The Alen that I had known when I was young.

Not this one.

“No, I think this is the perfect place for the conversation,” he said, his tone cold. It made a sliver of ice slip into my bloodstream.

“Alright, man. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“Good,” Alen said, and there were more shuffling sounds in the background. What was he doing? Moving shit around? “Because I’m trying to play nice right now.”

“Play nice?” I repeated, confused.

“Yeah, with Blue here. But she’s a feisty one. I might not be so nice for too much longer.”

I felt like the world fell out from underneath me.

Like I’d been sucked into some void.

Saff.

He had Saff.

My stomach churned so hard I was sure I was going to be sick.

I pressed the phone to my chest.

“Calvin. Fuck the red lights and speed limits,” I said, watching his eyes find mine in the rearview. There was an intensity I’d never seen there before, like he understood perfectly well that the shit had just hit the fan.

He nodded and wove into the next lane to a chorus of horns.

He had Saff.

“Alen, what are you doing?” I asked, surprised any sound could come out considering the way it felt like my throat was closing up.

“Trying to catch up with an old friend. Even if he is trying to fuck me over.” The tail end of that had his voice going tight and his breath coming out faster. Like—and my heart crushed at the thought—he was jerking Saff around.

“With her. What are you doing with her?”

“Nothing yet. But who knows?”

If you’d asked me early on in our friendship if I thought Alen was capable of hurting an innocent woman, I would have sworn up and down that he wasn’t capable.

Though, looking back, maybe that was just naivety.

Alen always had a dark side.

But he was pitch black these days.

And now he had Saff.

Fiery-tempered, stubborn, guarded, sweet, soft, perfect, tiny Saff.

In the hands of a fucking madman.

“Alen…”

“Drive fast, Sore. I think we both know I have no patience.”

With that, he hung up, leaving me tossing my phone to the floor with a harsh, “Fuck!”

Calvin said nothing, just floored it through a light as it turned red.

“Get me there in under twenty, Cal,” I said, heart hammering in my chest.

I could call the cops.

They could be there in five, maybe ten, depending on if they took me seriously or not.

But calling the cops would mean it would all come out; it could all come crashing down.

“I’ll do it in fifteen,” Calvin assured me. “Though you might wanna buckle up.”

As if to drive home his point, the car whipped into a turn that sent me flying across the backseat.