A True King

by S. E. Rose

  “What’s going on?” I inquire as I glance inside the closet. It looks like it’s been ransacked.

  “This is going on,” Pete states as he holds up a phone.

  I reach out and take it, turning it over in my hand. “Whose phone is it?”

  Pete shrugs. “That’s a great question.”

  “Where did you find it?” But I already know the answer to that before he speaks. My eyes dart to the closet.

  “It was in a shoebox in the closet. A staff heard it vibrating and was concerned it was a bomb. Security found it.”

  “What? There was a bomb scare, and no one alerted me?” My voice booms in the small entry hall of the closet and bathroom of the suite.

  “We didn’t have a concern about it, or you would have been. Security found the phone within ten seconds of entering the room because it was still vibrating.”

  I press the side button and the phone’s screen comes to life. There is a slew of missed calls and texts all from different phone numbers.

  “It just looks like spam calls,” I state.

  Pete presses the phone screen. “I managed to unlock it. Those aren’t spam calls.”

  He presses in a code on the phone, and I open a text message.

  Unknown: Encrypted message attached.

  I try to click on the message, but nothing happens.

  “It no longer works. It must time out at some point,” Pete explains. “I have Jack working on the encryption on the latest one. I managed to get it to him before the message was erased.”

  I stare at the phone. Why would Mia have a phone that I didn’t know about?

  “Does Anna know about this?” I ask as I hand the phone back to him. My eyes drift around the room as though some other clue will magically pop out at me.

  “No. I haven’t spoken to her yet.”

  I glare at Pete. First, he doesn’t sound the alarm over a potential bomb threat and now he’s not called Anna as soon as he’s located something like this.

  As though sensing my annoyance, Pete holds up a hand. “Anna said only to bother her if it was an emergency because she’s working on something. I was waiting to tell her when we have a debriefing this afternoon.”

  “Anna needs to know about this now,” I state dryly as I text my sister. “Have your men done a thorough sweep of this room?”

  Pete nods. “I was going to call in a security team to do a more thorough search.”

  “Good. Keep me posted. If you find so much as a thread out of place on her duvet, I want to know.”

  Pete’s lips form a line as he tries to keep from saying something that will piss me off. Pete’s a good friend. I’ve known him for years. His parents, Helga and Clause, worked at the palace before I was even born. They’ve been so kind to us over the years. He and his brother, Lucas, grew up alongside me and my siblings. When you are kids, titles and birthrights don’t make much of a difference. It’s only as adults that those relics of ideas mean something.

  I let my shoulders sag and run a hand through my hair as I walk over to her dresser, placing a finger over the inlaid wood design on the top of it. “I have to find her, Pete.”

  I feel his hand on my shoulder. “I know. And we will.”

  And for just a moment, we aren’t HRH Prince Christian of Norddale and Pete Dansford, Head of Royal Security. We are two old friends, who spent their formative years playing hide-and-go-seek in the woods at the Summer Palace. Two friends who shared their first beer together in a secret passage in the palace’s west wing. Two friends who didn’t realize their stations in society would keep them from being friends publicly as adults. But here, in the safety of this room, for just this moment, we are friends.

  “Do you boys need a minute?” Anna’s voice rings out from the doorway.

  I turn to glare at my little sister as Pete quickly drops his hand. Anna’s face is painted with amusement as she leans on the doorframe with her arms crossed. Memories of Anna trying to hang out with us as a little girl flood my memory. She was always precocious since birth.

  Pete hands Anna the phone and explains while Anna begins to explore every digital crevice of the device.

  “I’ll give Jack a call to see what he’s figured out,” she states as she continues to examine the phone. She doesn’t look back up again as she turns and heads toward her office.

  I look to Pete. “I’ll be in my apartment if you need me.”

  He nods and I leave, giving Mia’s room one more once-over on my way out. I’ve been in there at least four dozen times since she left. I don’t know how I missed the damn phone. I decide that I’ll come back later after security has been through it. I don’t want anything left unturned.

