19. Romantic At Heart
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ROMANTIC AT HEART
Ruby
Even though every instinct tells me to go, go, go, there’s no way I can leave Payne. It broke me doing it to him once. Never again.
What shook me most is the way he seems to be connected. Private investigators, Mafia friends, and calling in favors from his high school BFF to watch over my grandma and brother.
Then there are the biggies...
He doesn’t hate me.
He kissed me.
And he declared I was the love of his life to the world. Okay, maybe not to the world, but to every single one of his clients and a few Winslet residents.
The last two might have been for show, but I’m a romantic at heart.
Even if he did it to protect me from Enzo’s asshole employee who bruised my arm, the entire event has lived in my head on repeat like breaking news—worthy of repeating over and over again because I absolutely can’t fathom that it’s true.
I have nowhere to go, and I can’t say no to Payne. He woke up a part of me that had died. This means I’m out of choices.
Choices...
This isn’t the first time in my life I’ve found myself backed into a corner. Only this time, I’m not running from Payne and breaking my own heart and his. Instead, I put my trust in the only person I’ve ever wanted and told Payne everything. It felt good and terrified me in equal measures.
After that, the day became boringly normal. I have weekends off at the Combover, and I was anxious to get back to Grandma’s house. She already knows everything, though I was not anxious to tell Blake what was going on. He needed to understand the drama that I brought to his doorstep.
Blake’s reaction was exactly what I thought it would be—supportive and loyal.
He was in awe and declared that his life had never been as interesting as it is since I moved back.
Even though Grandma already knew why I came home, her continued support was as spirited as ever.
She said no one threatens her grandchildren and gets away with it.
Then she went on to graphically describe how if Enzo comes to look for me, she’d tear his arm off and beat him to death with the bloody stump.
Blake promised to have her back, but he said it with a wink.
Since he doesn’t have an aggressive bone in his body, I can only count on their protection in spirit.
It’s nice, but if Enzo Caruso comes for me, I’m on my own.
Thank goodness for small miracles—the day was uneventful other than the Winslet police cruising by the house so often, I worry the officer might lose his mind from boredom.
But when it came time for Blake and me to leave Grandma home alone for the evening, I’ve never been more grateful to the boys in blue.
Blake and I are back in the lounge doing our thing. Tonight is no private party, but it might as well be. The place is filled with Payne’s clients again, but Ansel Reid is nowhere to be seen. I have no idea what that means, but I am able to relax and perform without him glaring at me.
Payne sits at the end of the bar and hasn’t moved since we started. He’s also done everything to support his public declaration of love, though it’s only been quick pecks on the lips rather than soul-shattering kisses like last night.
On our first break, I called Grandma to check in. She’s doing what she does every night at this time, wrapping up her nightly Law & Order rerun before she switches it over to the news before bed, so she can relay the weather report first thing in the morning.
Blake and I are well into our second set. The place is standing room only. Dean even showed up and is at the bar next to Payne with a couple of his clients I saw him with last night.
The evening might be electric, but not enough to forget about the thought of Enzo making a trip across the country.
At the beginning of the night, Payne checked in with his private investigator and confirmed that Enzo is still in New York.
From his surveillance, he had a family dinner and then got into the back of a limo with his father.
I don’t know what kind of Mafia shit they’re up to, but as long as it’s far, far away from Winslet, I’m good.
If only the patriarch of the family knew his youngest son killed his oldest. How I wish making a simple nine-one-one call would end this entire mess.
I’m feeling it tonight more than normal. My voice is strained from the show going long last night, the crying, and the tequila. I want to cut the set short and down a gallon of water, but the need to do my best for Devon outweighs that.
As we start another song, my gaze roams to the end of the bar like it’s done so many times. But something has shifted.
Payne isn’t networking with his clients, and Dean isn’t his jovial self, sipping on a beer.
They’re both standing and alert in a way I don’t like. Dean has his cell to his ear and talks back and forth from the caller to Payne. They’re with two other men and their wives. All of a sudden, no one is enjoying their drinks or smiling and chatting.
Something’s wrong. I feel it. It settles in my chest like a heavy, sinking stone.
Payne’s light brown eyes shift to me and pierce me speechless. I stumble over my lyrics, but Blake doesn’t miss a beat. He covers for me and shifts back to the chorus.
Dean rushes out of the lounge.
Payne twirls his index finger, giving me the universal sign to wrap it up.
The expression on his face is sharp. Insistent. Urgent.
