Matt couldn’t believe that anyone could still be alive inside the building. The hotel clerk who had rushed passed him as he’d entered the building for the second time had told him there was a woman down at the end of the hall. She’d refused to leave, and the clerk wasn’t hanging around to try to make her. Matt couldn’t blame him. Unlike Matt, the clerk didn’t have protective gear, wearing only a regular jacket and shirt, no protection from the radiant heat, let alone any flames. He’d radioed his intentions to the chief and then stepped down the hall. It hadn’t taken more than a few feet before he’d needed his air tank, the smoke thick and hot enough that fears of flashover started running through his mind. Surely there couldn’t be anyone still alive in there. A large crowd had already gathered out on the lawn when they’d arrived, and his crewmates had already turned on the hoses.

He picked up his radio again. “Chief, how solid is the clerk’s intel? Is anyone out there reporting someone missing?” While he waited for the chief’s response, Matt kept searching, sweeping his gaze slowly across the hall as he stepped closer to the raging inferno he could feel down at the end. According to the hotel maps, he was headed toward the kitchen, the source of the fire. Any closer and he’d be toast himself, the heat already making rivers of sweat run down his body inside his gear. He took another step when his radio buzzed and then crackled. “No reports of any missing, Rivers. Come out before you fry yourself alive.”

Matt was three seconds from turning around when sparks showered from the ceiling in a spectacular display of fire meeting electrical circuits. It would be almost pretty if it didn’t have the potential to be so deadly. What it did do was give him just enough light to see a body lying—no, crouching—on the floor, just six feet or so in front of him. For what seemed like the millionth time in his ten years as a firefighter, he sent up a quick thank-you for the ridiculous number of coincidences that came together just in time for him to save a victim. If he hadn’t taken those few extra steps forward, if he hadn’t stopped to radio the chief . . . he wouldn’t have been there for the split second the light from the sparking fixture broke through the smoke-filled hall and allowed him to see the person crouching on the ground.

They were small, a teenager perhaps, or a woman. He lunged forward, grabbing at their arm, trying to pull them closer and get the hell out. He cursed as another fall of sparks showered over them both and the victim slumped in his arms. Fuck. There wasn’t any time to check for injuries or rig up any webbing. He was on his own and had to get them both out of there fast. Swearing again even as he did it, he bent over and lifted the now-unconscious woman onto his shoulder. Ideally he’d carry her closer to the ground, but with smoke rapidly filling up every part of the hall and the fire from the kitchen advancing fast, he was out of options. Pushing upward, he steadied the woman over his shoulders, turned, and then nearly sprinted down the hall.

Matt counted each step he took back to the entrance, trying to retrace his steps, but the smoke was impenetrable. He might as well have been blind for all that he could see through the fog of smoke and toxic gasses. He still had air left in his tank, but he didn’t like the idea of what the victim might be inhaling, closer to the ceiling than if she’d been able to walk. Two more steps and he came to a large bank of windows. The lobby? Matt didn’t care. He turned, kicking away some of the debris that littered the floor, and placed the woman down as gently as he could, positioning her back to him. He didn’t want to hurt her further, but he didn’t dare place her too far from his extremely limited field of vision, and if he removed his turnout gear to protect her, then neither of them would be getting out of there alive. Turning back, he took three steps forward, until he was level with the windows, and then hooked his halligan from his gear and hit out at the window. The first blow fractured the glass with a sickening creak, then his second swing sent large chunks flowing down to the ground. Matt never thought he’d be glad the hotel hadn’t gotten around to updating the windows to safety glass. He used the protection of his gloves and the halligan to clear a space wide enough to fit through and then turned again, glass crushing under his feet, and scooped up the woman. In under a minute, they’d cleared the building, and Shane and Charlie were rushing forward to meet him as he crossed the lawn, Mason in hot pursuit. The instant they reached him, Shane grabbed the woman from his arms and laid her on the gurney, snapping on an oxygen mask and checking her pupils.

Matt wrenched off his mask and helmet, dropping his gloves next to them on the ground. He grabbed the water bottle Mason offered with a clap on the shoulder and gulped it down without stopping, grabbing a second and pouring it over his head. “She okay?” he asked the paramedic. “I don’t think she hit her head. She was conscious when I found her, just.”

Shane nodded, moving out to check the woman’s limbs for injuries as Charlie wrapped her neck in a C-collar. “She has some superficial burns, likely moderate smoke inhalation, but I think she’ll be fine.”

Thank God.

“Mom!” He heard the voice before he saw who’d yelled. A kid dressed in an orange swimsuit with a towel draped around his shoulders was sprinting across the lawn, barefoot. With the sun starting to go down, the kid must have been freezing. Nothing was mattering to him, though, other than getting to his mom and making sure she was alright. “Mom!” the kid called again.

Charlie caught up with him as he reached them on the lawn. “Whoa, there. You okay, Son? What’s your name?”

“Brayden,” the boy huffed. He strained around Charlie, and Matt had to smile. It was apparent that the boy was young, now that he could see him up close, but he was already taller than their EMT. That wasn’t hard, though. Charlie was a tiny thing. “I went to check out some video games with a friend I made at the pool,” the kid said. “And then when the fire started, I couldn’t find my mom. Is she okay?”

“Brayden, we’re checking your mom over right now.” Charlie looked over at Shane, who sent her a quick nod. The way those two could communicate without a single word was pretty freaky, though Matt shouldn’t be surprised. Charlie—Charlotte—and Shane had known each other for nearly as long as he and Mason had . . . best friends who had recently become more. Much more, with Shane proposing at the firehouse a little more than a month before. The engagement ring was missing from Charlie’s finger while she was on shift, but she and Shane still worked together like they could read each other’s minds. What would it be like to be that close to someone?

“What’s your mom’s name, Brayden?” Charlie asked, snapping Matt out of his thoughts. He wiped down his face to clear some of the sweat and muck away and finally cleared his vision properly. Their breathing apparatus made seeing much hell on a good day. Add in the sweat, ash, and oppressive heat when you were that close to a fire, and all bets were off. He was going to need to shower three times over when he got back to the house if he was going to get rid of the smell of smoke.

“Lauren,” Brayden choked out. “Lauren Mancini.”

Matt froze. No way. No fucking way. It couldn’t be possible. He moved swiftly, ignoring Shane’s curious glance as he made his way closer to the gurney. What he saw nearly made him drop the rest of his gear in shock. It was her.

Lauren.

The only woman he’d ever loved. The woman he’d left behind in the hands of a monster.