A Wise Prince: A Poisoned Pawn World Book

by S. E. Rose

  I almost want to laugh. Our badass hacker sister is still and will always be our little sister. Even now, we naturally sit on either side of her, protecting her, keeping her safe.

  “Clearly, everything is a fucking mess,” Chris states, dryly. Neither Anna nor I respond verbally, merely nodding our heads in agreement.

  “We are just marionettes in someone else’s puppet show,” Anna starts. “I shouldn’t have ever let my guard down. Someone was watching me, watching all of us. This whole time, we thought we were adrift at sea, captains of our own ships, but in reality, someone was controlling the current and the wind.”

  She pauses. I start to turn to her, to reassure her when she jumps up and spins on her heels to face us. “Fuck! That’s it! Damn it! I’m so fucking blind!”

  “What’s it?” Chris asks, rubbing the back of his neck in a telltale sign of stress.

  “I need my computer, lots of coffee, and a few hours,” she says as she runs off without any explanation, leaving Chris and me staring at her back in complete bewilderment.

  Kate

  I leave the room as my father, King Michael, and Jack all begin to speak about Conrad and Senator Farrington. There’s nothing more I can do here.

  I can’t find Auggie. I decide he needs time to process. I climb the stairs, aimlessly wandering the palace. It’s nowhere near the size of the Royal Palace but it’s still impressive. There are at least eight guest rooms as far as I can tell, mostly located in one wing. The rebuild of the palace matches so well with the original structure that I can hardly tell it apart. I ponder what happened here when Anna figured out her former uncle was trying to kill her family. How did Auggie take that news? He’s had so much tragedy in his life—his mother, his uncle, his aunt nearly dying. My life has been a fairy tale in comparison, until now. But what did I really expect from my father? Did I think he was as virtuous as he portrays himself?

  I’m so deep in thought, I don’t realize that I’m not alone until I nearly run into Anna. She’s in a corner of the library, her headphones on her head, she’s wearing weird glasses, and her fingers move across the keyboard at such a rapid pace, they look like butterfly wings, barely recognizable as human flesh.

  I clear my throat and Anna’s head jerks up, a frown on her face. I suddenly feel bad for interrupting her.

  “Sorry,” I mouth as I start to step away, but she holds up a hand, stopping me as she pulls her headphones down to her neck.

  “Everything OK?” she asks me.

  I laugh at that because everything is not OK; everything is a fucking mess at the moment. A grin spreads across Anna’s face and I’m momentarily transfixed by her beauty. She’s breathtakingly gorgeous. I mean, I knew she was beautiful, but at this moment with her hair piled on her head in a messy bun, free of makeup, wearing an oversized sweater and leggings, her natural beauty shines through like a ray of light in a dark room.

  “Bad choice of words,” she says on a giggle. She takes a deep breath and motions for me to come sit next to her. I comply, sliding into a giant leather chair.

  “I feel like an idiot,” she confides in me, her fingers are still moving on the keyboard, as though they are controlled by a second brain. “I never considered that my server was compromised. I was so sure of my skills, so sure of my security, but…I was careless.” I see her eyes glimmer with tears. “God, was I an idiot.”

  I reach out and squeeze her arm. “We all have our moments. I didn’t think my father was capable of deceit,” I murmur, looking down in shame. She gives me a sympathetic look but otherwise doesn’t respond to my admission.

  “When the palace…when the explosion…well, I had left my computer in my normal hiding spot. It was still connected to my server. Whoever got inside my server and started watching me, has been doing it since that day. They know everything, every search I’ve made, every corner of the dark web that I’ve discovered.” She pauses. “My ignorance compromised my family…and yours.”

  “Anna, it’s not your fault. You’ve done nothing wrong,” I say because it’s true.

  She shakes her head. “I’m smarter than this. I should have known better.”

