Page 66 of Royal Desire

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.