Cazzo. The frustration inside me was reaching a boiling point. I didn’t have any kind of confirmation that Zane was in danger, but the feeling in my gut wasn’t a pleasant one, and it made me nervous. He wasn’t answering his phone, and that was odd. Even if he were in an interview that was lasting way past the scheduled time, I felt like he’d still give me a heads-up about how he was doing. I wasn’t even needing a full-on call; he could have sent me a simple text message saying “talk soon” and that would have put me at ease. But there was radio silence, and it wasn’t like Zane.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I paced my office and checked my watch, giving myself five more minutes. Three more minutes. One more minute.

Still nothing. I picked up my phone and sent him another text message. “Zane, I’m getting worried.”

I considered dialing 911 but ruled it out. Even if I called Andrei, Zane’s brother, I don’t think he would have taken me very seriously. No, the cops wouldn’t do anything. Zane hadn’t been missing long enough for a missing person’s report to be opened, and it wasn’t like the cops were very fond of me to begin with. I couldn’t go to the police.

But then what was I supposed to do? I felt it. Down in my gut. I knew something was wrong. The air around me felt weird. Thick. Like even the atmosphere was telling me Zane was in danger.

It was up to me. I was about to do something crazy, but something my mamma would be damn proud of me over. I was going to pull a page out of her book and show up to where Zane was supposed to be. She had done that a couple of times to me back in high school, showing up at a party unannounced, looking to make sure I did my homework. I never knew how she figured out the address, but she had her ways. I assumed it was witchcraft.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like magical powers ran in the family. I needed to figure out Susan’s address somehow. Zane only told me he was seeing her and mentioned that she lived in Brooklyn, but that was only a start, and a flimsy one at that. I did have one idea, though. Someone who may have known Zane even better than I knew him sometimes.

I unlocked my phone and dialed Stonewall Investigations.

“Stonewall Investigations, how can I help you?”

“Andrew, just the guy I needed.” He was Zane’s friendly and sharp-witted assistant; he had to know Susan’s address. “It’s Enzo. Have you talked to Zane in the past few hours?”

“Nope, figured his interview ended and he was hanging out with you.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was hoping, too. He hasn’t picked up my calls or answered my texts.”

I heard Andrew clicking on his computer, most likely pulling up the schedule to try to track down his boss. “Hmm.”

“What’s Susan’s address?”

“Huh?”

“Her address. I want to drive by and make sure things are okay.”

There was a pause on the line. “Enzo, I’m not sure I’m allow—”

“Andrew, I just want to check on things, that’s all.”

I could hear him take a deep breath. I looked out the window of my office. There was a sea of dark gray clouds dumping a torrent of rain on the city. Lightning struck somewhere, filling the room with harsh white light.

“Okay, you got a pen and paper?”

I hurriedly grabbed a pen, almost tipping over the metallic holder, and snatched a yellow sticky note. “Go ahead.”

I decided to take my car to the address Andrew had given me. I couldn’t risk getting stuck on a subway, especially since Zane was still completely silent. Real worry was beginning to set in. It was starting to make sense, too—Susan being the one who did it. Oscar was cheating on Luanne with more than just Ricky, and Susan ended up catching feelings. She shot them both in the chest. How poetic.

It also meant that this woman was dangerous. I had to be careful. I wasn’t trained for this kind of stuff. I could easily disarm someone in the courtroom, but disarming someone in real life, that was entirely different. As I was driving, I began to get flashbacks of that night a month ago, the night Zane had rescued me.

Cristo. It felt like that had happened years ago.

The fear I had felt that night, so primal, so frigidly cold, was starting to creep up on me again. I had to be stronger than it, though. I focused on the road, made a mess by the downpour that had my windshield wipers working on overtime. At some points, I had to lean over the steering wheel to make sure I wasn’t about to drive over a curb.

Finally I made it to the address, my fear still trying to find some kind of purchase. I looked around, noticing a police station across the street. But something else caught my attention. Through my rain-battered window, I could make out Zane’s car. I knew it was his because he had that black-and-white decal of a Tardis on the rear windshield. It was a reference to a show I was surprised he watched, one that had been pretty big in my life as well.

I quickly found a parking spot and jumped out of the car, holding my jacket above my head to try and avoid getting drenched. I completely forgot to grab the umbrella from the office in my rush to get here.

I hurried up the steps to Susan’s building. It felt endless, and I almost tripped on the last one. The wind was making sure I got drenched, rain slicing almost horizontally. Thunder boomed above me as I threw the heavy door to the building open. There wasn’t an intercom system, so I didn’t need to get buzzed in.

The building was old, its decor tired. The stairs leading up to the three floors above were cracked and wooden, the red carpet getting pulled up in various spots. It smelled musty, almost like a swamp, which I assumed the rain didn’t help with. I shook my jacket and set it down on a table by the mailboxes.

Susan was in apartment 310, so I started up the creaking stairs, taking two at a time. I ran into the hall that opened up on the third floor. She was the last apartment in the hallway.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

My heart was in my throat. The fear had found a place to hook into. My gut felt like it was getting shredded with anxiety. This all felt so wrong.

I reached her door. I raised my hand to knock but pulled back. The door was already open. In fact, it looked as if it had been forced open. There were screws on the floor, as if someone had used tools to take out the doorknob, maybe to pry the door open.

“Zane,” I called out, pushing the door open even wider.

What I saw didn’t make sense to me at first. My eyes immediately went to him, but my brain couldn’t process what I was seeing.

