Margot Vane can copy anyone. Handwriting. Micro-expressions. Even the way a person breathes when they're lying. But after a decade of forging other people's lives, she's forgotten how to live her own. Blacklisted and broke, she takes one last job: pose as the wife of a dying arsonist to infiltrate a tech oligarch's vault. Ronan Cade has six months left. A former soldier who now burns the estates of men who escaped justice, he needs one thing from that vault: a letter that will free his imprisoned sister. He doesn't need a partner. He certainly doesn't need to fall for the cold-eyed forger who watches him like he's already ash. Their fake marriage is a performance at first. Shared bedroom. Manufactured anniversaries. A past they invent each night. But when a catastrophic wildfire begins eating the city, their window to steal the letter collapses to eight hours. The vault's real secret isn't a document. It's a choice. Do you burn the world for someone you're pretending to love? Or do you save the lie that became your only honest thing? What We Steal Before the Fire is a mature romantic thriller about two broken people who learn that authenticity isn't about originality — it's about choosing someone despite the guaranteed loss. For readers who love slow-burn tension, moral gray zones, and endings that hurt because they're true. Characters don't fake their HEA here. They steal something better: a real goodbye.