You told her that Damien was cheating on her to get her to divorce him?”

I pull my coat closer and wrap my arms around myself. “I don’t know that she’ll divorce him over what I said,” I reply. “I don’t have any proof, and while I can’t believe that Damien really loves her, without proof, she won’t have a real reason to leave him.”

Marcus stares at me. I can feel the heat of his gaze against the side of my face, but I don’t turn to meet his gaze. “Then what was the point?” he asks.

“To sow doubt,” I tell him. “Maybe he isn’t cheating. Maybe he is.” I tilt my head up to the night sky, gazing out past the two statues on either side of the round driveway. “Either way, she won’t be able to stop thinking about it now. It will always be in the back of her mind for however long they’re together. Every time he goes away—every time he has to work—she’ll wonder to herself.”

“Rori … that’s—” Marcus is interrupted by a valet’s approach.

“Do you need your vehicle, sir?” the man asks.

Marcus starts to shake his head, but pauses to look back at me. For a long moment, neither of us says a word, and then Marcus looks back to the man and nods. “Yeah, here.” He withdraws a ticket from his pocket and hands it off.

Once again, we drift into silence. Finally, he speaks. “Rori. Mom is going to find out that you weren’t honest.”

“Is she?” I ask. “When are we ever honest with each other—her and I?”

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