Pronto.

I took stock.

I was on a bed. And I could feel my phone still at my ass.

This was good. I didn’t know where my purse was, but Brody had a lock on my phone. I had no idea how much time had elapsed since Rivers took me, but when I didn’t meet Matt or even before, when I didn’t text Ren that I was with Matt, they’d mobilize.

I needed to buy time

“Is Darius here?” I asked.

He tipped his head to the side and his eyes moved over my face. Then he moved into me, curled his arms around me and lifted me up so my torso was pressed to his and my chin was to his shoulder.

I squinted then swallowed, my head swimming, my heart clutching, my eyes seeing Darius prone on the floor about ten feet away. He was bleeding from two gunshot wounds to his thighs and a wicked gash on his head.

God.

Please.

God.

Please.

Let Darius be okay and let Ren have mobilized Lee.

My mind went off that thought when Rivers’s hands went into my tee and pulled it up. Unable to do anything else, my body not at my command, my arms went up and it was gone.

This was not getting better.

He laid me gently and sickeningly lovingly in the bed, still bent to me.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” he told me, his hand moving on the skin of my side, stroking me.

I tried to lift a hand. I got it up, weakly, and rested it on his forearm.

I took this as good.

“We need to talk,” I told him.

“I like this,” he replied and I was hoping that was an affirmative on our talking. Though, what he wanted to talk about when he spoke again, I didn’t like all that much. “I didn’t expect him to be here, but I like it. He had so much of your time. You smiled at him. You laughed with him. You teased him. So now, if he wakes up, he gets to watch me with you.”

I lifted my other hand and tried to push it against his chest, but I didn’t have enough in me to do anything but rest it there.

“Snookie, please,” I said softly. “I feel funny.”

His hand slid over ribs and toward my breast, his lips curling in a creepy smile. “You know my name.”

“Yeah. Now, please—”

“I like that you know my name,” he told me.

Gack!

“Snookie—”

He leaned in closer.

“I’ll make you feel good, Ally,” he promised.

Oh God.

Shit!

“Just five minutes. Please. Just five—”

His mouth came to mine and he brushed it there, back and forth, and again, and again before he replied, “No, Ally. I’ve been waiting too—”

He stopped speaking and my body jerked in surprise as two hands cuffed together came between us. They yanked back at Rivers’s throat and Rivers was gone.

I struggled to sit up and saw Rivers on top of Darius, his back to Darius’s front. Darius’s cuffed hands were pulling back hard on Rivers’s neck, and by the sick sounds he was making, it was clear Darius was choking him.

I rolled to my side. It seemed to take years while Rivers gurgled and he and Darius grappled on the floor as I went for my phone. I fumbled with yanking it out of my back pocket, cursing to myself and keeping my eyes to the men on the floor.

Then Rivers took one hand from pulling at Darius’s cuffed wrists at his neck and it went to his belt.

My eyes went to his belt.

He had a knife there.

“Darius,” I whispered, swallowed, and went for it again, trying for louder, “Darius! He has a knife!”

Darius rolled Rivers but Rivers was fighting for his life. He wasn’t wasting time.

And thus he didn’t waste time yanking out a huge-ass hunting knife, twisting it around, and sinking it into the flesh of Darius’s side.

And yanking up viciously.

Darius grunted, but by some miracle he did not let go of his hold on Rivers’s neck.

Shock and terror pulsing through me, along with adrenaline (thankfully), I shrieked, “No!” and moved to grasp the edge of the bed.

I pulled myself off and pushed up on my hands and knees, scooting toward them, my hands slipping on Darius’s blood flooding the floor.

“Fuck!” I shouted, making it to them as they rolled this way and that. Rivers’s face was now blue, his legs kicking in panic and agitation. Darius was grunting, the noises full of exertion and pain. I got my hands on the knife still in Darius’s side in order to use it on Rivers and get him off Darius, but they slipped free over the warm blood. “No,” I whispered, going for it again just as sunlight hit the scene.

I looked up to see Ren charging in, Lee and Hank behind him, Eddie and Luke following.

Thank God.