  I make it to my apartment when my phone buzzes with a message.

  Anna: My office now.

  I sigh and loosen my tie. I turn and head to her official office.

  The corridors are quiet with staff having their afternoon tea. When I arrive, I knock on the door. Anna’s assistant isn’t outside her office.

  “Come in,” she calls out from the other side of the door. I enter and find her sitting at her desk. Her desk is actually three different desks. One is a standing desk that has a large screen on it. Another is slightly lower with three screens on it. And the main desk has a laptop. There are no papers anywhere, which makes the printout from earlier even more puzzling.

  “What? No other printed images?” I ask as I enter.

  She huffs before looking my way. “My devices were…occupied with tasks, so I had to be creative.”

  I press my lips together at the irked sound of her voice. Clearly, having to print anything is a complete annoyance to my sister.

  She quirks an eyebrow at me, and I narrow my eyes. “What’s that for?” I ask at her gesture.

  “Tell me you know.”

  I groan. “Know what? Stop talking in code!”

  She swivels one of her monitors toward me. I squint as I step forward to read it. It’s a birth certificate. Mia’s birth certificate. Anna points at the screen and my gaze follows her finger. Father: Maximus Eldegard

  “OK, so you already mentioned that Max went by another name. So what?”

  Anna sighs as if I’m an idiot. She pulls up another document. This time I frown because it’s a record of birth for a royal. There are several micro-nations in Europe. Ours, Norddale, is one. Our neighbor nation, Montelandia, is another. And two countries away there is a small principality called Skogdal. It’s small in comparison to Norddale, a city really. Its royal family is from a long line of the House of Larsen. I’ve met a few of them over the years. King Ivan, their current king, is an elderly gentleman in his early nineties. He has one son, Gilbert, who is close to our father’s age. Gilbert is married but is rumored to not be the father of his son, Jasper. It has long been suspected that Gilbert’s wife, Elsa, had an affair with a famous actor and Jasper was the result of that. Some people believe it’s the main reason that Ivan hasn’t stepped down from the throne.

  “Yeah, I know all of this. I don’t understand. What’s the issue?” I ask.

  “Look at Maximus’s dad’s name.”

  I look. “Ivan Eldegard.”

  Anna sighs again. “Do you know nothing?”

  I glare at my sister as I study the birth certificate. The mother is a woman named Paula Weber. That doesn’t ring a bell. “I don’t get what you think you are seeing.”

  Anna changes the screen again and I see a royal family tree. It’s Skogdal’s royal family. She points to King Ivan and then above him to his parents. His mother was the queen. She was the only child of the king, and it was rumored to be quite the big deal when she took the throne. King Ivan’s father is lesser known, but his name was…I pause as I re-read it…Kristoff Eldegard. I frown.

  “Did King Ivan take his mother’s family name?” I ask in confusion.

  She nods. “But his legal last name…is Eldegard.”

  It takes me a full twenty seconds to process what Anna is saying because t
he logic leads me to the most preposterous conclusion. It can’t be true, but the evidence before me seems irrefutable.

  “Mia…is a princess,” I whisper, the words sounding even absurd when spoken.

  Anna nods. “And based on a DNA test I…stumbled upon…she’s the rightful heir to Skogdal after Gilbert and of course her father. Jasper is not his son.”

  “What?”

  Anna smirks. “Looks like those movie star rumors are true.”

  “Holy shit! Mia is a princess!” It’s as though the reality of it finally hits me all at once. My mind goes in a million different directions as I try to process this information.

  “But…does she know?” I ask.

  Anna frowns. “You mean, she never said anything to you?”

  I shake my head as a hundred different conversations with Mia play through my memory. “Anna, I don’t think she knows. I only just found out.”

  Anna studies me for a beat. “So, you didn’t know?”

  “No. Things would have been…different had I.”

  Holy fuck. The fact that Mia is missing just got a whole lot more complicated.

