Read Takeover: A Step-Brother Romance (The Legacy Series Book 1) for Free Online Page B

sprint.
    Instead, I searched my purse for the phone. Mike and Josiah always carried guns. I regretted never taking up their offer to learn to shoot. A small canister of mace jingled on my key ring. I had no idea if it even worked anymore, but I tossed the cap away. If it was empty, maybe my aching lungs wouldn’t swallow enough mace to hurt me?
    Or maybe it’d cause a full-on attack.
    Only one way to find out.
    Glassware stacked around me, but my only real weapon was a lab stool. The acids and strong bases locked up tight in the storage room. The windows didn’t open completely, and we converted our second cubby into a larger eye-wash station and emergency shower. No hiding in there.
    The footsteps snapped against the cement hall.
    My pulse fluttered.
    I was trapped.
    Thud .
    Quiet.
    Thud .
    I counted my breaths. Far too few to be effective. I heaved the nearest stool over my head.
    The door kicked open. I screamed and slammed the stool against a man dressed completely in black leather. He grabbed the chair before it crashed against his ski-mask. He jerked me off-balance.
    I spun from his grasp, but my laptop clattered to the ground. The book bag followed.
    He lunged. My soil ecology books swung into his jaw.
    I thought I was quick, but my attacker was bigger, stronger, and far more aggressive. His hands laced over my waist and lifted me from the ground. I screamed, throwing fists and kicks against anything soft and squishy.
    Except nothing about the mugger was soft.
    “ Let me go !”
    Something connected. Hard. My toes felt like they broke, but the attacker slumped. I kicked again, missing the fleshy bits I had already pummeled. I nailed his knee with a swift, deliberate aim.
    He dropped me, but I picked myself up faster than the asshole clawing who needed the wall to stand on his injured leg.
    The mace didn’t mist so much as it jetted, but the shot of liquid capsicumdosed him with aggravation.
    Run.
    The pepper spray showered the lab, and the spiced air tore razor-bladed pain in my throat and lungs. I coughed and abandoned my bags.
    He didn’t follow. I sprinted up the basement steps, collapsing at the top in a wheeze that scared me more than the attack.
    I groped for my inhaler in my pocket.
    “Fu—”
    I didn’t have the strength to swear. The inhaler tucked in my freaking purse which was probably long gone with the mugger. Damn. I didn’t carry that much money on me. The idiot attacker would make off with forty dollars, a student ID, and my emergency medication. Hell, the biology textbooks that clattered against his face were the most expensive thing in the lab.
    I burst outside and bolted to my car. The clicking locks echoed. A symphony in my fear. My fingers trembled as I pushed the ignition, but the rumble reassured me. Like my father’s casual whistle as he kicked my butt in tennis or my brothers’ fist-fights at the base of the stairs.
    Comforting. Normal.
    I managed to breathe. Kinda. I’d just drive home. Find my medication. Calm down, call the police.
    Recover my damn lab journal and laptop before the thief made off with something more important, more valuable, and absolutely crucial to the survival of my family.
    Christ, before the mugger ruined something that had the opportunity to revolutionize agriculture and significantly raise yields in dry, arid climates. Not the most riveting way to save the world, but it’d be enough to put food in a lot of people’s bellies and conserve a hell of a lot more water.
    My chest ached. I had to get home.
    Breathe in.
    Breathe out.
    I peeled out of the parking lot and sped down the deserted main street.
    Twin headlights blinded me from my rearview mirror.
    A car?
    No. I swore again, wasting more air on useless fear.
    Motorcycles.
    Goddamn it.
    I lived in Cherrywood Valley long enough to realize the Atwoods weren’t the only powerful force dominating the markets. I avoided the bikers as Dad instructed.
    But these guys weren’t the local Anathema thugs.
    The