A Wise Prince

by S. E. Rose

  “No.”

  “If you see her…tell her to come find me,” he commands. I want to tell him to fuck off but decide that getting on the bad side of my girlfriend’s dad is probably unwise. Girlfriend…that word ricochets around my brain like a game of pinball. I let it go because I need to focus.

  I nod and head off to look for Kate. I look everywhere. I’m beginning to get concerned when Anna bumps into me.

  “Have you seen Kate or Ashlyn?”

  “No. I was just looking for Kate,” I say to her.

  Jessica walks over to us, a look of concern on her face as well. “You haven’t seen Ashlyn, have you?”

  My frown deepens. “No. Have you seen Kate?”

  Her brows furrow. “No,” she replies slowly.

  “Where’s their security?” I ask her.

  “Jackie and Bethany are debriefing in the conservatory,” she says.

  “I’m going to check the cameras,” Anna says to us as she heads toward her room, no doubt hacking our security system from her computer.

  I walk toward the conservatory with Jessica in tow. Jackie and Bethany are sitting at a bistro table sipping coffee. They have out computers, and I can see a calendar open on one of them.

  I clear my throat, and they turn around. “Have you seen Kate or Ashlyn, this evening?”

  Jackie frowns and stands, followed by Bethany. “No,” they say in unison before sharing a look.

  “Shit,” I mutter. “Do either of them have any friends that they would go see?”

  Jackie shrugs. “Yes, but Kate wouldn’t go do that, not under the current situation.”

  Bethany taps her foot, deep in thought. “Will,” she says dryly.

  “Oh, yes, that nice young boy she met,” Jessica says from behind me. “I haven’t met him yet. But he’s been traveling around Europe. Maybe he’s here. But they know better. They wouldn’t leave without you both.”

  Jackie and Bethany exchange another look, and Jackie rolls her eyes. “Unfortunately, they would.”

  Jessica looks a little shocked. Clearly, those two keep Mom out of the loop. I wonder how much she knows about her husband’s politics if she’s this clued out about her own children. She’s nice enough but seems a little caught up in her own world.

  I’m about to suggest we call Ashlyn when Anna bursts through the door.

  “We have a major problem,” she announces, looking at all of us. “Study, now.” We follow her down the hall. Christian, who must have just arrived, my father, and the president are already in the study, they turn to us as Anna enters.

  She doesn’t say a word, just walks over to my father’s desk and presses a button. The giant screen on the wall appears from behind wooden panels. Anna sets her computer down, and after a few punches of various keys, four video feeds appear.

  “Here,” she says, pointing toward the first one. It shows Kate and Ashlyn leaving the palace about two hours ago. “And here,” she says again, pointing to the second video. It’s a square in the small village nearby. I can see two figures that look like Kate and Ashlyn enter the square and look around. Ashlyn runs out of the screen. Anna points to the next one. Ashlyn is being held by someone, a man. But it’s the last video that has my blood going cold in my veins. It’s Kate, lying limp in the arms of a man, and not just any man, Jared.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Kate

  * * *

  My head kills. I groan as I try to move but I can’t. It takes me a good ten seconds to realize that my wrists and ankles are bound. I open my eyes slowly. I’m lying on the floor of a bedroom. I can’t tell what time it is as the blinds are drawn, encasing the room in only the dim light of a side table lamp.

  I look up toward the bed and see Ash. I go to cry out but realize there’s tape over my mouth. I struggle on the floor. She doesn’t move. Tears sting my eyes. Why’d I agree to go with her? I should have made her stay. And why are Jared and Bill here?

  I crane my neck to see if Ashlyn is breathing, just as panic starts to set in, her foot moves. Tears fall faster down my cheeks with the relief that washes over me. But that is stymied when I look at the door and see Jared sitting in a chair in front of it.

  “Long time no see,” he says to me as he stands and walks over, crouching down. The smell of his cologne fills my nostrils and makes me want to vomit. Memories of that last night with him, of him hitting me, come crashing back, and I feel myself tremble.

