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Tanner expelled a deep breath, then nodded. “Police and Cause and Origin are on their way. Go with your wife to the hospital, Donahue. Get yourself checked out.” Then he went to the crew to start issuing orders while two more engines arrived with ladders and got the hoses out.

Santino ran to the ambulances waiting out front, noting that Antoinette’s Volvo had disappeared.

Bobby was in the back of the closest ambulance, staring inside and crying while Zoe was on one of the beds already wearing an oxygen mask.

Someone checked her vitals while she coughed and tried to speak.

He ran to the next truck, where two unfamiliar EMS workers waited.

“My wife,” Santino told them, his entire body quaking. “My wife.”

“Any injuries?” This was a woman bearing a name tag that read “Hernandez.”

“She has a bump on her head,” Santino said. “She was assaulted. I think she inhaled a lot of smoke.”

“I mean you, too.” She indicated his face, and he touched it, surprised to see blood on his fingers.

“I’m fine. Check her. Check her!” he insisted, thrusting Vanessa toward them.

The surging panic in him must have come out in his voice. Hernandez put a comforting hand on his arm. “Don’t worry, sir. We’re taking her right to the hospital. Hop in the cab.”

Vanessa was clinging to his hand as he put her carefully on the gurney. Tears ran through the soot on her face, leaving clean tracks.

“Don’t…” She tried to talk, but a coughing fit took over and wracked her body.

“Excuse us, we’ve gotta get the oxygen going. Move, sir, please,” Hernandez ordered with more force when he wouldn’t let go of Vanessa’s hand. “Now.”

“I’m coming with you, okay, baby?”

They got an oxygen mask on her face, covering her nose and mouth.

His vision blurred and bent until everything was wavy lines and scalding wetness on his cheeks.

But he stepped away so they could get on with caring for her instead of struggling with him.

When she was strapped securely and placed into the back of the ambulance, he jogged to the front and hopped in the passenger seat.

They pulled away when he was barely buckled in.

Then everything became a blur. The wail of the sirens, the stench of smoke still clinging to his shirt and his hands, the taste of ashes in his mouth and at the back of his throat, all became part of that background.

The only clear center was Vanessa when he jumped out of the ambulance and rushed with the paramedics into the ER.

He noticed Bobby sitting in the waiting room but had no words for him, too busy arguing with the paramedics that he had to go in with Vanessa even while they told him to stand down and he couldn’t go in any further.

“We need to take a look at that cut on your head, sir. And we need to check your lungs for—”

“I’m fine.” Santino pulled away with a growl, not wanting to be touched.

“Please, just focus on my wife right now.” The nurse raised her hands in surrender and left him alone.

Before she got far, he remembered she was only trying to help.

“Thank you.” She gave him a look of sympathy, indicating she was used to hysterical pricks, and left through the swinging door.

Heavily, he sat down beside Bobby, who was staring at the floor dazedly.

“Zoe?” Santino started.

“I don’t know. She…” Bobby swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving along his throat.

Quietly, so that only Santino could hear him, he whispered, “She was babbling. Incoherent. She said she started it. She didn’t mean to, but she did, somehow.

” He leaned forward, rubbing his face wearily with the sigh of a man who’d aged twenty years in twenty minutes.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was this bad.

I knew she had this thing about Vanessa.

Ling, what happened with you, it all must have pushed her over the edge. I pushed her. This is on me.”

Another fire broke out at that knowledge, but this one was inside Santino’s belly.

He doused it as quickly as it flared. Any anger or resentment he felt toward Zoe could be worked out later.

The same went for Bobby’s guilt. Right now, Vanessa was all that mattered.

He had to reserve his energy for making sure of it.

“Who was that man?” Bobby asked after wiping his nose of the tears that had dripped from it. “Was that Antoinette’s psycho?”

“No, but he was there. He saved Ant. Just showed up out of nowhere, grabbed her and took off. Or at least I assume that was him. He fit the description. The guy who attacked them… I don’t know. Unless Malone sent him, but that doesn’t seem like something he would do.”

“I put Zoe down briefly, on the grass outside. I came back for you and Vanessa. You were…” Bobby swallowed again, horror still fresh and flickering in his eyes.

“What did you see?” Santino placed his hands on his thighs, waiting for the accusation, the disgust.

For the first time he noticed flecks of crimson on them, and yes, that smear on his shirt seemed so bright in this clear light, so red on the bottom of his jeans and his boots...

Fuck it. It was what it was.

He’d take the fall for what he’d done if it came to that. Because he’d made a vow to protect his wife. And a vow once made could not — would not ever be broken.

“I saw you save my sister from a fire. And that’s all.”

Bobby looked at him seriously, the horror submerging under a deep gratitude, a fresh sorrow. But there was also a silent understanding that the bond they shared had just deepened. A bond that had been formed through kinship, then friendship, but had now been sealed in crimson.

“Go home. Change. Then come right back. I’ll be here.”

Santino was going to refuse, but the stare in Bobby’s eyes turned hard.

“Go. Now.”

So he did, calling Dom on the way. He managed to relay the basics of what happened. Then he asked him to come get his car and go check to see if he could find the attacker’s vehicle anywhere near the house, hopefully before the cops could.

“We need to figure out who he was and who sent him, now,” Santino uttered, his fingers clenched on the phone.

“Just take care of your woman right now. We’ll find those motherfuckers.” Dom hung up without another word.

By the time he returned to the hospital, the police were there, taking Bobby’s statement.

They questioned him as well. Bobby had apparently already told them that they’d played racquetball together earlier that afternoon and were planning to meet at Vanessa’s with their wives when they saw the smoke and realized the house was on fire.