I skip to the end of the song and talk over the applause I don’t deserve. “We’re going to take a break. Use this time to catch up with the waitstaff or visit the bar. We’ll be back soon.”
Blake gets to me first. “Are you okay?”
I don’t have the chance to answer. Payne pulls me to his chest and puts his lips to my ear. To anyone else, he’s showing the affection any man would to the love of his life. But his words do not match that.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, baby. But Dean just got word that an emergency call came in. We need to go.”
Devon joins us along with the two clients who were huddled with Payne. Both men are tall and built. One is as Italian as Dean.
“Is everything okay?” Devon asks.
Blake looks as nervous as me. “That’s what I want to know.”
I can’t look at either of them. I settle into Payne’s arms where I’ve become more and more comfortable. “What happened? Is it Grandma? Did she fall again?”
“We don’t know much. Dean is on his way, and the volunteers have been called out.”
I press my hands into his chest. “Volunteers?”
“A fire.” He sucks in a deep breath, and I see the anguish in his eyes as he says the next words. “At the Sinclair home on Second Street.”
My heart drops. “No!”
Blake grips my forearm and panic bleeds from him. “She’s always in bed by now.”
Devon turns to Payne. “Go. I’ll take care of things here.”
The client Payne introduced me to earlier as Brand Vitale turns to his friend. “Stay with Aria and Tess. I’m going with Payne.”
Payne frames my face with his hands in a firm grip. “I’ll get you to her. She’ll be okay.”
A sob erupts from within me. “You don’t know that.”
“Alice is a survivor. She always has been.”
My throat tightens painfully.
“Nothing can happen to her. What if this is because of me? What if I brought this upon her?” The admission feels like handing over something fragile and breakable.
Blake is already in a full-out run exiting The Speakeasy. Payne puts his arm around my shoulders and hurries me to the door.
“You’re not losing her tonight.” His voice is steady.
Certain.
Like he believes it.
I grasp onto that certainty like it’s something solid, because everything else is slipping through my fingers.
The flames licking the sky are visible before Payne turns onto Second Street.
When he does make that turn, I let out a cry from where I sit in the passenger seat. “Oh, dear God!”
Blake’s truck screeches to a stop in front of us, two houses down from Grandma’s. He’s out of his car running toward the only home he’s ever known. Volunteer firefighters are already working—some are running hoses, and two others are rounding the house to the backyard.
Payne squeezes my hand that he hasn’t let go of since we got in the car. “I work with these guys all the time. If she’s not already out, they’ll find her.”
He barely throws the car in park when I rip my hand from his and push my door open.
The heat hits us. A wall of it—fierce and suffocating. Grandma’s house is ablaze. The flames are bright and hungry, devouring the place. It smells like burning wood, plastic, and memories disintegrating before my eyes.
I ditched my heels in the car and am barefoot. Payne tags my arm and pulls me back to keep me from running any closer.
Brand Vitale parks and joins us.
“Fuck,” he hisses when he stops at our sides. “If I had some equipment, I’d bust through the front door.”
I don’t know what that means, but I’d bust through the door with no equipment if Payne would let me go.
Payne leans down and tries to make me feel better. “They’ll find Alice. She’ll be okay—she has to be.”
“Blake!” I yell when I see my brother trying to get past a firefighter.
One of the EMTs stops Blake and holds him from moving farther. Blake looks like me, fraught with fear and dread.
I try with all my might to pull free as my words come out in cries. “Let me go! She’s in there. I can’t just stand here.”
“No.” Payne’s voice is firm and final in my ear. “I’m not letting you go. You’ll die, baby. I’ll never let that happen.”
My cries turn to sobs. “I don’t care. She doesn’t deserve this.”
He turns me to him. His hand dips into the back of my hair, and he stuffs my face into his neck.
He might have stolen my sight, but I can hear the nightmare behind me crack and pop.
His hold on me is a vise. My arms are pinned between us, and my toes barely touch the ground.
He presses his lips to the side of my head.
“We have to let them do their job. They’ll get to her. They have to.”
I feel the fight leave my body. “What if it’s too late?”
I feel his jaw tense against my face.
He says nothing.
The ash continues to fall around us. The heat is nothing like I’ve experienced. I can’t shake the feeling that it smells like more than just a fire.
This smells like death.
That’s when I hear Blake.
His voice rings above everything—the flames, the sirens, the orders being thrown left and right from the firefighters who put their lives on the line to protect our little town.
Blake’s voice is shrill, cutting through the night. “Grandma!”
My body jerks.
But Payne is stronger.
He doesn’t allow me to move.
No.
No, no, no...