  He runs a finger along my leg, and I jerk back the best I can manage. He sneers as he leans closer.

  “I think you’ll want to play nice,” he murmurs, looking at my sister. I cringe.

  He looks back at me. “Daddy is not going to be happy with you, breaking out of the palace at night by yourselves…tsk, tsk. It’s a good thing Bill and I were there.” His smirk makes me whimper; it’s the smirk of a madman.

  I can see Ashlyn’s foot twitch again, but her eyes haven’t opened yet.

  “Don’t worry, she’s smaller than you, it’ll take longer for the drugs to wear off,” he says, reminding of my pounding headache that I’d quickly replaced with the numbness of absolute adrenaline when I saw him. “Now, can you be a good girl? I’ll take this tape off if you’ll stay quiet.”

  I don’t have any leverage to argue with him, so I nod.

  “Good girl,” he says as he rips the tape from my mouth. It burns where I’m sure he ripped off some skin, but I keep quiet as I lick my dry lips. It’s then I notice he’s holding a bottle of water.

  “Take a sip,” he says. I shake my head. He snarls. “It’s not laced with anything.” He stuffs it between my lips, and I’m forced to swallow the liquid. It’s cool and doesn’t taste of anything. I pray he’s being honest.

  “Why?” I ask quietly after he pulls the bottle back.

  “Oh, my dear Kate, you never were all that quick on the uptake,” he says as he lifts me up and leans me against a wall.

  I’m wondering if this is like the part of the movie where the evil villain talks too much and is overtaken by the good guys while going on and on about nonsense. I can only hope. My training tells me to keep him talking, if he’s talking, then he can’t be hurting us.

  “You really have no idea, do you?” he asks me.

  “Do you need money?” I ask.

  He laughs. “Because of the crown?”

  I nod. He laughs harder, an evil laugh that has the hair on my arms rising.

  “We don’t need the money, Kate. We needed to get to your dad and the royal family.”

  I frown, confused by what he’s saying.

  He sighs as though explaining this is just too exasperating for him. “You know where my grandfather was born, right?”

  I try to remember, in Europe somewhere.

  “Norddale, you twat. He led the society for years, although his attempts to overthrow the monarchy were fruitless. On his deathbed, he made my father swear to take over and bring down as many monarchies as he could, to make governments that were completely by the people and of the people, to get rid of the falsehood of the current systems. Dad was already in the senate. Some thought he wanted the presidency, but he only wants to bring down the presidency. Think about it, we could be a popular democracy. All the people would have all the input, not a few selected leaders. He blackmailed your dad with some stupid affair he had, and voila, he’s been able to get your dad to overturn laws and hand power back to the people. But your dad has been lazy, he still has work to do. And meanwhile, we need to keep amassing money to get people elected into the Norddale and Montelandia parliaments that are anti-monarchists. It’s a war with many fronts.”

  I try to understand what he’s saying, but it doesn’t make sense. “B-but…why?”

  “God, are you stupid. Don’t you see? The current government structures don’t work. They are ruining us. We need to start a revolution, take back control.”

  “But democracies are good,” I say.

  He shakes me and my eyes widen. “They are, but not how we are s
et up. No one man can have too much power.”

  I’m so confused, his thoughts are strange. He doesn’t want someone to have power, but he wants power. It makes no sense. I wonder if the drugs are making my brain slow down.

  “Why do you have us here?” I ask as I look over at Ashlyn, hoping she’ll wake soon but also not wanting her to wake to find herself here.

  “Daddy’s going to come get you, and when he does, well, he’ll change his mind about a few things. We lucked out that you came along too, it’s even better than I could ever plan,” he says.

  “W-what are you going to do?” I ask him. Ashlyn stirs, and he puts a finger over my mouth.

  “Rest up, Kathryn,” he says before putting the tape back on my mouth and leaving us alone in the room.

