Smoldering Heart_Fleming Brothers [Book 1]

by Jennifer Vester

  Noah smirked. “Our brother, Brock, can track her. It’s a long story but everyone in our family gets one. It’s Brock’s way of keeping track of us, because he’s paranoid as hell, but it looks like today it’s going to pay off. Owen gave her a shot two months ago, and Rachel needs one.”

  My eyebrow raised as I looked at him. Rachel wasn’t exactly a spouse or girlfriend, but I wasn’t going to argue.

  “Okay, brother,” Brock’s voice said over the phone. I put the phone on speaker so that the three of us could hear.

  “Go ahead.”

  “It looks like she’s headed east. Coming up on Nettle Street, crossing, turning on Garner east.”

  Bill looked up at me. “I know that area.”

  He stepped away to grab one of the patrolmen and started barking at him after a moment. He turned away and started dialing on his phone.

  “Looks like Bill may know something. Noah and I are headed to the car. Just keep feeding us the information.”

  “Got it.”

  We jogged toward my car, and I turned back to see Bill following. He climbed into the backseat when we reached it, and I threw the car in gear. A patrolman’s siren beeped at me, and I saw a man in uniform waving. I was backing down the street whether the guy wanted to fucking chat or not.

  Bill ended his phone call and Brock kept talking. “Still east on Garner Road.”

  Turning the car toward a main road, I headed east as fast as the roads would allow.

  “I know that area,” Bill said. “One of the fires we showed you guys was on an old farm out there. I don’t know why it didn’t click earlier, but I just called Dale and he confirmed. It was Patrick’s grandparent’s farm.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Noah muttered. “I knew that guy was squirrely. Rachel said he’s been asking Maddie out on a date for over a year now.”

  Bill pointed to a street ahead. “Right, go up two streets and left. Yeah, well, he joined the academy after the fire but then he failed the qualifications.”

  “Based on what?” I asked, as I maneuvered the car in the direction Bill indicated.

  “He froze up. Twice, in simulations. Didn’t move. Nearly caused a disaster on one of those. I was there. The kid just wouldn’t move, and completely shut down. He eventually passed, but we decided not to hire him full time.”

  “Why would a guy who freezes up during fire simulations start setting fires?”

  “Power over fear,” Brock said, then continued with street name locations.

  “Hmm,” Noah said. “Maybe one part, but don’t arsonists get some sexual thrill out of it?”

  “Boys, it’s a well known fact that firemen are typically fire bugs. They aren’t arsonists, but there’s a fascination with it. They love fighting the uncontrollable beast. There’s a thrill to conquering it, and the fascination remains.”

  “So, the thrill was fighting it?”

  Bill sighed. “In this case, it might have been a means to an end. He’s always bragging to Maddie about the calls he’d gone on. She said it was funny to hear him get excited about it.”

  “Great,” I growled. “And now that he’s feeling threatened, he’s taken off with her. I’m sure my proposal sent him off the edge. Fuck!”

  “They just turned on Pine Grove Road.”

  “They’re close to the farm, we’re going to take a back way to get there fast. Turn left at the light and it’ll run us out to a road that goes around the backside of the farm. Dale is on his way out there, if he’s not already there.”

  “How is Dale going to help?” I growled.

  “He was once a Marine, son. Figured he’d be the best person to call in a pinch.”

  I nodded and spoke to Noah. “Can you dig out my gun from the glovebox? I’ve got a shotgun in the trunk for you.”

  “Yeah.”

  The paved street we were on ended past a light, and the car bounced slightly when we hit a dirt road. They were solid enough but, every once in a while, the tires would hit a rough patch or some ice and would jerk a little in my hands. We were going to be lucky if I didn’t wrap us around one of the trees that lined the road.

  “Slow down, Owen, it’s up here on the right. It brought us closer to the house than the other road would have.”

  I slowed down but kept driving until we were about fifty yards away. Then I braked, cut the lights and parked. As soon as the engine was off, I grabbed my gun from the console where Noah had set it and took off into the trees. Noah and Bill called out to me from behind, but I wasn’t going to wait another minute to get to Maddie.

