Page 98 of Best Served Cold

The inside of the club looked exactly like the video, dark and loud and a mess of people and sounds.

I cut through the club, my head on a swivel as I searched for him.

Nothing.

I did another, slower lap, concentrating on the groups and crowds huddled around tables or near the walls.

Where the fuck is he?

Forcing myself to stay calm and focused, I rechecked the dance floor, making sure to zero in on any guy who even vaguely looked like Noah to be sure I didn’t miss him.

“Fuck.” Scrubbing one hand over my face, I headed to the bathrooms. He had to be in there. He fucking had to be.

I pushed the door to the men’s room open. “Hey!”

Four heads swiveled toward me.

One of them was Noah’s.

Three guys were crowded around him and had him pinned against the wall. All were big enough to be a threat, but in that moment I would have happily ripped their arms off and beat them with them for daring to touch him.

“Zane?” Noah blinked at me, his eyes bleary and bloodshot.

“Back off.” One of the guys holding down Noah spun on me. “You don’t want any part of this.”

Cutting the distance between us in three strides, I pulled my butterfly knife out of my pocket and flipped it around my fingers in a combo that had taken me nearly four months and a lot of accidental cuts to perfect.

“That’s so hot,” Noah said, his gaze a bit dreamy.

“The fuck?” the guy shrieked, his terrified gaze fixed on my knife.

His two buddies made strangled sounds and stumbled back from Noah, nearly falling on their asses and getting stuck in the door as they tried to dart through it at the same time. The third guy hesitated, but took off and scurried around me, following his friends as they spilled out the door.

“Are you real?” Noah asked, sliding down the wall.

“Are you hurt?” Snapping the knife closed, I knelt in front of him and tipped his chip up with my fingers. “Did they hurt you?”

He shook his head slowly and blinked even slower.

“Come on. Time to go home.”

“Home.” He made a forlorn sound. “I don’t have a home. Not anymore.”

“Let’s get you standing, okay?” I said softly, trying to get his attention on me and off whatever was making him so sad.

Noah was a big guy. I was strong, but not strong enough to haul his full weight around.

With his help, we managed to get him to his feet. He was well past drunk and on his way to wasted as I braced him against the wall.

“Did I text you?” he asked, or rather, slurred.

“You texted River.” I slung his arm over my shoulder.

“You’re not River.” He let me pull him off the wall but couldn’t do much more than that. My knees buckled under his weight, but I managed to get him balanced and gripped his wrist with one hand, and his waist with the other.

“No, but funny thing about being twins is that we talk to each other about stuff.”

“You talk to him about me?”

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