22. Chapter Twenty-Two Ruby
Chapter Twenty-Two: Ruby
T ime moved fast when you were trying to forget someone. Faster when that someone was your mobster ex. Even faster when you were running for District Attorney.
There wasn’t time to linger on mistakes or regrets—not when every hour was eaten alive by strategy meetings, press briefings, voter outreach, talking points, interviews, polling data. I couldn’t afford to think about him…about Kieran
And I didn’t. Not really. Not during the day.
At night was another story.
At night, I’d open the drawer in my bedside table—the one I told myself was for practical things, necessities, stress relief. But tucked between silicone and satin was the scarf he’d used to bind my hand.
I didn’t take it out. Didn’t touch it. Didn’t have to.
But every time I came, I bit down on his name.
And then—then it was happening.
No, not an orgasm.
Election day. Kind of the opposite of an orgasm.
And tonight…Alek was grinning like an idiot next to me, because at least he was happy that I was about to win.
“You’re going to do it,” he said. “You fucking did it. I’m pretty sure you’ve won.”
It felt like drowning in light. In sound. It hit all at once, an overwhelming brightness that wrapped around me and didn't let go. People cheering. Hands clapping. Voices shouting over each other.
My name flashing on screens, the percentage next to it rising higher and higher. Reality struggled to catch up, everything moving in a blur of disbelief. I was winning. I was actually fucking winning.
The campaign office buzzed around me, too loud, too bright. My eyes scanned the numbers as they rolled in, disbelief churning with each update. My name. My percentage.
My brain lagged behind, unable to keep pace with what my eyes were telling me. It was like watching someone else's life play out on a loop. I stood there, frozen, caught in the middle of something I’d barely dared to hope for.
Someone popped a bottle of champagne. The cork shot across the room, lost in a sea of jubilant chaos. Glasses clinked. People toasted. But the sound was muffled, distant, as if it came from underwater.
My pulse hammered against my ribs, faster and faster. The harder I tried to focus, the more it slipped through my fingers.
The numbers glowed in sharp contrast to the disbelief settling into my bones.
Too bright, too sudden. Like the universe had flipped a switch without warning.
Everything around me was motion and energy, a cacophony of voices and clapping.
But in the center of it, I stood still, like the eye of a storm.
The office was a riot of red and blue, streamers hanging from the ceiling like veins, tables piled high with papers and buttons and half-empty pizza boxes.
Signs covered every wall. "Say Yes to Marquez." "Leadership You Can Trust." Nowhere to look that didn't have my name plastered across it. I swallowed, the room swaying slightly. It should have been grounding, seeing those words everywhere, but instead it made everything spin faster.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, blocking out the dizzying lights and the waves of people. Tried to breathe through the surreal, disconnected feeling. I was winning. Holy shit, I was winning. But it didn’t feel real. Not yet. Not when it was all happening so fast.
I held my breath, waited for it to sink in. Waited for the numbers to stop climbing, for them to come crashing down again.
They didn't.
Hands clapped my back, jostling me in different directions.
"You did it!" a voice shouted, but I couldn't tell whose.
Everyone was celebrating, swept up in the tidal wave of victory, and there I was, still a half step behind. Trying to catch up, to believe it was true. I blinked the world back into focus, the sharp edges of reality cutting through my disbelief.
But it was a slow bleed. The kind that doesn't feel real until it's already soaked through. I exhaled hard, my pulse still racing, the adrenaline of it flooding my system. How long had I held my breath?
Long enough for the room to take on a hazy, unreal quality, like a fever dream with too much color. I fought against it, let myself lean into the overwhelming press of noise and light.
A group gathered around one of the screens, shouting numbers and percentages at each other, their excitement feeding off itself.
The words blurred together, but I caught a few. Landslide. Historic. Unbelievable.
They jumbled in my mind, fragments of a truth I couldn't quite hold onto.
I shut my eyes again, squeezed them tight. Tried to focus on the sound of my name, the way it rose and fell like a wave. Tried to anchor myself to it, to let it pull me in. But the harder I tried, the more surreal it all felt.
And then it happened. Slowly at first, like thawing from a deep freeze. Reality crept in, inch by inch, moment by moment. My brain finally caught up, shaking off the fog of disbelief. This was happening. Really, truly happening.
