Page 86 of Wicked and Ruthless

Just over two minutes later, he pulled into the mall parking lot and jogged through the entrance mall employees used, thankfully unmanned. The cavernous mall felt eerily empty. He made a beeline for the food court, his heavy footsteps echoing against the industrial tile.

His apprehension climbed.

Finally, he reached the food court. No sign of Haisley or the janitor.

“Haisley?” Nash called out, his voice breaking the jagged hush. Silence answered him.

Heart rate climbing, Nash pulled out his phone and dialed Haisley’s number. It rang once, twice… Then he heard it. The muffled sound of a ringtone, coming from the hallway near the women’s room.

“No. No. No!” Nash broke into a run, skidding to a stop when he spotted Haisley’s phone laying on the ground, still trilling. Her purse was strewn nearby, its contents spilled across the tile floor.

No Haisley in sight.

“Haisley!” Nash shouted, panic clawing at his throat. He spun in a circle, poked his head into the empty ladies’ room, searching desperately for any clue, any sign of where she might have gone.

A distant sound caught his attention—an engine revving. Nash’s blood ran cold as realization struck. Without hesitation, he sprinted down the darkened hallway and shoved his way through the double doors, into the parking lot.

In the distance, he saw an old brown conversion van speeding across the nearly empty lot—too far away to see the license plate—its tires squealing as it made a sharp turn toward the highway entrance.

Terror washed over him. His blood froze.

“No!” Nash roared, already running. But it was futile. The van was too far away, moving way too fast.

As it disappeared from view, Nash stared after it, chest heaving, fists clenched at his sides. The magnitude of what had just happened crashed over him like a tidal wave.

Haisley was gone. Taken. And he had been too late to stop it. He hadn’t protected her.

Fuck.

Nash shoved down the terrible mix of fear, rage, and guilt, and leaned into his training.

He pulled out his phone, fingers flying over the keys as he sent out an alert to everyone in EM Security Management. They had mere minutes before the van hit the highway and vanished for good.

Nash hated like hell that he hadn’t had time to update his bosses about this case lately. Hunter Edgington was going to be pissed that he had begun looking into George Benedict without getting the a-okay. He’d been following the leads, but…

God, had their investigation made Haisley a target? And if Benedict was dead…who was pulling the strings?

Nash sprinted back to his vehicle, jaw clenched with grim determination as he climbed in, sped out, and flew down the road to see if he could spot that brown van.

He would find Haisley. He would burn the whole damn trafficking ring to the ground—hell, the world, if he had to—in order to save her. Every second counted. Haisley’s life hung in the balance, and he fucking refused to let her down again.

Nash tried not to think about the odds of finding her alive and unharmed as he jetted down the road…