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“That doesn’t make it safe.” His voice rises, and the paramedic looks toward us. Andrei notices her attention is on him but keeps his eyes on me. “I came around that workshop and saw you on the ground with smoke pouring over you. I couldn’t tell whether you were moving.”

I’ve seen him angry with Rick. This is different. His face has lost its practiced calm, and he looks almost ill.

“I was moving,” I say, softer now.

He lets go of the chair and takes my uninjured hand. “I only know that because I reached you.”

The paramedic asks him to give her room to check my ankle. He stands at once, but he doesn’t go far. She finds bruising and says I may need an X-ray if the pain gets worse. My forearm has minor burns, and the cut at my temple needs a bandage. She wants me assessed for the smoke I breathed, so I agree to go to the hospital rather than spend the next hour arguing with both of them.

Andrei rides beside me in the ambulance. He answers one call from Mila, tells her to keep the horses away from the stable, and ends it when I begin coughing again. The drive is short. By the time a doctor finishes examining me, my breathing has improved, and they’ve cleaned and covered the cut. I’m told what symptoms to watch for and to return if breathing becomes difficult. Andrei listens to every instruction as though he intends to recite it to me later.

He does.

Drew sends a driver with Andrei’s SUV to the hospital, and it’s waiting outside when I’m discharged. On the drive back to the estate, he tells me not to touch the dressing and asks twice whether my chest hurts. I tell him the answer hasn’t changed. His hand stays between us, palm up. I put mine in it when we pass the first vineyard sign.

“I’m still angry with you,” he says.

“I gathered that.”

“I know why you helped them.” He keeps his attention on our hands. “I’m angry because I nearly lost you.”

I look over at him. He focuses on the road, but his fingers tighten around my hand. I want to ask what he meant by ‘nearly lost you.’ Instead, I hold on until we reach the gates.

The stable yard smells of wet ash when we return. Firefighters have put out the blaze, and the damaged end of the roof sags over the hay-storage room. The side exit where I fell is closed off. Walter stands in a distant paddock beside the mare, both under Mila’s care.

Birdie meets us outside the main house and puts her arms around me before I can tell her I’m all right. Reid waits beside her, phone in one hand. Sofia comes down the steps carrying a folded blanket, though the air is warm enough that I don’t need it. I take it because she looks as frightened as Andrei did.

“I looked in on Murphy when the alarm started,” Sofia tells me. “He’s asleep on the guesthouse sofa. He never noticed a thing.”

“That sounds like him.” I look past her toward the paddock. “Mila says Walter’s okay?”

“She checked him herself,” Birdie answers. “Both horses are fine. You, on the other hand, are supposed to sit down.”

We go inside, but I can’t stop looking through the windows toward the stable. Leo stands near the sitting room door with soot on his jacket, speaking to Andrei and Reid. When Drew joins them, Leo asks whether anyone has found out how the fire started. Their voices lower, but I catch the words rear wall and investigator. Andrei notices me listening and brings them into the sitting room so I can hear the answer too.

“The fire investigator found evidence of accelerant near the hay room’s rear wall,” Drew tells us. “They’re treating it as a deliberate fire.”

Sofia grips the back of a chair. Leo steps closer, his soot-marked jacket brushing her arm. “Mila was in that stable minutes before it started,” he says. “Cassie was still inside. Whoever did this knew there could be people and horses in there.”

Andrei looks at Drew. “Do they know how anyone reached the rear wall?”

“Not yet. We checked the cameras and gate records from this morning onward. No unauthorized vehicle came through, and the perimeter patrol found no new damage. Mila’s staff used the stable as usual.”

Leo looks toward the windows and the burned roof beyond them. “Feed deliveries use the yard behind the stable,” he says. “So do the farriers and maintenance crews. I can give you everyone who had a reason to be there today.”

“Do that,” Andrei tells him. “Whoever set the fire reached the stable without forcing a gate.”

Drew glances at Leo, then faces Andrei. “It could be an employee, a contractor, or someone using their access. We have to consider help from inside the estate.”

The room seems to grow smaller. This morning I resented the guards watching every drive. Now I think of the man working in the open workshop and the people carrying hay past Walter’s stall. I remember how ordinary the stable felt when I arrived.

Drew takes a small evidence bag from his jacket pocket. Inside it lies a dark coin, no larger than the ones Grandma used to keep in a dish by her register. One side has lettering I can’t read.

“The investigator allowed me to show you before it goes with the other evidence,” Drew says. “I found it in the gravel near the rear wall. Mila’s never seen it, and it doesn’t belong to any stable equipment.”

Andrei takes the bag by one corner and turns it toward the window. All the color leaves his face. I saw that look when he opened the envelope bearing a date from twelve years ago.

“What is it?” I ask.