The tension I didn't know I held began to ease, releasing like a taut wire suddenly gone slack. I opened my eyes again, let the lights and sounds rush back. The press of people. The riot of celebration. It was overwhelming, yes, but it was mine.
I was winning.
Alek was right. I had actually fucking won.
Julian’s hand closed around my wrist. His grip was firm, insistent. Like he could pull me out of disbelief and into the world of the living.
"You did it," he said, and just like that, reality crashed in.
The room erupted. Bodies pressed in on me from every side. I couldn't breathe. I didn’t want to breathe. Hands grabbed for me, Camille pulling me into a hug, Alek gripping my shoulder. More champagne popped. More voices shouted.
Julian kissed my cheek for a reporter’s camera as I pretended it wasn’t awkward, told me he was proud, then spun Rosie around as he told her mami won.
Everything was loud and bright, a kaleidoscope of sound and motion. My mind raced to catch up, to fill in the blanks where disbelief had been. I was winning. I had won. This was real, and now there was no escaping it.
The detachment that had kept me a step behind vanished, replaced by a flood of sensation and emotion. It was like waking from a dream only to find the world more vivid than I ever imagined.
Rosie wriggled out of Julian's arms, her excitement carrying her straight back to me. "Mami! Mami! We won! We won!"
She launched herself at my legs, squeezing with all her might. I laughed, scooping her up, spinning her in a circle as the room rushed past in a blur. Her laughter rang in my ears, clear and bright, and I believed it. We had won. This was real.
But I didn’t have a lot of time to sink my teeth into the feeling.
The speech. The cameras. The crowd outside waiting for me to step up to the podium. My stomach twisted as I walked onto the stage, the roar of voices crashing over me. They were cheering. Chanting my name.
I stood there, facing the city that had just elected me their DA, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all too much. Too fast. Too sudden. My head spun, my heart raced, and I wondered if I was about to make a fool of myself in front of all these people.
The floodlights were blinding, the sea of faces endless. I blinked against the brightness, against the overwhelming press of bodies and sound. The chaos of the campaign office had been suffocating, but this was a different kind of chaos.
This was massive. I could feel it in my bones, in my chest, vibrating through me until it was all I could hear. All I could see. All I could feel.
My mouth went dry. My hands were shaking. I tried to breathe through it, to let the disbelief and the fear settle the way they had before. The way Alek said they would.
I felt exposed, standing there on the stage, the whole world watching and waiting. I’d never imagined it would feel like this. Like being swallowed whole by something bigger than myself.
I scanned the crowd, looking for a familiar face.
They kept cheering. Chanting my name over and over until it rang in my ears like a song I couldn’t stop hearing. Like a dream I couldn’t wake from.
Part of me was swept up in this. And the other part thought: Guys, it’s just being DA. It can’t be that exciting.
A deep breath. Another. I could do this. I had done this a hundred times before. But this time, the stakes were higher. The moment was bigger. The energy was overwhelming, and it felt like I might be crushed under it.
I had done this before, but never like this. Never with this many people. Never with this much on the line. The floodlights made it hard to see, but I caught glimpses of them, the supporters who had stayed out all night to hear me speak.
Their signs waved in the air. Their voices carried across the crowd. It should have been terrifying. Should have made me turn and run.
It didn’t.
The disbelief and fear still lingered, coiling tight in my stomach, but there was something else, too. A thrill. A sense of triumph. Of victory.
Of finally, after so many years and so much work, being where I was supposed to be. Where I needed to be. I stood on the stage, my breath coming in quick, shallow bursts, and felt it all closing in. The weight of the moment. The press of anticipation.
Rosie was on Julian’s shoulders, waving. I smiled, the knots in my chest easing. The energy shifted, lifted, carried me. My hands stopped shaking. My pulse steadied.
The nerves were still there, sharp and bright, but they didn’t control me. Not anymore. I was ready.
More ready than I’d ever been.
I watched the crowd, their faces hopeful and expectant and loud.
The crowd was still cheering. My name, loud and relentless, echoing across the plaza like it actually belonged to someone who knew what the hell she was doing.
I stood at the edge of the stage, fingers curled around the podium to steady myself. Cameras flashed. Faces blurred. I was supposed to pull out the speech—the one Alek and I spent two weeks refining, the one we rehearsed until I could say every line in my sleep.