“Did you see this?” Kieran’s voice calls.

“Did I see what?”

I drop two ice cubes into a tumbler, then peruse the private airplane’s stock of scotch. After the week we just had, I deserve it.

“The television broadcast about Bianca.”

My hand stops mid-reach, and I lean back so I can see my best friend, leaning back in the sumptuous white leather reclining seat, looking at his phone.

He knows something about her that I don’t.

“What about her?” I say, trying to force casualness into my voice, grabbing the nearest Scotch.

Kieran doesn’t answer right away. I quickly pour two glugs into my glass and cork the bottle again, not bothering to put it back.

He’s still looking at something on his phone, face dark, blue eyes aglow with intensity, his mouth a hard line. Instinctively, I know that whatever he’s looking at isn’t good.

“Tell me,” I say, my voice lowering as I walk back into the cabin, ice cubes clinking quietly in my glass.

Stop keeping her to yourself, I think. Even if it’s just some news segment.

“You should probably just look yourself,” he says, and hands me the phone.

It’s some news broadcast, the blonde, perky-titted anchor telling the camera that Princess Bianca of Voravia is perfectly safe, but in a secret location after the events of last night.

“The fuck happened?” I mutter at the phone.

“Just watch,” Kieran says. He turns sideways in his chair, leans his elbows on his knees.

We’re both still wearing our suits from the trade summit we attended, but ties are off and sleeves are rolled up as we finally make our way back home to Griskold.

I keep watching the broadcast, stomach sinking as I wonder what could have happened that has Kieran so serious and grim.

Well, more serious and grim than usual. My best friend is a lot of things, but ‘a ray of sunshine’ isn’t one of them.

“Here’s the video that the hackers released late last night,” Perky Tits says.

There’s some shit with a bunny, then some shit with a rock climber. They switch back and forth for a minute, and just as I’m about to ask Kieran what the fuck I’m watching, the bunny gets snagged by a hawk, screaming.

“Poor little guy,” I mutter.

Then the rock climber falls. It’s probably a couple hundred feet, and that one makes my stomach clench, and clench harder when the shaky handheld footage shows his twisted, dead body.

“Kieran what the fuck is this?” I ask.

He just looks at me, face grim.

Then the gore starts, all in one-second flashes: car accidents, surgeries, some poor asshole getting his head chopped off by a helicopter blade.

I start sweating, so I look away, take a deep breath.

You’re safe, you’re fine, you’re on Kieran’s plane, I remind myself.

Not out in the wilderness, fighting for your life.

“Me too,” Kieran says, and I just nod.

Then the flashes stop, and it’s one long, slow shot, the camera taking its time to pan out.

A girl on a bed.

No. A dead girl on a bed. Blood everywhere.

No.

It’s Bianca, dead on the bed.

“What the fuck?” I shout, jumping to my feet.

“She’s fine,” Kieran says quickly. “It’s not real.”

I throw his phone onto the seat, start stalking up and down the aisle.

“What the fuck kind of sick fucking joke is this?” I say, shoving both my hands through my hair. “Who the fuck does this sick shit? They should be fucking hanged, I swear I’ll do it myself—”

“Beckett,” Kieran says, his voice still low and calm.

I just keep pacing, unable to get the image of a dead Bianca, lying on the bed in a blue gown, out of my head. Even if they also said she’s perfectly safe, the image was manipulated somehow.

Kieran glances at me, and I glance back at him. Neither of us says anything for a long moment. I just keep pacing back and forth and he sits in his chair, staring at his hands.

Princess Bianca is a bit of a tender spot in our relationship.

We both met her at our friend Prince Grayson’s son’s christening a few weeks ago. And right away, we were both taken by her: dark hair, bright blue eyes, perfect red lips. Skin so pale it looks like she’s never seen the sun.

And right away, we knew she was different.

Let me back up: I’ve fucked a whole lot of women. I’ve fucked a good number of them right here on this plane, not to mention my own jets. The four of us — me, Kieran, Grayson, and our other friend Declan — are notoriously unable to keep our dicks in our pants or sleep with the same woman more than a few times.

But Kieran and I did a little more than that. One night, after getting really wasted, we slept with the same woman.

At the same time.

Together.

I’ve forgotten her name, but I’ve never forgotten the way she came again and again, completely overwhelmed as we both took her at once. The way she screamed and moaned and sobbed with pleasure, the way she begged us to never stop fucking her.

We haven’t looked back since. Until now, maybe, because Bianca’s not some girl in a club who’ll flash us her tits and suck one of us off in the bathroom.

Bianca’s a sweet, innocent virgin with a laugh like bells. She blushes when she says hell.

And I’m not sure I want to share her.

“It’s some hacker group,” Kieran’s voice cuts in, silencing my thoughts. “They’re famous for doing stuff like this. Been at it for years, mostly harmless shit, though it’s been escalating lately.”

I grab my scotch again, take a long drink.

“Escalating?”

He’s grabbed his phone back from where I threw it, and he’s looking down, flicking the screen with his thumb.

“Last year, they claimed to be behind a bombing and a kidnapping in Morgravia,” he says, his voice dead serious. “They had some half-baked political reason, but the explosion killed a bystander, and the Prime Minister’s daughter was kidnapped.”

Oh shit. I remember this, vaguely.

“She got returned a week later, after some negotiations, but she would never talk about what happened to her,” Kieran finishes.

I gulp the last of the scotch, set the glass down on the bar again so hard I nearly break it.

“Let’s fucking hunt them down,” I say, pacing back into the cabin. “Let’s go. Let’s fucking do it now, find those slimy bastards and wring their necks, one by one before they have a chance to—”

“So you know where they are?” Kieran asks, his voice still calm and placid.

I don’t answer, just pace. Of course I don’t fucking know.

“The intelligence resources of every country in the Central European Alliance have been trying to find out who’s behind it for the past year, and they’ve gotten nowhere,” he goes on.

“What?” I say, pacing the other way down the airplane cabin. “So we don’t do shit? It’s Bianca, Kieran.”

“Fuck no,” he growls, his blue eyes lighting from within. “I’m not saying that.”

“Well?”

“I’m saying I have a better idea.”