Page 37 of Ruthless Riches
10
Nate
“Hey. Wake up, buddy.”
Something jabbed me in the ribs, jarring me awake. I opened my eyes, wincing as the light hit me.
I couldn’t remember where I was. How I got there. Anything. It felt as if my brain was a house filled with rooms that had been burglarized—walls pummeled with fists, doors smashed down, windows shattered, tables flipped.
Was this how Alexis felt when I drugged her all those months ago?
Something hit my ribs again. It was a black boot. “Hey, come on. This isn’t your bed, man.”
I realized in shock that I was lying on a patch of asphalt next to my car. Two security guards were peering down at me. Behind them, the sun was peeking out from behind a gray cloud. Judging by its position in the sky, it was somewhere around eight or nine o’clock in the morning.
“If you’re still too drunk to drive, we can call a cab for you,” the security guard said, brows furrowing. “But you can’t stay here like this.”
I sat up and rubbed my throbbing forehead. In a sudden panicked rush, several scattered memories from last night flooded back in. “I wasn’t drinking,” I said. My voice came out in a dry croak. “I was attacked.”
I rubbed the side of my neck. One of the guards crouched down and peered at it. “Holy shit. He’s not lying. There’s a bruise and a puncture mark there.”
I nodded weakly and cast my eyes around. “Where’s Alexis?”
“Who’s that?”
Panic tightened my chest. “My girlfriend,” I said, pointing to the other side of my car. “She was right over…” I trailed off and rose to my feet, heart pounding as I scanned the parking lot. “Alexis!”
“Is this hers?” one of the guards said. He’d just stepped around to the other side of the car. Now he was holding up a purse and a phone with a cracked screen.
As I stared at it, I could feel the same old fear rising inside me; that cold, black tidal wave that threatened to engulf everything.
“He took her,” I said, eyes wildly darting around in the hope that it would all turn out to be some sort of misunderstanding. I knew it wasn’t, though.
Alexis was gone.
“Call the police. Now. Tell them Alexis Livingston has been taken by the Butcher,” I said, grabbing the front of the first security guard’s jacket.
He nodded, eyes wide, and pulled out a phone. The other guy came back over to us and held out a steady hand. “Let’s get you inside.”
They led me through the staff entrance of the Devil’s Playhouse and into a small room on the first floor. One of them got me a bottle of water and offered me a couch next to a low coffee table.
When I sat down, the room started spinning around me. For several minutes I wasn’t sure if anything was real anymore. It all seemed to be happening in a strange, blurry fever dream.
This was definitely how Alexis felt all those months ago.
The police finally arrived, including Detective Fernandez and her partner, Rader. I heard them by the door, talking to the two security guards in low voices.
“We need access to all of your security footage from last night,” Fernandez said. “Including the entrance, the parking lot, and the front gate.”
The guards looked uncomfortable. One of them scrubbed a hand over his chin and shook his head. “Sorry. We can’t do that.”
Fernandez raised her brows. “This is a massive entertainment complex. You do have cameras, don’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing. A young woman has been snatched from your parking lot,” she snapped. “We need that footage.”
The guard on the left held up a palm. “You don’t understand. We’d give it to you if we could, but…” He trailed off, cheeks flushing red.