  Chapter Four

  Christian

  I sit and stare at my sister as she does what she does best…search the dark web. To say that we were both shocked at her discovery about Mia is an understatement of epic proportions.

  Anna’s fingers freeze and I look at her face. She’s in her zone, headphones on, music blaring, a large glass of water sits next to her monitor.

  “What?” I ask.

  She glances over at me. “Care to take a field trip with me?”

  “Where?”

  She pulls her headphones down to rest around her neck and presses a button, stopping the music. “I think we need to retrace Mia’s steps.”

  “Why?”

  “Call it a hunch. I just feel like I’m missing something. I need to see what she was seeing, and I can’t do that from this office.”

  “I was there though. I went to her parents’ home. I didn’t see anything unusual.”

  Anna rolls her eyes. “No offense, Lion, but looking for needles in a haystack is not your forte.”

  “Touché,” I state dryly. She’s not wrong. I’ve always been a “big picture” guy. Auggie pays attention to detail, but only when it’s convenient to him. Anna though, she’s our detailed sibling. Whether it was finding the right puzzle piece or spotting an Easter egg nestled in the woods, she has always seen the little pieces.

  Anna picks up her phone and calls someone. “We need to go to England … Because I said so … Now … I know that … I don’t really care … I’ll talk to him…just do it.” She hangs up and looks over at me. “We leave this afternoon.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” I ask.

  “Just you and me…and our security,” she states with a sigh.

  “Who was that?”

  “Pete. He’s not a fan of this idea. He wants me to let him start an official inquiry, but let’s see what we find before I call in the big guns.” She pauses as she types a message on her phone. She rolls her eyes. “Fucking men.”

  I raise an eyebrow and she glares at me. “We leave now.”

  “Now, now?”

  “Yes. If we don’t leave now, Logan will be here, and he is not happy with this field trip idea.”

  “Shouldn’t you…oh, I don’t know, talk to your husband. I mean, you are married.”

  “I did. I told him I was going to London with you. He asked why. I explained and he said over his dead body.”

  I groan at my brother-in-law’s words. Our families have been through a lot over the past few years. First, my uncle tried to have Logan and our family killed because he wanted to take down the monarchies in our countries. Then, my brother, Auggie, and his girlfriend, Kate, found that a secret organization called The 44 was trying to have us killed as part of a worldwide attack on monarchies. They are an underground group dating back hundreds of years. They are rumored to have killed Julius Caesar. They were going to take out the entire royal family and they had started with Queen Louisa, my mother, who was thought to have died in a car accident, but the accident was not an accident. After it was found that they had members at the palace, all the staff were sent away, while we had their backgrounds checked.

  Before all of that, my poor brother-in-law, Logan, was just a regular guy, living the dream on his yacht in the Bahamas before my sister stumbled upon a murder-for-hire hit on him on the dark web, which led to her arranging a secret rescue mission guised as a royal philanthropic visit. He didn’t even know he was a prince until then. Needless to say, she saved him, and they fell in love and married. Our aunt is also currently dating Logan’s uncle. They’ve put off announcing a marriage, but we all know it’s coming, further cementing the close relationship between our two small nations.

  “Maybe you should stay here,” I state, already knowing Anna is not going to take no for an answer.

  “Fuck off, Lion. I’m going. What use is it if I’m not there anyhow?” she replies, narrowing her eyes at me, but the fact that she used my nickname again tells me she isn’t put off by my statement.

  “Fine. I don’t want to hear from—” My phone pings and I look down to see a call coming in from Logan. I take a deep breath and answer. “I tried to talk her out of this.”

  “I don’t want her going without me. If she goes, I go,” he demands. “She won’t listen to me on this, but you will.”

  I sigh as I look at my sister who is staring at me intently. I can tell by the way she’s frowning that she knows perfectly well who is on the other line.

  “Fine. We leave in two hours.” I hang up the phone and look at Anna. “Your husband will be accompanying us.”