  I was nearly to the house when someone stepped in front of me and brought me up short.

  “It’s Dale. Where’s Bill and your brother?”

  “Coming, they’re behind me.”

  “Patrick just pulled up about five minutes ago. He was dragging Maddie in the door. Boy, that girl has some fight. He had to work for it.”

  “Are they inside?”

  Dale pointed toward the building in front of us. “He took her in there.”

  “Dale,” my brother whispered loudly. “Bill fell behind. Said he thinks he twisted his ankle. Owen and I have this.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Dale said. He looked at me then at the building. “Careful, he’s not much of a fighter. Probably give up if you look at him wrong but remember those gas cannisters. God knows how many he has around here.”

  He disappeared into the dark, and Noah appeared beside me. “How’s Bill?”

  “He’s fine. I told him to sit this one out and wait for the police. I don’t want either of those old guys getting in the middle of this if it goes bad. Maddie and Rachel would never forgive us.”

  “Agreed,” I said gruffly. “Dale just reminded me about those fucking gas cannisters. We can’t use our weapons inside.”

  “We don’t have to. Just a show of force.”

  “I don’t think he’ll be intimidated. He knows what happens if we shoot. Then he wins, and we lose. Park the shotgun by the door. We’ll stash the pistol inside just in case.”

  Noah held up something in the dark. “Good thing I brought these.”

  He slid something in my hand and I recognized what it was. It was one of two, seven-inch knives that our brother had given us a long time ago when we started our bodyguard business. Deadly, and yet somewhat funny because he had engraved each of the handles. We thought they were a joke until we had both been pressed to use them.

  One was engraved with the word torment and the other with torture. Two words that our brother said he thought of often when we were younger.

  “Hmm, haven’t had to use these in a while.”

  “They were in your bag. They’re effective, just ugly. Better hope Madison never finds your stash of goodies.”

  “It’ll be going in the attic.”

  I stuffed the sheathed blade in the belt at my back. Noah held his as we walked toward the door. He discarded the shotgun, setting the knife case on the ground beside it. The metal glinted in the small light of the moon as I watched him.

  I crept along the wall until I got to a small window and looked inside. The door we were going through looked like it led into possibly a kitchen. The lights were off, but I could see the shadow of a table in the room. A small sliver of light was coming from somewhere deeper in the house.

  I motioned to Noah to test the door, while keeping my eyes on the interior of the house. If he heard us, then he might come to investigate.

  Noah gave me a low whistle, and I glanced at him as he eased into the house through the door. Still no movement inside.

  Following him quickly, I paused when we entered the kitchen, and set my pistol on the corner of the counter. Leaving it felt odd, but I wasn’t going to risk blowing us all up just because I wanted to shoot the guy.

  We moved through the house as one. Pausing and checking around the corners until we reached a long hallway that led to an open door. Beyond the threshold, a dull light illuminated a large garage. It looked like it was being used to store
equipment for the farm.

  There were two small tractors, several tires, a work bench, and miscellaneous items hanging from the walls. They looked rusted, and in ill repair, like they had been forgotten with the passage of time.

  I couldn’t see Maddie, but I heard Patrick talking. Whether it was to himself or to her I couldn’t guess. There was, however, a second entrance to the room that I spotted. An open door that looked like it led outside. Patrick was definitely in the room, but the light source was around the corner and nearer to that open door.

  I pointed it out to Noah, who nodded and crept quietly back down the hallway to go around to that entrance. I ticked off the seconds in my head that it would take him to reach it. It seemed to stretch as I heard Patrick’s voice rise and fall.

  When I felt like I’d given Noah the amount of time he needed, I entered the room quietly, and stood around the corner from where he was talking.

  “You would have liked it here. It’s quiet and I know you like your alone time to think. You don’t think I notice these things, but I know,” Patrick said.

  I heard a muffled reply from someone with a lighter voice but didn’t hear the words.

