Page 5 of Wicked and Ruthless

He handed her his credit card. “Check back with me in fifteen.”

The waitress nodded as she inserted his plastic in her handheld device. When she presented him the screen, Nash gave her the promised tip plus more, then signed with his finger. She double-checked the transaction with a nod. “You got it.”

“What are we drinking to?” Zy asked once she’d gone.

Besides drowning my sorrows? “Whatever.”

Trees eyed the row of shot glasses. “Not being able to walk out of here? Puking half the night?”

Nash licked his hand, sprinkled some salt, then lifted a glass in salute. “We’re about to start a new year. How about we drink to leaving the past behind?”

No one replied, and he didn’t much care. He just licked the salt away, downed the first of his shots, sucked down a lime wedge…then repeated the process until he’d gulped down every drop from each shot glass.

With one last sigh, he slammed down the final one and closed his eyes, enjoying the hot, woozy rush through his veins. He hadn’t meant to skip dinner tonight, but that sure as hell aided in the buzz he had going.

“Hey.” Ethan Garrison suddenly sidled up to him. “Happy New Year.”

Nash just grunted. What was his housemate so fucking happy about?

Ethan looked poised to say something when he began scowling at his phone. “Son of a bitch.”

“What?” Maybe the kid had something work-related he could sink his teeth into. Nash prayed that would keep him from fixating on Haisley…

“I work out with one of the local cops at the gym around the corner from my apartment. We’ve been talking about the disappearances around that new mall…”

Nash hadn’t heard much about them. Both the local press and the police chief had been quieter than expected, given the fact that women had been vanishing from that place for a while. “Was there another abduction?”

Ethan nodded. “Christmas Eve. A nineteen-year-old girl. One minute she was at the food court with her mother. The next she was gone.”

Holy shit. “Eyewitnesses? Security guards? Cameras?”

As far as Nash was concerned, after the other disappearances, the mall should have implemented more measures to keep people safe.

“No one saw anything. There were no guards in that part of the mall when it happened. The cameras were all conveniently down.”

“That seems negligent as fuck.”

“Yeah.” Ethan darkened his phone with a shake of his head. “I hope they find her.”

But he didn’t sound hopeful.

“As far as you know, have they found any of the others?”

“No.” Ethan cut his eyes across the bar to where Haisley and her girls stood. Suddenly, he scowled before grabbing Nash by the arm and tugging him around. “If you want to get trashed, let’s go someplace else. I’ve got a liter of good vodka and a pantry full of junk food. Highrise isn’t Ghost’s and Trevor’s scene—too trendy—and the drinks are expensive. Let’s leave it to the couples and?—”

“And what?” Nash tore free and turned to see what Ethan tried to distract him from.

Haisley. Dancing with some random dude. Who apparently had a dozen hands and even more dirty thoughts, based on the way he touched her.

“Fuck that,” Nash snarled, glaring through the crowd.

She said something to her dance partner that had him backing off…but the douchebag’s retreat didn’t satisfy Nash’s inner beast. That part of him wanted to break the little bastard.

People parted as, his pulse pounding and his nostrils flaring, Nash stomped straight toward Haisley.

CHAPTER TWO

Haisley felt Nash Scott the moment she stepped inside Highrise.

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