  “Fuck! I fucking knew it. Motherfucking, little backstabbing, piece of shit!” She quickly shuts her mouth as my eyebrows rise at her little outburst. It’s unusual for her to be so…well, angry at her husband.

  “Trouble in paradise?” I ask as I stand.

  She huffs and crosses her arms. “No,” she replies like a petulant child.

  “Really?”

  “I’m not in the mood to discuss this,” she practically growls.

  I raise my hands in surrender. “I’ll just say that I’m here if you need to talk. I’ll meet you at the front gate in two hours?”

  “Yes. I’ve already ordered the plane on standby.”

  I nod and leave to go and have my staff pack me a bag. On my way there, I find Auggie in the gym. My brother spends way too much working on his physique. I’m actually quite shocked that a woman was able to kick him off his playboy pedestal, but then again, Kate is no regular woman.

  “Anna and I are leaving this afternoon for London. Something is going on with Mia. I need to find her immediately.”

  Auggie slows the treadmill down and takes a drink of water. “Are you chasing after Mia because you think there’s something serious going on or are you chasing after the woman you love?” he asks with a smirk.

  I lean forward. Auggie isn’t short, but I still tower over him. “I’m not discussing this with you.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Will you just admit you love her? That you’ve loved her since the first time you laid eyes on her? Everyone knows it. This is not a secret.”

  “Auggie, just…be careful. I feel like something is going on that is…not right.”

  Auggie turns to me, his smirk disappearing. “What do you mean ‘not right’?”

  “I mean…Mia had a cell phone hidden in her closet. I don’t know why, but security found it today. There were encrypted messages on it. Jack’s decoding one of them. My gut tells me there’s more to Mia disappearing than just the fact that all the staff were sent away while each was investigated to make sure they weren’t part of The 44.”

  “You don’t think she was part of them, do you?”

  I shake my head. “No. I don’t think it’s that. I’m not entirely sure what I think, but Anna’s concerned. She found out that…” I pause
to consider my words. “Mia’s a princess.”

  Auggie’s head snaps back at my words. “Wait. What?”

  “Her father is the son of King Ivan.”

  “Gilbert?”

  “No, that’s the weird part. Max is Maximus Eldegard.”

  “But Mia’s last name is Edgewater.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not entirely sure it is.”

  “Did she ever say anything about this?” Auggie asks as he grabs a towel and wipes the sweat from his brow.

  Shaking my head, I lean back against another treadmill. “Honestly, Augs. I don’t think she knows.”

  Now Auggie is frowning. “But…why would her father keep that a secret?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’m about to go find out.”

  “Shit, man. That is…wow. Well, keep me posted. I’m here if you need me.”

  “Thanks. Anna, Logan, and I leave in a bit. Anna wants to retrace Mia’s steps.”

  “Logan?” Auggie’s eyebrow shoots up and his smirk returns.

  It takes every ounce of willpower not to roll my eyes. “Don’t even get me started about those two. Do you know what’s up with them?”

  Auggie shakes his head. “No, but if you figure it out, let me know. Anna’s been acting crazy lately. Crazier than normal, which is saying a lot.”

  “I will.” I turn to leave.

  “Be careful, Chris. Where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire.”

  I nod as I walk through the door, my brother’s words echoing in my head. My heart doesn’t want to believe it, but my head tells me he’s right. The only problem is, I don’t know how big of a fire I’m going to find.

  Chapter Five

  Mia

  I stare out at the ocean. Christian is out there, somewhere. My mind wanders to the last night we had together. The way he made love to me, worshipped me like he had been hiking for days and I was the first water he had seen. My legs clench together involuntarily as I think about the way he licked and sucked on me until I was screaming so loud that I was sure the king himself would come running.

  My eyes are too swollen from the hours I’ve already been crying to shed another tear. I’m doing this to protect him. He can’t know where I am, or he’ll be in danger. He’s the only man I’ve ever loved and now I can’t have him. The pain is blinding and relentless.