  Creeping to the furthest edge of the corner, I nearly knocked into what looked like a couple of tubes of pipe stacked along the wall.

  Slowly peeking around the wall, I saw both of them. Maddie was on the floor with a gag around her mouth and hands tied behind her back. Meanwhile, Patrick had a bag he was stuffing items into from a work bench.

  “We’ll be out of here soon. I just need to make sure I don’t leave these behind. They were my grandad’s tools. When we have a garage, I’ll have them, and I can work on the house when you need me to. I’m extremely good at building things. Bet you didn’t know that did you? That’s okay, we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other after we’re married.”

  Maddie struggled against her binding and made a couple of angry, muffled sounds.

  The smell of smoke reached my nose and I wondered where it was coming from. There wasn’t a fire in the room. Which made me think that Patrick had likely set something on fire outside before we'd gotten here. It would be a shit show if he had any more of those cannisters laying around.

  I scanned the room around him, noticing one close to Maddie on the floor. She was busy glaring at Patrick’s back, and slowly inching away from him while he wasn’t looking. Her feet weren’t tied but I could tell she wouldn’t make it more than a few feet if she tried to run. There was a smudge of blood on her forehead that made my anger amplify.

  He’d hurt her. He was a dead man.

  Unsure of where Noah was, I was planning my next move. Approach slowly or blitz attack?

  Just as I was preparing to launch, I heard a commotion at the back door. I sank into the shadows around the corner again to cover myself. Noah wouldn’t be that stupid unless he was trying to cause a distraction.

  Waiting, I eyed the back door.

  Noah came into view, stumbling into the room and fell to his knees. Behind him stood Darren with a gun pointed to Noah’s head.

  Fuck. Things just got complicated.

  I heard Maddie’s muffled scream and hoped that she would remain calm until this was over. The last thing I needed was for her to panic and catch the attention of Darren.

  “Guess who I found outside?” Darren sneered and kicked Noah’s back hard enough to make him fall to the ground. His nose was broken, and half his face was swollen. Blood was dripping onto the concrete floor of the garage.

  “Look, Maddie your ex-fiancé decided to join us,” Patrick said angrily. “Just as well. He was the last thing that I needed to erase from your life before we could begin ours together. Just makes it easier, sweetie.”

  The stupid fucker had mistaken Noah for me.

  I could tell Noah was assessing the situation despite his injuries. His eyes were calculating as he swept them over the room. He was a strong guy and one of the smartest tacticians I'd ever met in any situation. He planned his attacks. This was either part of his plan, or he'd honestly been surprised by Darren.

  “Caught him sneaking around the side of the building. We need to go. Now! If he’s here, then the cavalry is probably on the way. Forget that shit and move!”

  “I’m almost done!” Patrick yelled at him.

  Darren stalked over to Patrick, forgetting Noah on the floor. Noah’s hand moved slowly to his boot where he drew his knife out and hid it under his thigh. His eyes flicked over in my direction for a second, then back to the two arguing men.

  They were yelling at each other. Darren picked up the bag and threw it across the room. It landed with a hard thud near Maddie.

  Then things got interesting.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ~Madison~

  The bag full of Patrick’s tools landed near my leg. If it had been any closer, it would have hurt me and destroyed my chances of escape.

  My legs were fine, and I could run but getting off the floor and running out of the room wasn’t a possibility without being caught by either man.

  Finding out that Darren was involved with Patrick had been a shock. I recognized him immediately when Patrick brought me to the garage. My hands had been tied but not my mouth up until that point. I’d let out a scream when I saw him, and he’d gagged me immediately.

  He was an awful man. Terrible. The things he said were truly vile. He and Patrick had some plan of kidnapping, drugging and raping me, according to Darren. Then he talked about doing the same to Rachel.

  Patrick had argued with him about it. Telling him that it wasn’t going to happen, all while stuffing weird wires and things into his bag. He’d said some things about setting larger fires somewhere else, but it was lost on me.

