I managed to catch a few of the words the biggest of the men said to Gio, but my addled brain couldn’t make sense of them. I could only cling to Gio’s jacket and keep my eyes down in the hopes that the move would somehow miraculously make me invisible.
It didn’t.
Before I knew it, heavy fingers were wrapping around my forearm, a feat I couldn’t make sense of since I’d been using Gio as a shield. But the proof was biting into my skin, and I couldn’t help but let out a little squeak of pain and fear. I could feel my brain shutting down in an effort to protect itself from what was coming. I’d seen all the times my uncle had been grabbed in the same way and even though I’d pretended as hard as I could that everything was okay, I’d known what was happening behind the closed door of the room he’d been taken into.
“Hey, leave him alone,” Gio yelled as he shoved the guy holding me away.
Even though the pain on my forearm was gone, I could still feel the weight of the man’s hand as strongly as if he still had a hold of me.
Run! Get help!
The internal command fell on deaf ears, and I could only stand mutely as one of the guys grabbed Gio from behind and dragged him backward. I allowed myself to drift to that quiet little spot in my head where the scene that was playing out before me was nothing more than words on a page. Reality fell away as I waited for the hero to intercede like he did in all of my books.
It didn’t matter how much the characters despised each other in any one of the hundreds of romance novels I’d read over the years… the rescue always came. The hero would show up just in time…
My safe space fell away as someone grabbed me from behind. I couldn’t tell if it was the same guy from before, but it didn’t really matter. With the way Gio was struggling and the lack of response from any of the dozens of club patrons nearby, I knew what was about to happen.
“Gio?” I heard myself call out. I needed him to tell me what to do. I needed him to tell me because the ugly truth was hitting me like a ton of bricks.
There would be no hero. There would be no rescue.
The man holding me began forcing me to walk straight toward a single curtained doorway. It was all I could do not to break down in tears. My uncle Micah would have automatically known what to do, and his husband, Con, well, he’d have neutralized the situation in a second flat. But I wasn’t an MMA fighter like Con, and for some reason, I couldn’t remember even one of the self-defense moves he’d taught me over the years.
Just before we reached the curtain, I heard a scuffle behind me but couldn’t see anything.
For about three seconds.
Then, just like that, I heard the guy holding me scream in pain, and then his hands were gone.
I was free.
Still, I was slow to turn around in case it was a trick.
“Christopher, run!” Gio called.
I spun around to see Gio struggling with one of the three attackers. The other two were focused on their injuries—injuries Gio had apparently inflicted on them.
The third guy slammed his fist into the side of Gio’s head, and just like that, Gio went limp. My mind raced as I tried to figure out how to save both of us. As I scanned our surroundings while the men regrouped, I saw it.
Salvation.
I lunged for the fire alarm on the wall next to the curtained doorway, but strong fingers closed around my wrist before I could pull the lever. I wanted to cry in frustration at the loss. I was slammed hard against a chest and then shoved forward through the curtain. I tried looking over my shoulder for Gio, but the man holding me gave me a hard jerk and then yanked me closer.
“You’re going to pay for that, you little bitch,” the man growled into my ear.
I ignored the chill that ran up my spine and called, “Gio!” The move earned me a hard yank on my hair, and meaty fingers closed around my throat.
“It’s always the quiet ones that put up the best fight,” the guy murmured as he ran his nose along my neck and up to my ear.
The tears I’d been desperately trying to fight off began to fall. I heard the men exchange crude remarks, and then I was dragged farther down the darkened hallway. I was only released long enough to be shoved through an open doorway. I desperately tried to get back to the quiet place in my head where my white knight had just gallantly saved me and was declaring his love for me, but the escape eluded me as easily as any hope for a physical one.