“Livy would never take advantage of me! She’s one of my closest friends!”
Barb shook her head. “Blayne, you say that about everybody.”
“Because it’s true.” She grinned. “People love me.”
“I can’t believe you’re okay with this female’s outrageous cost, Bo.”
“I know she’ll be on time,” Novikov said flatly. “That makes her worth every cent. Now if I could just get the rest of this wedding on some kind of schedule—”
“This is going to be fun, Bo,” Blayne argued. “I’m not turning it into some kind of nightmare event so you can feel we’re on time.”
“I don’t think I’m asking for a lot for this thing to at least start at a certain time.”
“This thing is our wedding.”
“It sounds like it’s going to be complete chaos. Chaos!”
Livy didn’t really pay attention to the bickering. Instead, she was busy staring down the She-tiger across the table. The lioness beside her—Gwen’s mother, whom Livy had met at one of the derby bouts—watched silently, but Livy could tell she was happily anticipating a good fight.
“You’re being unreasonable!” Blayne yelled at her mate.
“I’m being unreasonable? By expecting some order out of what’s quickly turning into an insane event?”
The She-tiger, still staring at Livy, suddenly raised an eyebrow. A move that Livy found . . . offensive.
So, in a calm, reasonable way, Livy scrambled across the table, her fangs out, her claws leaving gouges in the shiny wood.
She nearly had all those fangs and claws embedded in the roaring She-tiger’s face when big grizzly bear arms wrapped around Livy and yanked her off the table. Lock, like most grizzlies, was surprisingly fast and smart, pinning her arms to her sides so that she couldn’t claw at him or anyone else.
As Livy hissed at the She-tiger, and everyone stared at her, Bo Novikov nodded his head. “Livy’s right. This meeting is taking too long.”
Now everyone looked at Novikov, watching as the seven-one hockey player stood up. “I’ve got training.”
He walked out and Livy decided that was a good idea, too. She pulled away from MacRyrie. Picked up her backpack and slung it over her shoulder.
“Send me a schedule of when you’ll need me there,” she told Blayne and Gwen. Then she walked out of the restaurant.
Once outside, Livy debated where she should go next. The fact that she hadn’t been able to get into it with that She-tiger left her feeling . . . empty.
So Livy did the most unreasonable thing she’d done in a very long time . . . she went home.
CHAPTER 10
Livy pushed on her apartment door. She had to push hard . . . because there was a body in front of it.
Using her shoulder, she shoved and one of her cousins finally rolled away, allowing Livy to walk in.
She stepped over bottles of beer, wine, vodka, and whiskey; nearly empty bags of junk food; and puddles of vomit and blood. Yet Livy didn’t understand just how bad this party had gotten until the king cobra slithered across her feet.
They’d brought in poisonous snakes. A honey badger–shifter delicacy, which Livy wasn’t against now and then. Yet she was relatively certain her neighbors didn’t want to go to their bathrooms to find king cobras slithering out of their toilets.
Livy walked through her living room and down the short hallway to her kitchen. She stopped in the doorway. Melly was passed out on the floor, a half-eaten puff adder lying across her stomach.
Crouching down beside her cousin, Livy gently pushed the hair out of Melly’s face. “Melly? Honey? Can you hear me?”
Slowly, Melly opened her eyes, looked up at Livy. She smiled.
That was when Livy punched her in the face.
Melly came up swinging, dragging Livy to the floor with her. The rest of Livy’s cousins roused themselves from their drunken stupor to try to separate them.
Completely sober, however, Livy was able to push her cousins off and grab hold of Melly by the front of her dress. She lifted her cousin up and dragged her, kicking and screaming, to the bathroom.
By the time Livy had the toilet seat up and Melly’s head shoved under the water, the rest of her cousins had Livy by the arms and hair and were pulling her back.
Melly jumped away from the toilet, black-and-white hair dripping wet, gasping for air. Then she came at Livy.
Yanking her arms away from the hands holding her, Livy rammed into her cousin. Snarling and hissing, they battled their way out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, across the bedroom, next to the bedroom window . . . and eventually out of the bedroom window.
Still fighting, the pair fell the sixteen flights until they landed hard onto the roof of a black-and-white sedan. Livy landed on her back, but she quickly flipped over, pinning Melly underneath her by holding her cousin’s arms down with her knees.
Far away, Livy heard raised voices yelling at her as she pummeled her cousin repeatedly on the face and neck, but she chose to ignore all that.
Finally, hands grasped Livy and yanked her back.
Someone leaned in and tried to help Melly. It took a second for Livy to realize it was a cop. Whether Melly even realized that, Livy didn’t know. She just knew her cousin started swinging at him while screeching, “Let me at that cunt! Let me at that cunt!”
“You little weak bitch,” Livy hissed, a greater insult not known to the honey badgers.
“You ungrateful whore!”
“I’m ungrateful?”
“A weak, ungrateful whore!”
Livy yanked her arms away from whoever was holding her and dove at her cousin. She took her, and the cop holding Melly, down hard.
Far away, Livy heard raised voices yelling at her again as she pummeled her cousin repeatedly but, also again, she chose to ignore it.
“Vic! Vic!”
Vic turned around, but all he saw were the oversized, treelike sports guys walking toward him. But amid all that bulk was a raised arm waving.
He waited until the guys moved past him, a few stopping in front of him, expecting Vic to move instead, but he wasn’t about to move for anyone. Especially not hockey players, a sport he simply did not understand on any logical level.
Once the players cleared, Vic was able to see Toni rushing up to him. And ambling behind her, Ricky Lee.
“I’m so glad I found you,” Toni said when she reached Vic, her hand resting on his arm.
“What’s wrong?”
“I need your help.”
“Sure.”
“I need to go to Russia. Now.”
“Well—” he began, quickly searching for an excuse that would get him out of making a trip back to Russia as part of Toni’s security team. He still hadn’t found Livy, and until he knew what had happened to her, he wasn’t about to go anywhere. But he also didn’t want to alarm Toni by telling her that Livy had gone missing.
“But I just got a call,” Toni went on, a bit of panic in her voice. “Livy’s in jail.”
Shocked, Vic demanded, “What? What the hell happened? When did that happen?”
“It doesn’t matter. I just need to get her out.”
“No problem. I’ll post bail.”
Toni frowned, confused. “No, no. I need you to go to Russia. I’ll get Livy out of jail.”
Vic studied Toni a moment before turning his gaze to the wolf standing behind her.
Reed gave that annoying grin of his, which told Vic the woman was serious.
“You want me to handle negotiations with those Russian bears for a sport I don’t even respect?”