  August

  “Fuck!” I yell as I watch the video again. “Where does he take her?”

  My sister is, as always, three steps ahead of me. She pulls up new video feeds. “Last year, I had a series of cameras installed along all our main roads, mostly for traffic purposes, but also…well, anyhow, they show them getting in a black car.” She points to a screen. “Then, they go out of town on the A-25.” She points to another screen. “I tracked them to this exit,” she adds, pointing to the last video feed showing the car pulling off the main road.

  “Where does that lead?” I ask simultaneously with my father and Kate’s dad.

  She pulls up a satellite map. “Here,” she says as she points to an old estate containing several smaller buildings, essentially creating a small village at the foot of a long drive toward a large manor house.

  “That’s a lot of buildings,” Christian states.

  “Good thing you called for backup,” a voice says from the doorway.

  We all turn to find Jack Ross standing there, leaning against the doorframe like he’s the fucking king of the damn castle.

  “What have you found out?” Anna says to Jack as though having him standing here is completely normal. Jack Ross is the head of an international crime unit at Interpol. Or at least, I think he is. My sister knows him from her hacking days and has worked with him on many cases, including a plot to kill her now-husband. The fact that Jack Ross flew here, tells me whatever is going on, is serious, very serious.

  Jack walks in but doesn’t sit. “Is everyone here?” he asks. I’m not sure what he means by everyone, but Anna nods. Fucking spies.

  Jack turns to President Bradford, who visibly shrinks in his seat. Fuck me.

  “President, I think you have something to share with the class,” he says.

  The president, who I don’t think could look any paler, turns slightly green. “It’s all my fault,” he whispers, closing his eyes. “I shouldn’t have agreed.”

  Jessica pops up out of her chair. “What have you done?!” she screams.

  He looks up at her, defeat in his eyes. “They said we’d be safe. If I just passed those rules, we’d be safe.”

  Jessica gasps. “You…you didn’t! You sold out!” she cries out. “And after everything…everything I did. You said…you promised!”

  I almost turn away, because this seems like a very private conversation. But I can’t stop watching it.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Jackie asks from the wall.

  The president stands and runs a hand over his face. “I had an affair with my campaign manager.” Everyone gasps, except Jack, who looks like this is old news. “Jessica knows, but not the girls. Senator Farrington found out. He said he’d kill my chances at the presidency unless I made certain regulatory changes when I was elected. He promised me I’d be elected if I did this. I couldn’t…I didn’t want the girls to know, more than anything, even losing, I didn’t want them to know.” He pauses and looks pleadingly at his wife, who looks away as tears stream down her face. “A few months ago, the senator and his brother visited me. They said I was stalling and needed to finish my end of the bargain or pay a price.”

  “What was the price?” Jack asked.

  “They threatened my family and said they’d reveal my affair to the public.”

  “Threatened how exactly?” Jack prods.

  This time the president looks down. “The girls,” he mutters. Jessica gasps and sinks into a seat on the far side of the room. The president gives his wife a pleading look, but she keeps her eyes on the floor.

  “Do you know why they did this?” Jack continues to prod.

  “I always assumed it was for political gain,” he admits.

  “It is, but not in the way you think,” Jack says, and with that, every head in the room turns to look at him. “Senator Farrington is working with someone in your government, Your Highness. Conrad Johansen.”

  “What?” Chris and Dad say at the same time.

  “Conrad and Farrington are carrying out the goals of one of the oldest anti-monarchist groups in the world, known as the forty-four society. They originally date back to the times of Julius Caesar. Forty-four is the year he was assassinated. It was the first time a person who came to power via family was taken out like that. They have been working to bring down government systems where single people have too much power. Farrington believes the presidency has too much power, meanwhile, Conrad has been working to remove the royal families in Montelandia and Norddale, hoping to start a trend that begins dismantling all monarchies worldwide. The underground auctions have served as a way to gain funds to get the people they want into positions of power. This isn’t a radical political group. This is an organization that has withstood the test of time. They fully expect their plan to take decades, centuries even. They aren’t in a hurry. Every move they make is calculated and planned, sometimes for years. President Bradford, I’m sorry to say it, but you are merely a pawn in their game. Prince August, you finding that diamond, that was planted as well. But, right now, my biggest concern is that Jared has your daughters. Jared is a wild card. His actions aren’t methodical like his father’s. He’s unhinged. They could be in serious jeopardy.”

