Page 15 of Sizzle
Fires ran in his blood, too. Not fighting them, of course, but still. Malachi knew what it felt like to have a legacy.
And he was going to live his out, far better than his father ever had.
The thought brought him back to the present moment and the task in front of him. He needed to atone for the warehouse mistake, to remind himself that he could bring a fire full circle. He didn’t mind going back for more practice before he tried again, and anyway, there would be too much suspicion if the warehouse caught fire again so soon. Burning it down was necessary, yes—Malachi couldn’t leave the job undone. But he absolutely had to get it right this time, and honing his skills was never a hardship.
He eyed the storage shed, his heart starting to thrum darkly in his chest. It was one stiff breeze from collapsing, the boards rotted and broken, most of the contents long gone. The discarded condoms and needles strewn over the packed earth floor told Malachi that the shed still held one purpose, at least, and so he’d better be quick about his work. It was barely past dinnertime—too early for the junkies and hookers to pay much attention to the lot or the shed just yet. By the time anyone tried to come around, the shed would be dust.
The thrum in Malachi’s chest became a buzz, vibrating upward to fill his ears. He’d failed at the warehouse, yes, but he could perfect his methods, then go back to try again.
He wouldn’t fail twice. This time, nothing was going to stand in his way.
Taking one last look at the shed, Malachi catalogued the structure, the tinder he’d arranged to allow the flames to spread quickly, and the accelerant he’d placed to ensure the fire blazed hot enough to erase the evidence. By the time firefighters were called to the scene—if they were even called at all—any evidence that the fire had been purposely set would be reduced to ash. The RFD would assume it had been the result of negligence, some junkie getting careless with their means to light up or a squatter setting a fire to try to keep warm. No one ever looked twice at fires that burned through North Point unless someone died or insurance claims were made. The arson unit was drowning in potential cases. They couldn’t be bothered with a rickety old shed burning to the ground in the middle of a vacant lot. It was the perfect place for Malachi to go back to the drawing board.
Hewouldperfect his skills, he thought as he flicked his thumb over the lighter’s wheel, the soft snick and resulting spark making him smile. He’d make absolutely certain he’d studied every intricacy, every detail of how to get his final project exactly right.
And once he did, no one would be able to stop him as he burned everything around him to the ground.
7
Someone was leaning on the buzzer to Lucy’s apartment. Normally, this wouldn’t cause her too much concern—she knew enough people who might come over to say hi or hang out, and she ordered her fair share of things online, not to mention maybemorethan her fair share of takeout. But since deliveries didn’t tend to happen at eight p.m., she had already eaten dinner, and she’d given up a definite “sorry, I’m exhausted from stair drills. Rain check?” to her engine-mate, Shae McCullough, when the woman had texted to try and drag Lucy out for a drink tonight, she was fresh out of ideas for who on earth could be on her doorstep.
“Can I help you?” Lucy asked into the intercom, her tone splitting the difference between wary and polite.
“Well, that depends,” Shae sing-songed through the speaker, making Lucy groan. “You canhelpme by buzzing me in. But if you really want me to work for it, I can figure out a way to scale the building and get in through your window. A little over the top, but I’d get my workout in. And I think we both know I’m not above it.”
“Fine.” Sighing, Lucy hit the buzzer that would give Shae access to the lobby so she could come upstairs. She should have known the “thanks but no thanks” response wouldn’t work on her extremely persistent friend, even though—point of fact—Lucy really was dead-tired from spending the last three days at the academy. But she was also lying low, keeping an unusual distance from her engine-mates and friends so she didn’t have to talk about her wildly impulsive decision to run into that burning warehouse or the fact that she’d broken the rules for theonefirefighter who drove her crazy in every sense of the word.
Never mind that said firefighter had shocked her by not just falling in line, but staying in line ever since she’d told him that to earn her forgiveness, he needed to learn from his mistakes. Faurier had paid attention in lectures. He hadn’t so much as let out a single groan during their physical fitness training, including the stair drills, even when everyone else had. He’d even lined up first for roll call every morning, no swagger, no sexy little smile, just ready, able firefighter, ready to work.
Sam Faurier was doing what she’d asked, and hell if that didn’t drive her even more crazy.
Not in the bad way.
A knock sounded off on Lucy’s door, dropping her back to the moment and reminding her that no matter how good Faurier’s ass looked when he was in front of her for stair drills (ugh, it looked unnervingly hot), she was still mad. Yes, he’d been actively participating rather than trying to do the bare minimum to skate by at the academy this week, and no, after his initial flashy ask, he hadn’t bugged her to forgive him so he could go back to business as usual. But Lucy hadn’t just broken the rules for him. She’d shattered them.
That’s what she got for following her stupid, unreliable gut. As if the last time she’d donethathadn’t turned out so spectacularly bad, she’d nearly dropped out of the academy and abandoned the pursuit of a career she loved. A career she’d been born and bred for. God, would she ever learn?
“Helllllooooo!” Shae called through the door. “We know you’re in there, Lucy-Loo. Open up! We brought wine and queso.”
The “we” had Lucy’s untrustworthy gut dropping toward the cuffs of her favorite purple sweatpants. She looked through the peep hole, her fears confirmed at the sight of not only Shae, who was waving a bottle of wine in each hand and grinning from ear to ear, but Kellan’s wife, Isabella, Kennedy—who was Gamble’s wife—and Quinn, all waiting for Lucy to open the door.
Shae had both the skill and moxie to kick it down if she didn’t, so she took a breath and turned the knob. “You guys really didn’t need to come over.”
“Of course we did,” Shae said, breezing over the threshold and placing a kiss on Lucy’s cheek. “You’ve had four whole days to hide out and lick your wounds. Anyway, it’s a scientifically proven fact that wine and queso will make you forget how badly your quadriceps hurt from running stair drills. Swearsies.”
Lucy sighed, hugging Isabella, Kennedy, and Quinn as they all followed Shae into her apartment. “I’m not hiding out, licking my wounds. Well, except for maybe my quads, because they’re fucking killing me,” she amended.
“Girl, please,” Kennedy said, arching one perfect black brow before heading to Lucy’s kitchen to place the reusable grocery bag in her grasp on the counter. “You got into enough deep shit at work to get sent back to the academy for three weeks, and you’ve been dodging our text threadandour individual messages asking if you’re okay. Face it. You’re totally hiding out.”
Leave it to Kennedy to double up on the no bullshit. Then again, being married to a guy as rough and gruff as Gamble probably made that a necessity. “It’s Thursday night. Don’t you have a bar to run or a baby to watch?” Lucy asked, padding sock-footed to the kitchen to grab wineglasses.
“Yes to both. But I also have a fantastic bar manager who is more than happy to take the reins for a shift and an amazing husband who adores spending one-on-one time with our son so I can do a wellness check on one of my girlfriends. Also, nice try with the subject change, there. A for effort, sweet cheeks.”
Lucy must be losing her touch. It was the only explanation for temporarily forgetting how good Sawyer Knox was at his job, how hands-on Gamble was as a doting dad to seven-month-old Theo,andhow much of a barracuda Kennedy was when it came to caring for her friends.
“Okay, fine,” Lucy said, knowing when she’d been beat. “So I did an epically stupid thing and got into very deep shit for it. But you can’t really blame me for not wanting to talk about it, can you?”
“Not necessarily,” Isabella said, taking a bottle of lemon-flavored sparkling water from Kennedy’s bag. She was just shy of four months pregnant, a baby bump just beginning to show beneath her sweater and leggings. “But we’re you’re friends.”