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“God, I thought she’d killed you,” I whispered brokenly.

“Same,” she muttered. “She’s downstairs. Not dead.”

“She is.”

I looked up to see Dario at the mouth of the stairs, smoke curling around his feet and rising up like a cloak in the wind behind him.

“The kitchen and dining room are on fire, and she dragged herself out into the hall,” he explained, and I watched as he cleaned a small switchblade of blood on his pant leg. “She was throwing up and asphyxiating, but it seemed like a slow death. I was happy to move it along.”

No remorse for the murder of our mother, only the feeling that I should have been the one to end her for touching him, for touching her. They were mine to protect, and I had almost failed.

“Niccolo is dying,” I informed him, gesturing to the prone man. “Apparently, he was poisoned too?”

It was a question I leveled at Fia.

She laughed hoarsely, then coughed so hard I thought she would bleed from the lungs. “Rat poison in their omelets.”

“Ma quanto è brava la mia principessa,” I murmured, unable to keep the surge of pride from warming my tone as I called her my clever princess.

“We have to get out of here,” Dario hastened as something crashed again downstairs, and there was a soft whump as something large and flammable went up in flames. “The fire is spreading fast.”

Across from us Niccolo whimpered in pain.

I shot him from where I sat, shielding Fia’s ears from the blast with my free hand and my pectoral against her ear.

“Let’s go,” I said, lifting Fia carefully so I didn’t hurt her too badly.

“My brother,” she croaked. “He was downstairs.”

“Hank got him out,” Dario said.

“His wife and kids,” Fia gasped, eyes widening as she struggled to get out of my arms.

I held her still as gently as I could. “There is no way you are helping them. You can barely move. I’m getting you out of here.”

“Go,” Dario ordered, already moving toward us. “I’ll help them.”

Fia snagged his arm weakly before he could pass us, staring up at him with fear and hope marring her beautiful face. “Be careful.”

He nodded curtly but leaned down to kiss her brow. “Anything to make you happy.”

And then he was off, powering down the hall to the only closed door.

I didn’t stay to watch him.

The smoke was in the corridor with us now, thick and acrid. I dropped into a crouch as I jogged toward the stairs and down into the gray air, pressing Fia’s face into my shirt so she wouldn’t breathe as much of the toxic fumes.

As soon as we were outside, I dragged in a deep breath and heard Fia do the same. Hank appeared at my side, opening his arms for Fia.

“Let me take her,” he suggested firmly. “Renata is a nurse, Walter brought her.”

Reluctantly, I handed her over with a kiss to her cheek.

“Where are you going?” she asked, hands clutching at my shirt.

“To make sure my brother and your family are safe,” I assured her. “Don’t worry, it’s time for me to play the hero now. You rest.”

Her smile was faint, but I let it buoy me as I tried to get back inside the house. The entire first floor was on fire, flames licking out the door, powered by the oxygen filtering in through their opening.