  I hated Patrick for what he was doing, and what he had done. But if I had to choose between the two at any one point it would be him over Darren. That man was pure evil.

  I looked over at Noah on the floor. Neither one of the criminals arguing beside me knew how to tell the difference between the two apparently. His amber eyes met mine and I knew without a doubt that he had some plan.

  I was hoping that Owen wouldn’t come in guns blazing. When Patrick opened a cabinet up earlier, I saw multiple cannisters of gas and chemicals. While Patrick had been packing, Darren had gone out to set fire to the barn. Their plan was to torch the entire farm, therefore covering the fact that Darren had been holed up there for over a month.

  Their friendship or relationship to each other was sketchy. It seemed like Darren was the aggressor, and Patrick was more of a wannabe. He kept boasting of his small deeds. Theft, arson, assault. All of which scared me to no end.

  I couldn’t believe I’d had this person in my shop for as long as I did, without knowing that he was a criminal. Without even knowing he was creepy. No radar for creep-zone.

  Pulling at the ties around my wrists again, I inched further away from Darren and Patrick who were now yelling at each other.

  Darren suddenly pushed Patrick against one of the cabinets and Patrick hit him in the face.

  “You idiot! We have all that insurance money from the fire on the farm last spring, and you’re blowing it on a damn woman! We planned this! It’s already in the works. I can’t just keep running all over the country!”

  Patrick spit in his face. “I never asked you to! You were the one that brought your cousin up here and tried to contact me. If you hadn’t been so stupid, none of this would have happened.”

  Darren grabbed Patrick’s shirt and snarled. “You piece of shit. I knew you were going to be a problem, as soon as you made contact last year. You want to run with me and my group, then you have to pay to be with us. Do you think the guy I work for is interested in your dreams of having a wife back home while we do his dirty work? I should have let him put a bullet in your head as soon as you fucked up that Texas deal. Russell and I took the hit for that one instead.”

  Darren let go of Patrick’s shirt and turned to me. “This bitch isn’t w
orth it!”

  He grabbed my arm and dragged me across the floor toward Noah, who looked like he was passed out. His nose was bleeding and it was leaving a small pool on the concrete.

  My head bounced off the concrete causing a sharp pain near my temple.

  “This isn’t about you and this piece of meat. Having some fun with her might have been a bonus, which is why I let you do what you were doing. But it’s over. If he’s here, then we need to forget about her and leave.”

  There was a click, and Darren swung a gun toward Noah.

  “You want some fantasy where you get the girl? Forget about it! You want them gone? Then it can be done. But I’m not fucking anything else up with my boss over you. You may be Russell’s friend, but you aren’t mine."

  The rapport of the gun firing made me flinch. My heart felt like it might burst from beating so rapidly. Noah let out a low moan, then was silent. My eyes swung from Darren to Patrick in fear. If he killed Noah, then he would definitely kill me just to force Patrick to leave.

  Patrick sneered at Darren before running full force at him. The two landed on the ground beside Noah.

  That’s when I heard a sound to my left. Turning that direction, I saw Owen crouched with a huge knife in his hand and a murderous look on his face. He ran toward the men fighting on the ground just as I felt movement from Noah. My eyes swung back to him and I saw that he was very much alive and angry.

  He pushed me away from him, toward the door. “Go!”

  I rolled over and tried to crouch so I could stand up. Another gunshot went off and I flinched again.

  Turning back, I saw Noah with a large knife in his hand similar to Owen’s weapon. He swiped at Darren’s leg and plunged it in. Owen was on top of Patrick who had Darren pinned underneath him. One of them was bleeding but it was hard to tell which one.

  “GO, MADDIE!” Owen bellowed.

  I pushed up off the ground. My hands were still tied but I was now mobile. I ran toward the door, as one of the men behind me cried out in pain.

  When I ran through the door, I was plunged into complete darkness. I stumbled over something and went down hard. My arm hit something else and I felt my shirt tear. I was trying not to pass out from breathing too hard, but I was terrified for the men I had just left in the garage.