There he was. My Zane, lying in a pool of blood, sprawled on the floor. His eyes were closed, his hands to his side. He looked like he was sleeping. He had to have been sleeping. That was it. That was all.

My legs started to move while my brain was catching up. “Zane, Zane, hey, Zane, I’m here, Zane.” I kept saying his name, more loudly as I bent down to hold him. I had to stop the bleeding. Apply pressure to the wound. That’s what I had to do. That was it.

All I had to do.

I scanned his body, looking for the source. His shirt was soaked in crimson. I peeled it back. His chest. A stab wound, still pushing out blood.

“Zane, Zane.” I tore off my shirt and bundled it up. I pushed it down onto him. He was just sleeping. That was all.

Police. Needed to call for help.

One hand stayed down on Zane, my shirt quickly turning red. I reached into my pocket and grabbed my phone. Blood stained the glass. I tapped out 9-1-1. The woman who answered sounded like Barbra Streisand, I noted. One of Zane’s favorite singers. I told Barbra Streisand exactly where we were, why we needed help. She said help was on the way.

The police station was just across the street. They’d be here—

“Oh my…”

A voice sounded from behind me. It was faint. I whipped around. A woman, bleeding from her forehead, was getting up from the ground. Susan. She was looking at me with wide eyes, the kind of eyes a doe gives when a semi is barreling toward her. Fear.

“No, no,” she said, a hand coming up to her mouth. “He tried saving me. Oh God. Please, no.”

“Save you?” It sounded like someone else was speaking, not me. Was that Barbra still on the phone?

“My stalker. He broke in while Zane was interviewing me. Oh no, no. I can’t lose someone else.”

She looked shaken to the core. I turned back to Zane. His eyes were closed, his skin pale. He was still breathing. “Come, help me hold this. We can save him.”

Susan stood there.

“Now!”

She burst into action, running to Zane’s other side and kneeling down, adding to the pressure.

“Come on, Zane. You’ll be okay. Just wake up.” I couldn’t feel the tears that slid down my face, only saw them as they fell down onto Zane’s.

“Come on, come on.”

Sirens. Police were so close.

“Go grab extra towels,” Susan said, nodding toward her bathroom. She was looking at the open door. “We need more towels.”

I didn’t want to leave his side. I didn’t give a fuck about towels.

“Go get them,” she said, sounding more insistent.

I looked down. Wake up. Wake up. Wake u—

“Zane!” His eyes were fluttering open. Susan stood up. I looked at her, angry. She had a job to do.

“Enzo,” Zane rasped. He coughed. “She did this.”

Instantly, I knew. Everything clicked.

“Shit,” Susan hissed, looking down at the both of us, her face twisting into something resembling contempt. “I really thought he was dead.”

She was turning to bolt. She was about to run right out of the room, possibly escape. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I exploded into action, jumping up like a fucking great white going after a seal. My arms were wide as I flew through the air, and I clamped them around her and threw us both to the hard ground, landing with a thud on Susan’s side. She struggled underneath me, kicking and spitting like a rat inflicted with rabies.

“Fuck, it was going to all work out. Fuck,” she spat as she kicked out, hitting a side table and almost splitting the cheap wooden leg in half.

Footsteps sounded down the hallway. The police. Help was here.

I continued holding her down. Someone came up to us and lifted us both.

“What’s going on here?” the man said, his voice commanding the scene.

“She stabbed him,” I said before Susan could spew any of her lies.

Zane. I ran to him. The EMTs ran in right after the police and immediately started work on stabilizing him. I held on to his hand. His eyes were still open. The EMTs were saying something, but all I heard was Zane. His voice was soft. “I love you.”

“Mio amore. I love you. You’re going to be okay, Zane. I promise.” I looked to the blonde EMT, her concentration laser focused on stabilizing Zane. “Right? He’s going to be okay, right?”

“The stab wound appears to have missed any vital organs,” she said.

That wasn’t really an answer, but I took it anyway. I kept holding his hand, memorizing the feeling, committing it to heart, never wanting to let go again. It felt like I held on to Zane’s hand from the second the police got there, to the moment he was being laid down onto the stretcher.

It was when Zane was taken into surgery that the immensity of the situation hit me, threatening to crush me under its weight. I had to step outside of the hospital while I was waiting, even though the day was still shitty and raining, I couldn’t be inside. I couldn’t sit there not knowing how Zane was doing.

Needless to say, I was overjoyed when the doctor found me to tell me that Zane had made it out of surgery and was in stable condition. He said that Zane was tired but awake, and that a five-minute visit wouldn’t cause any harm.

I hurried to the recovery room. The elevator felt like it took decades to get to me. When it opened on his floor, I hurried out and searched for his room. When I found it, the door was ajar, and so I pushed it open, then walked into a small room with a single hospital bed and a window that was streaked with rain. A television was hung on the wall, playing NCIS on mute. I looked to the bed and saw Zane, color back in his cheeks. He looked like a mess, but a mess that was alive.

I broke down. This time, I was well aware of the tears that streamed down my face. “Zane. My bello Zane. I thought I lost you.” I went to his side, my feet moving on autopilot. He smiled at me. Actually smiled. It wavered a little, but he managed to keep it on his face. A machine monitoring his vitals beeped next to the bed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, looking up at me. I bent down and kissed him softly on the lips.

“Bene,” I said, feeling my heart swell with a gratitude I’d never felt before. It was deep and profound and lifted by the powerful love I felt for Zane. “Neither am I.”