Santino told them his wife had been under attack by a stranger; she’d fought back and so had he. Self-defense.

The cop who’d led the questioning was Detective Castillo. Santino had had a beer with him too a few times. Castillo said it seemed clear cut to him. Next step was identifying the assailant, most likely some asshole looking to rob the house. They’d let them know what they discovered.

After that was over, the nurse told him Vanessa was in a room and had indeed suffered smoke inhalation. Relief nearly turned his legs to jelly when the attending physician came out and assured him Vanessa would more than likely be fine. Apparently, they were all friends with Bobby.

“Bobby said he’s not sure how long your wives were inside with the fire going, but just to be on the safe side, we’re going to keep them for a few days or so to watch out for any development of serious lung injury.

They’ve both had chest and head X-rays due to the head trauma.

Zoe may need more recovery time since she was hit hard enough to go unconscious. ”

“Thanks, Sammy.” Bobby gestured to the area beyond the doors. “Can we see them?”

“Of course,” she answered with a warm smile. “Just ask Bernice, and she’ll take you to them.”

Santino was grateful Vanessa had been placed in a separate room from Zoe. He hadn’t wanted to see her ever again before this and he damn sure didn’t now. She was Bobby’s burden to bear, or not.

Vanessa was asleep when he entered her room, having been sedated for one of the more intrusive exams they’d done.

He’d turned down a request to check him for smoke in his lungs, but now he wondered if the searing pain in his chest as he looked at her fragile form in that bed was due to the fire after all.

Santino pulled up a chair, wanting to climb onto the bed and hold her, breath in her scent now that the smoke and ash had been washed off her, assure himself she was really okay but he didn’t.

He couldn’t disturb the various wires and softly beeping monitors attached to her soft skin, or the tubing that was in her mouth and throat.

“Hey, tesoro , it’s me, your tigre . What was all that about you in a house fire? I turn my back for five minutes and look what happens. You really are trying hard to get away from me, huh?”

It was a joke, but one that hurt when it was spoken.

As his vision doubled, then trebled, he knew what lay inside him was damaged but not by smoke.

It was this, all of this. All this unhappiness and the obsessions that were fueled by it.

Would Zoe have set the house on fire if the blow up in Montreal hadn’t happened?

Would Vanessa have been happier if he’d left her the fuck alone the first time she’d asked him to, three years ago?

He looked at his hand, the one that was wrapped around hers on the bed. Looked at the crisp, clean sheets he was dirtying by touching them, even though he’d washed his hands of the soot and the blood. The stain of what he’d done wasn’t ever going to wash off.

But he’d done it for all the best reasons. That reason was lying here. Maybe still in some danger health wise but safe. That would have to be enough.

“I saw what you did to that guy before I got there. Looked like his head was bashed in. You put a real hurtin’ on that motherfucker. Good for you, baby. Good for you. See. I told you you were a superhero.”

A smile pulled at his lips. He’d known his woman was tough, but that had surprised him.

Made him proud of her anew. But…she wasn’t his woman anymore.

And now that she was safe, she didn’t need him, for anything.

Didn’t need him watching over her, obsessing over her.

Blocking whatever fresh blessings were coming her way now that everything that had been holding her down was in ashes.

Now it was his turn.

“I’ll stick around long enough to make sure you’re okay but after that…

after that I’ve gotta go.” Santino’s heart squeezed, like someone had reached inside his chest with their full fist. “I signed those papers like you wanted me to, but I still can’t stay away from you.

You make me fucking weak. I love you, tesoro .

With everything in me, I love you. And I’m gonna love you till the day I die.

But I can’t stay. I can’t live here knowing you’re so close and I can’t be with you. I have to leave.”

The ragged sound of his voice was too fucking pitiful, even for him. His throat choked on his own words, and he had to stop. When he could get a grip on himself, he pressed on.

“As for you, I hope you do every fucking thing you want to do. Wear your hair the way you want, do whatever kind of job you want. Or don’t work at all.

See the world. Stay up late watching those crazy ass horror movies and reading all night.

Let someone love you. Just don’t love him back too much.

” Santino chuckled despite the water clogging his throat.

He touched her hurt temple with his fingertips gently, so gently, gazing at her. “Be happy.”

Most likely she hadn’t heard him, lost as she was somewhere deep in her medicated slumber. But a tear slid from the corner of her eye. He stood up and leaned down to kiss that tear. The taste of salt clung to his lips when he heard the door open.

Nadine was standing in the doorway, pausing once she saw he was by the bedside. He turned his face away from her until he could pull himself together, although it took every ounce of strength he had left.

“Hello, Nadine.” The gruff greeting hung in the air. Santino had never been invited to call her Mom.

She stepped one foot into the room, then another. “Bobby called me. He said…you got her out of that house?” It was phrased like a question, as though whatever she’d been told, she hadn’t quite believed.

He nodded jerkily. Searching for the right words, he couldn’t find any.

Nadine came in and he surrendered his spot, gesturing to the chair so she could sit by her daughter’s side.

But instead of sitting, she turned to him, gazing up into his face, then slowly wound her arms around his waist and lay her head on his shuddering chest.

“Thank you.” It was barely a whisper. Maybe he’d only imagined it, but Nadine said it again. “Thank you.”

Nadine finally released him and went to sit with Vanessa, taking her hand in hers as she bowed her head and cried softly. That was his cue to let them have their time alone, so Nadine could say whatever was in her heart the way he had.

He hoped it was good. He hoped it was everything Vanessa deserved to hear.

From the doorway, Santino took one last look at his treasure, his diamond who’d come through pressure and fire and still shone brilliant and beautiful. Then he left.

He had things to take care of.