Page 201 of Phantom Mine

I nod thickly, a large mass suddenly present in my throat.

“I’ll take her,” I hear him tell the firefighter before I’m passed into his arms.

He carries me the rest of the way. I don’t look down towards safety. I look up, towards the burning building inside which the love of my life is still trapped.

The firefighter who initially held me jogs back up the ladder and disappears into the club. Enzo sets me gingerly down on the ground. His hand stays at my back for a second to make sure I’m steady before he pulls it away.

“Let’s get you to an ambul—”

I whip my head to look at Enzo. “No.” He opens his mouth but I stop him. “I’m not goinganywhereuntil I know he’s safe. Until I know he’salive.”

Whatever Enzo sees in my eyes makes it clear to him this isn’t a debate he can win. His lips flatten into an unhappy line, but he nods.

His eyes lift above my face and into the distance. A unique vulnerability flashes through them. His throat works with difficulty as he drags his gaze back to mine. “Look.”

I turn to find two firefighters making their way through the window and slowly onto the ladder.

Between them, they’re carrying Matteo.

He’s bloody, burned, and covered in soot, his arms swinging limply to either side of him.

But he’smyMatteo.

“He’s okay?” I hear myself ask, as if detached from my body.

“He will be. You saved him, Valentina,” Enzo continues from behind me. “You got him out.”

A fresh batch of tears swell seeing him being rescued. The relief nearly takes me out at the knees.

I didn’t think we’d make it.

The world spins on its axis.

Dizziness clouds my vision.

“Valentina!” Enzo calls.

I stumble backwards, falling into his chest. His next words fill with soft horror.

“Valentina...yourhands…”

I look down. A startled gasp falls from my lips when I find them a burned mess. My palms are full of raised welts, some burst, others not. Blood and pus leak out of the open wounds.

The earth beneath my feet shifts, rising and falling like the open ocean during an angry storm.

You saved him. You got him out.

I cling to those words as spots dot my eyesight. I wrap them around myself like a blanket, reassured by the knowledge that Matteo is going to survive.

It’s as if my body was waiting for that permission to finally give in. The moment those words filter through, my vision tunnels, the ground rises to meet the sky, and everything goes black.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Matteo

A month later

At first, there’s just a vast blackness and nothing else.

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