Fire Born (Firehouse 343) (33 page)

Tony held up his hands in a position of surrender. “You’re
right,
I should have stayed out of it. But Martie and I are close, and I love my sister. She’s unfortunately had to put up with more than her fair share of assholes and I would hate to see her get hurt again. That’s the only reason I said anything.”

Suppressing a growl, Chris nodded acquiescence. “I get it,” he admitted. “
I’ve got two brothers of my own, and I’m protective of them too.
”

“Any sisters?”

“No, thank God,” he replied, and when Tony looked at him questioningly, he added, “If I did, I’d probably be just like you, or worse—as in have an adult record as well as a juvenile one, because I’d knock the shit out of every one of the men in her life that turned out to be an asshole.”

Tony grinned. “Who says I haven’t rolled a few
dumbfucks
all in the name of brotherly love?”

Chris studied him for a moment, and then chuckled. “Now that you’ve said that, I might just have to start liking you.”

“And now that I know you love my sister, I might just have to do the same,” Tony agreed.
“Albeit on one condition.”

“Do I even want to know what that one condition is?”

“It’s simple: You just have to accept the fact that if you ever break her heart, you and I are
gonna
rumble.”

“Martie’s heart,” Chris said solemnly, “is safe with me, Tony. I just hope she’s still willing to let me have it.”

She had dreamed about him. That he had sat by her side, holding her hand and talking to T
ony.

Or had that really happened?

Maybe, if she could just open her eyes, she’d find out. With a soft sigh, Martie lifted eyelids that felt like lead, hoping against hope that it hadn’t been a dream, and that Chris really had kept vigil by her bedside. She was disappointed to see only her brother keeping her company.

Well, not entirely. She was glad that he was here—she’d just hoped that Chris was too.

Tony leaned forward. “Hey, stranger,” he said softly.
“How you feeling?”

Carefully she lifted the hand without the I.V. in it to gingerly touch her face, feeling it still swollen and tender on both sides. “Probably better than I look,” she said after a moment. 

Her eyes drifted around the sterile white room again, and her brother chuckled. “
Loverboy
left an hour ago.”

She looked at him. “So I wasn’t dreaming,” she said with a smile.

Tony shook his head.
“Nope, no dream.
The big lump
sat here all night, until I forced
him to go home and get some sleep.”

“Why didn’t you go with him?” Martie asked.

Her brother snorted.
“Because he’s not my boyfriend, smart ass.”

Despite having just been told that Chris had sat by her side all night, Martie felt her heart drop a little. “
He’s not mine either,” she said sadly.

“Please,
sorellina
,” Tony chided. “I highly doubt any guy’s
gonna
sit for hours on end beside a woman in a hospital bed that doesn’t care about her. Besides that, I happen to know he loves you.”

Martie scoffed.
“Oh really?
And how do you know that?”

“Because he told me so himself.”

She blinked rapidly as she looked at her brother, whose expression
was free of the guile she often expected from him. Slowly,
a smile spread from ear to ear, hope
and love blooming in her breast.

“By the way, I’m supposed to give you a message,” Tony said then, and she raised an eyebrow in curiosity when he reached into a back pocket
,
a moment later h
olding
up a very familiar object: one of her digital recorders.

And if she wasn’t mistaken, it was the very same one she’d left with Chris in that hotel room in Billings.

“He recorded…whatever’s on here…while I was in the cafeteria a few hours ago,” her brother said as he handed her the device. “So I’ve no idea what he said—though I admit it’s taken no small amount of willpower not to listen to it.”

Martie held the recorder close to her heart. “It’s none of your business, nosy,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him.

Tony laughed. “Good to see you getting back to yo
ur old self already,” he said, then stood with a groan. “I’m
gonna
head out and grab something to eat—real food, not the slop they claim is food in this hospital. You want anything?”

Gratitude swelled within her as she looked up at her big brother, who had obviously known that the moment he gave her the recorder she’d want to listen to Chris’s message. This was his way of giving her a chance to do so in private.

“Sure. Whatever you’re
gonna
get is fine,” she replied.

Tony nodded and then headed for the door. He turned back as he stepped across the threshold, saying, “I’ll let ‘
em
know
at the nurses
’
station that you’re awake. And do me a favor—call Mom and Dad first. They’ve been nagging me like, every half hour. I could do without my cell buzzing my ass ever
y
thirty minutes.”

Martie nodded and he pulled the door shut as he went. Looking to her left, she noted that there was a phone on the bedside table
, and she rolled to reach for it
. After dragging the entire handset over to sit on the bed with her, she picked up
the receiver and put it to her ear as she dialed her parents’ number in Billings.

“
Liotta
residence, Carmen
speaking,” her mother answered after the second ring.

Tears sprang unbidden to Martie’s eyes, and she sobbed as she was suddenly struck with the realization that she had come very close to never hearing the sound of her mother’s voice again.

“
Mamá
?
Sono
io
,
Martine,” she said softly.

“
Oh! Grazie, Signore
Gesù
!
” Carmen
Liotta
yelled in her ear, and Martie could tell she was crying as well.