  She sighs. “But it’s in the past now. The good part of all of this is that I can now use this to our advantage. I just planted some…nuggets…and I think all of the guilty parties are going to walk right into my trap.” She grins a devious grin, much like a cartoon character that’s just devised a brilliant evil plan. I grin back at her, my body involuntarily mirroring hers.

  “Have you seen Auggie?” I ask her, remembering what I was doing when I started my mindless wandering.

  “Yep. He’s out in the garden, stewing over all of this.”

  I stand, ready to leave but Anna reaches out and grabs my hand.

  “Be gentle with him. There’s so much more to Auggie than he lets people see,” she says to me, her eyes wide with the truth of that statement.

  I squeeze her hand. “I know,” I whisper because I do. Auggie is one of the most complex men that I’ve ever met.

  I walk with purpose as I head to the gardens. My feet move of their own volition, my mind still races with all of the new information I’ve assimilated in the past hours. I shake my head, trying to clear the cobwebs in my mind. I don’t know if it’s the lagging effects of the drugs that Jared injected into me, or if it’s just the overwhelming amount of information that I’ve been bombarded with since returning to the palace.

  I hear murmuring and follow the sound, finding Auggie and Chris sitting side by side on a bench. Their heads both pop up as I walk toward them. Auggie stands, and when I’m close enough, he reaches out and pulls me into his arms. I wrap my arms around his waist and breathe in his scent. I feel his lips on my hair as he plants a kiss on the top of my head.

  “What now?” I ask him.

  “Anna’s—”

  “I know. I just talked to her,” I interject.

  “Oh?”

  I nod and look up at him. “Her server was compromised.”

  Auggie frowns. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “We should go back inside,” Chris says as he stands and looks at us.

  Auggie nods. “Yes, I think it’s time for a game plan.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  August

  My father, the president, and Jack sit around a table in the study deep in conversation with Pete, our head of security. They stop talking as we enter the room.

  “There’s a leak,” Jack says.

  “All our staff will be sent away temporarily. We are going to interview and investigate them, one by one,” our father says, looking pointedly at Chris. Chris is not going to like this. He’s in love with his secretary, Mia. We all know this, even though Chris refused to admit it publicly.

  “Father, a word, please,” Chris snarls. The king stands and ushers Chris out of the room.

  Anna walks in, her eyes following her brother and father as they leave the room, she looks at us with a question on her face.

  “Father is sending the staff away to be investigated and interviewed,” I say to her.

  She raises her eyebrows. “He can’t possibly send them all away at the same time,” she states.

  “We’ll send them away in shifts,” Pete states.

  Anna sighs. “Well, I’m working on something too. Jack, we need to talk.”

  “Yes, we do,” he agrees as she steps back out of the room.

  Jessica walks back in, and the sound of my father and brother arguing can be heard through the open door. She’s looking back out at them, clearly concerned and confused by their conversation.

  “Our security staff need to debrief,” she announces.

  The president looks between his wife and daughters. “We need a family meeting,” he states.

  Pete looks at them. “Please feel free to use the conservatory,” he says, and with that, he pushes a button. Tessa appears through a side door.

  “Tessa, please show our guests
to the conservatory,” Pete says to her.

  She doesn’t ask any questions but gives everyone a look that says she doesn’t like secrets. “Yes, sir,” she answers and motions for the first family to follow her.

  I squeeze Kate’s hand as I let her go.

  I’m left alone with Jack and Pete.

  “Who do we think it is?” I ask them.

  Jack runs a hand through his short hair. “The question now is, who isn’t it?”

  Anna bursts into the room. “The trap is set,” she announces as she walks over to a cabinet and presses a door, it opens to reveal our father’s personal espresso maker. She hums to herself as she makes herself a cup.

  “Anna, what trap?” Jack asks.

  She turns, tapping her hand on the cabinet door.

  “The server, it was compromised during the explosion. They’ve been watching us this whole time. We may have a rat here, but they wouldn’t need one here because they can see everything, all audio, all video, all Wi-Fi actions, anything that happens, they have eyes on it.”

