My gaze cut to Calvin, impressed despite the seriousness of the situation.

If my entire life didn’t blow up before the end of the day, I owed him a raise.

Not only for his driving but for his willingness not to ask questions, despite how serious the conversation must have sounded to him.

My gaze stayed glued to the clock on the dash as Calvin kept speeding through stop signs and weaving in and out of traffic.

Five minutes.

If Saff wasn’t fighting too badly, he wouldn’t hurt her. Not that fast.

But who was I kidding?

This was Saff.

She would struggle.

Ten minutes.

I felt like every inch of me was buzzing, like I was going to fucking shake apart from panic.

“Five blocks,” Calvin said as he flew down Brooklyn, making people on the sidewalk turn and shake their heads.

“Wait,” he called as he slowed out front of the nightclub.

“I can’t.”

But before I could even step onto the sidewalk, he was there in front of me, reaching under his suit jacket into the holster under his arm. Then handing me a gun.

“It’s clean,” he said, chin lifting. “Do what you gotta do. Know me some ways to… clean shit up if it gets messy.”

I had, apparently, grossly underestimated my driver.

But there would be time to think about that later.

Right then, I had to get to Saff.

I took the gun, carefully tucking it into my waistband.

“You need me?”

“No. No, stay out here. If Saff comes out, get her the hell out of here.”

He gave me a nod and I turned to walk into the building.

I felt the blood rushing through my veins, whooshing in my ears, as I pulled the front door open then stepped inside.

I sucked in a deep breath and forced myself to slow my pace as I moved forward, knowing I needed to de-escalate this situation if at all possible.

My eyes adjusted to the low light inside.

Then I saw him.

Them.

They were both on the stage.

Saff was beside Alen, her hands duct taped behind her. Another strip was slapped over her mouth.

Alen’s meaty palm was wrapped so tightly around her arm that there was no doubt there would be bruises when all this was over.

Despite that, she was staring fucking daggers at Alen.

That’s my girl.

My gaze moved over her, taking in the bruise on her cheek, the dried blood under her nose.

My blood turned to battery acid.

“I was just telling your friend here that if you didn’t show up in another minute or two, she and I were going to have some fun.”

Alen looked nothing like the guy I’d once known.

He’d once been a tall, fit, gym-rat sort of guy with no neck and a round face. But bad habits had dissolved all that muscle.