“All hail the Long Licks,” Beau said as he raised his glass, borrowing from the Tin Gods’ trademarked slogan.
I shook my head. That bastardization wasn’t going to fly with me. But I still clinked my glass with his and shouted, “Lick it up!”
“Every fucking drop!” Beau called back as he slammed his glass against ours.
“Every drop,” Leif echoed before crashing his glass into ours, then shooting the rest of his soda.
“Fuck, it still burns, even if it’s just soda.” Beau gasped as he set his empty drink down.
“Coz you’re shotgunning it like a moron.” Ryker scoffed.
The door ripped open, and Leif’s assistant, Zanna, ran into the room. “Answer your phones! What the hell is wrong with you all?”
I exchanged wide-eyed looks with Ryker. As long as I’d known Zanna—almost five years now—she’d never talked to Leif, let alone us, like that.
“We’re in a meeting.” Leif frowned at her. “You know better than to—”
“Saylor was taken hostage at the airport,” Zanna spoke over Leif, coming straight to me. “It’s all overthe Babbler. Her ex grabbed her in baggage claim and was in a standoff with the cops.”
“What the fuck!” I ran across the room to where I’d left my cell phone on his coffee table, powered off after our stupid finsta follow session.
Once I turned it back on, ping after ping of alerts came in.
Texts from countless people.
Twelve missed calls from Saylor.
Fuck.
Fuck!
I tapped on her name, and it took me a whole minute to toggle to speaker phone because of how much my hands shook.
“—not available. At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, simply hang up.BEEP!”
“She’s not answering!” I yelled before trying her again.
“Your call is being forwarded to an automated voicem—”
I killed the call again.
“What the fuck!” I turned back to the guys and Zanna. “Where is she? Is she okay? Is she, is she…” I couldn’t even finish the thought, let alone say it.
“She’s alive,” Zanna answered shakily. “As far as I know she was unharmed. They haven’t reported any ca—”
She cut herself off at Leif’s nasty glare.
But I knew what she was going to say—casualties.
“I don’t understand.” I stared unseeingly at the hardwood floor. “Naomi was supposed to arrange security. I didn’t wantSaylor driving herself to the airport. She was supposed to be protected.”
Shaking my head, I turned away and tapped at my phone’s screen again. This time calling Naomi.
“Hey Mal,” she answered, sounding all friendly and normal and not like someone answering from a hostage scene. “How’d the meeting go?”
“What the fuck? Where’s Saylor? Why am I hearing from Leif’sfuckingassistant that she was abducted? Where the fuck have you been?”
“What? She was what?” She sounded legitimately shocked.