  Jack groans. “Fuck!” he yells, as he pounds his fist on the table.

  “But I’m redeeming myself because I have a plan,” she says with the grin that she only gives when she really does have a plan.

  I roll my eyes. “Anna, seriously?”

  She glares at me. “Yes, dear brother, seriously. Anyone watching us, well, we’ll know who they are and where they are. We are going to have to take them down very methodically. Jack, you and I are going to have to come up with a game plan, pronto.”

  “Agreed. Let me get my guys on the phone,” he says as he dials a number on his mobile.

  I stand there, feeling very helpless. I have nothing to add to any of this. I sink down onto the sofa as I half listen to Anna and Jack discuss everything they know with some guy named Aidan. The facts are flying in one ear as my thoughts fly out the other. I feel like I’m missing something like the puzzle pieces are coming together in the dark and I can’t really see the picture they are forming.

  It’s when Anna says, “Jared brought that diamond with him to the auction. The crown though is still missing. We can’t track that diamond back before the gala when he was at the royal palace.”

  My mind stops whirling. The words “before the gala” bounce around my head as everything else freezes. No, there’s just no way, it’s not possible. A small memory plays in my mind like an old movie reel.

  “Dad!” I yell.

  Tessa shushes me. “Your father is in a meeting,” she says as she grabs my hand to usher me away.

  I peek inside and see Conrad Johansen sitting in his office. I don’t like him. He’s stout and has a face that always looks mean. He never acknowledges my siblings and me when he’s here.

  I go find Anna, and we start up a game of hide-and-go-seek, our favorite. I run out to the gardens and push myself in between the dense shrubbery along the stone wall. I’m about to try to get back to home when I see Johansen walking from my mother’s grave. I don’t move as I watch him. He looks around and then disappears behind a turn in the garden wall. I crawl out of the bushes and walk to my mother’s grave. It’s a peaceful place, a rose garden. There’s a bench there with the Shakespeare quote, “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” In the middle is my mother’s grave. It’s a beautifully carved stone with her name and birth and death dates. There are roses carved into it, her favorite flower.

  I look around, but I see nothing disturbed. I’m about to investigate further when Anna comes running toward me.

  “I see you,” she squeals, and with that, I take off running.

  “I…need to check on something,” I say abruptly as I walk to the door and keep on walking until I find my father’s old Porsche in the garage. I pull the key from the cabinet and start it up. I’m about to pull out when Kate steps in front of my car.

  “Where are you going?” she asks.

  “Get in,” I say, not wanting to waste time explaining my crazy thoughts to her. She tentatively gets inside.

  “Are you allowed to leave the palace without security?” she asks me.

  I turn to her grinning. “Nope,” I say, letting the “p” pop as I turn down a side road on the estate, a side road with a secret trail that leads out to the far side of the village. Nico will probably kill me for doing this but fuck it.

  “You do realize just how hypocritical this is, right?” she says to me. It’s not lost on me that we just rescued her because she snuck out of the palace. I don’t respond.

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going or not?” Kate prods.

  “The Royal Palace,” I announce as I turn onto the back road that will lead us to the edge of town and the castle that my family calls home.

  “Why?” she asks.

  “I have a hunch,” I answer, glancing at her. She’s watching me with a frown on her face. I turn back to focus on the road, pressing power on the radio.

  We don’t say another word as we drive. It takes about thirty minutes to get there.

  I pull off on a side street and park as I pull a hoodie over my head. We walk in silence and slip into the secret passageway that Anna and I always use to get in and out of the palace.

  Five minutes later, we are in the garden staring at my mom’s grave. I sit down on the bench and look around. I have no idea what I’m looking for. This part of the garden is surrounded by a tall stone wall. Ivy climbs it, and there are bushes trimmed into perfect spiral shapes around the perimeter. Rosebushes sit in front of them and in between them. Mom’s grave is in the middle, a stone pathway circling it.