For the next several minutes she spoke to her mother in Italian—Carmen always switched languages when she was upset. Hating having been the cause of the distress, Martie did her best to reassure her mother that she was going to be fine. No, she had not spoken to the doctor yet, as she’d just woken up a few minutes ago. Tony had told her that she should call home first, so they could stop worrying.

“
Come se
tuo
padre e
io
possa
mai
smettere
di
preoccuparsi
per
i
nostri
figli
,” her mother scolded her lightly.

It was an old argument, and for once the familiarity of the words didn’t annoy her. Instead, Martie only felt the love behind them. She sighed, saying in English, “I know, I know. You and Dad will always worry about us.”

“Where is Antonio?” her mother asked then.

“Tony went to get something to eat,” she said. “He’ll be back soon. Should I have him call you?”

“No, that’s not necessary. I’m sure your brother is
tired of hearing from me
,” Carmen said. “But I was so worried when we got the call you’d been injured.”

Martie frowned. “Who called you, anyway?” she asked.

“It was a very nice young man named Christopher Paytah. He said he was a captain with the fire department there and that he regretted having to call with such news, but that you’d been injured. Oh my goodness, Martine—I swear my heart stopped when he said those words.”

Her chest squeezed tight, and Martie closed her eyes against a second welling of tears. “I’m so sorry,
mamá
,” she said, swallowing heavily. “I had no idea…”

Graham. He
was
behind the
Breckon
Apartments fire, even if he hadn’t been the one to start it. He was responsible for
more than
thirty people being homeless, tens of thousands of dollars in property damage, and he was ultimately responsible for the death of Chris’s best friend and mentor. He had known before he even sent her to Gracechurch that first day that
Ronnie and Jessica not only lived there, but that they had lived when they were meant to die.

He had lied to her, had purposely misled her investigation so that she would believe Trevor
Breckon
had
be
en
responsible
—he had wanted her to think the
worst of Victor
Stillman
, too
.
She knew now that he had suggested she take a closer look at Chris
not out of concern for her, but
because he wanted her for himself, and despite the love he had claimed to have for her, he had tried to kill her.

Martie shuddered at the memory of his tongue in her mouth, his hands on her breasts,
his
flesh against hers as he squeezed them around his member. Bile rose in her throat and her stomach heaved, and knowing that a
wretching
fit was coming, she told her mother as calmly as she could that she needed to go, hanging up just in time to
lean over the side of the bed and
vomit on the floor.

After what little liquid in her stomach had been forced out, Martie dropped back onto the pillow, tears flowing freely as the memory of being at Graham’s mercy
came back to haunt her. She didn’t want to remember the disappointment, the disgust, the fear… Now more than ever she wished Chris was here, to hold her and soothe her as she had done for him. To brush her hair back and whisper that everything was going to be okay.

Maybe then she wouldn’t have to remember.

Sighing and wiping furiously at her face, she searched the blankets for the call button, signaling her need for a nurse. To her surprise, someone she recognized responded—one of the nurses from the children’s floor she’d spoken to yesterday.

“Are you feeling alright, Lieutenant?” she asked as she came near.

“I’m not feeling sick or anything, per se,” Martie replied shakily. “I just… Bad memories
,
is all.”

The nurse, the older of the two she’d met the day before, smiled sympathetically as she took Martie’s wrist in hand, felt for her pulse, and then looked at her watch to count the beats. “Nice and steady,” she told her as she laid her hand back down. “A little elevated, but I think that’s to be expected after everything you went through. Did your brother tell you anything?”

Martie shook her head. “Only that Chris Paytah had been here most of the night,” she said.

The nurse grinned. “I think Chris has taken quite a shine to you, Lieutenant,” she said then. “From what I heard tell, he refused to leave you even when they were treating you in the ER—said he wasn’t letting you out of his sight.”

Feeling a goofy grin come to her lips, Martie told her, “
I think it’s alright if you call me Martie. If you’d like, that is.”

“And I’m Jackie—no ‘Nurse Jackie’ jokes, please. I get enough of those from my co-workers, thank you very much.”

Martie chuckled. “I don’t even watch the show, so you’ve no worries there,” she
said, then sighed. “So what’s the damage?”

Jackie’s expression was frank. “You’ve got a couple of nasty shiners and a hairline fracture in your right cheekbone
. Three stitches at your throat from a laceration
and two on your forehead—I heard you were pistol-whipped—
and a big bruise
at your midriff
, like you were kicked.”

“I was,” she muttered darkly.

Jackie sighed. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, hon, but you’re
gonna
be just fine, don’t you worry. Gracechurch
ain’t
Billings, but we got some wonderful doctors here.”

“Speaking of being fine, how’s Ronnie? Please tell me she’s alright,” Martie asked then.

When Jackie’s expression fell, she thought the worst—that Ronnie had died, leaving Jessica all alone.

“She lost a lot of blood from the stab wounds, and that rat bastard that hurt both of you broke her nose, too. She’s bruised up from that, and she unfortunately got burned from the fire,” the nurse told her softly.

“Oh,
mio
Dio
!”
Martie gasped. “How badly was she burned?”

“It’s not too bad
—at least that’s what the doctor said,” Jackie said. “But her right shoulder and cheek are
gonna
scar permanent.”