  “What do you mean the diamond was planted?” I ask.

  Jack looks at me. His bright green eyes flash with something. “It means, you were meant to see that diamond. They weren’t using it to get money, they were using it to get to you.”

  “But why?”

  “Think about it, August,” Jack says. His use of my given name takes me by surprise. He raises an eyebrow. I ponder his words. They were using it to get to me. Me? Why would they…it suddenly becomes clear. They want to take down each member of our family, one by one.

  “They were going to show the world that I’m nothing but a playboy criminal,” I say dryly.

  Jack nods. “Kate being with you…well, that was a wild card they didn’t expect. And it’s not just you, if they can paint the royal family as evil, then…well, it makes their case easier to present to the public.”

  I close my eyes, cursing under my breath. I played right into their hands. I’m an idiot. I open my eyes and look at Anna. She was played as well.

  Jack follows my gaze. “They knew Anna was searching for this auction. They knew you’d follow the lead. They are two steps ahead of us. Now we need to figure out exactly where they are, and why they are there.”

  Anna points to the screen. “The estate is owned by Lord Crane. It’s mostly a museum now. These buildings here, the village, people live in those buildings. But here, she says, pointing to a building off near the forest. That’s a gatehouse that’s for rent. If I had to guess…that’s where they are.”

  Jack nods. “I already have people on their way there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Kate

  * * *

  Ashlyn’s leg twitches, and she groans. Thank god she’s coming around. The tape isn’t as tight this time. I rub my face against the floor, trying to peel it back. It takes a few tries, but eventually, I get it off.

  “Ash?” I whisper yell.

  I hear another groan, but this one sounds panicked. “Ash, it’s OK. I’m right he
re.”

  I scoot across the floor and try to get near her. I hear her move on the bed. When I reach the side of it, she’s leaning over, looking down at me in complete and absolute terror.

  I sigh. I don’t want to tell her, but she needs to know.

  “Will…isn’t who he says he is, Ash. He’s Bill, Jared’s cousin,” I say. Her eyes widen.

  “I think this has something to do with Dad and Auggie’s family, and…I don’t know,” I whisper, my bottom lip trembling.

  My hands are bound with a zip tie, there’s no getting out of it. “How tight is your zip tie?” I ask her.

  She pauses and then shakes her head. “Too tight?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “Can you get out of it?”

  She grunts, and I see her arms moving. A minute later, I hear duct tape ripping. Her hands come around the front. I frown because one wrist is bleeding. It’s then I realize that she’s used her diamond watch to cut through the tape, smart girl, but the friction has also scraped her wrist. She pulls the tape from her mouth with a whimper.

  “What do we do?” she asks, her voice wobbling as she attempts to take the tape off her legs.

  I look around. “Help me up.”

  She gets off the bed and helps me to my feet. I shuffle across the floor with Ash behind me. I push the blackout curtains aside. It’s dark still. I have no idea what time it is. I peer out into the darkness. Forest, fields, and nothing else.

  I have no idea how long we were out or how many hours have passed since we were in the square. I look around the room. The building appears to be older. I don’t see a way to get out, the windows don’t open far enough for us to get through them. I look around the room.

  “Well?” Ashlyn says, her face looks extra pale in the moonlight.

  “I don’t know. Let me think,” I mutter. I hear people talking below us. He’s still here.

  I limp to the door and turn the knob, but it doesn’t budge. Then a thought comes to me. At the palace, there were a ton of old passageways and secret doors. Could this house have any?