  “What are you looking for?” Kate finally asks.

  I frown. “I don’t know exactly.” I stand and begin walking along the wall. As a kid, sometimes we’d find loose stones and use them to hide things. But I don’t remember finding any here.

  My hand runs along each stone as I walk around the small courtyard. There are few smaller statues placed in between bushes. I’m about to give up on my theory when I knock into a stone carving of a lion. It moves, and I put my hand on the wall to stop myself from falling.

  “Shit,” I curse to myself.

  I reach down to move the statue back in place and freeze. I see an opening in the stone platform on which it sits. I push the stone creature more and it moves, revealing a box. I let out a breath as I reach down and pull it out.

  Kate rushes to my side. “What is that?” she asks, but her voice tells me she guesses the same thing that I do.

  I set the box on the bench and slowly lift the lid. My mother’s tiara sits inside, missing the pink diamond and a few smaller ones, but otherwise, looking just as it did the very last time I saw it.

  Kate gasps. “Oh my god!”

  “Fuck,” I curse as I pick it up and examine it. “I can’t believe it’s been here the entire fucking time.” The genius of this hiding place is not lost on me. This would be the very last place anyone would be looking for the crown, thus making it the very safest place.

  “Holy shit!” Anna’s voice rings out from behind us.

  We both turn around as though we’ve been caught doing something bad. Anna rushes over and takes the tiara from my hands. Tears glimmer in her eyes as she looks up at me.

  “This whole time…” Her voice trails off as she runs her fingers along each gem.

  “How’d you…” I look around in confusion, words failing me.

  “You do know that I have you bugged, right?” she says, rolling her eyes as tears fall from them.

  I sigh. “Well, now what?” I ask because I can’t think of anything better to say after finding my mother’s missing crown.

  Anna smiles through her tears. “Now, we wait. This couldn’t be better.”

  “What couldn’t be better?” Kate asks.

  “I had a hunch about the tiara. Something you said once about Conrad being in here when we were playing. I don’t know why that memory came back to me right now. So, I followed you here and maybe left an electronic tra
il for our watchers,” she says proudly, clearly feeling redeemed.

  “Meaning?” I ask her.

  “Meaning, whoever is behind this should be coming here now,” she says.

  “Huh?” Kate and I both respond.

  Anna’s grin grows. “If they don’t want us to find the crown, then they are going to come get it. And I don’t think they’ll send just anyone based on the fact that I may have fibbed and made it look like our perimeter security just got upgraded along with more guards, making it crucial for a figurehead to come here instead.”

  “Jesus, this is crazy,” I lament as I run a hand through my hair and stare at the object that has garnered so much of our attention for so many years. “I can’t believe it’s been right here next to Mom the entire time.”

  “It’s fitting, no?” Anna says.

  I look over at Mom’s grave. “It is, but…” I trail off.

  Anna presses something on her watch. “I don’t know, but we are about to find out,” she whispers as she pulls us back into a corner as footsteps echo on the stone pathway.

  Kate

  Auggie puts an arm around me protectively as we wait. From the look of Anna’s watch, which keeps blinking, I’m guessing we aren’t alone out here. She must have alerted security. The footsteps get louder. We all hold our breath as a figure emerges from around a corner.

  Lacey, a young woman who works here, who I’ve only met once, appears. She looks around before stepping over toward the lion statue. She gasps when she sees it’s been moved, and the crown is missing.

  “It’s gone,” she says into her phone. “No, it’s not here. Someone took it.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” Auggie mutters under his breath. He steps out into the light, and Lacey freezes, dropping her phone. She starts to run, but Jack emerges from the shadows and grabs hold of her.

  “I don’t think so,” he says.

  She tries to struggle in his arms. When it’s clear she can’t get away, she bursts into tears.

  “It’s not my fault! I didn’t do anything wrong,” she yells.