A Valiant Prince

by S. E. Rose

  I push off the bed and begin looking around the room. On Anna’s nightstand, there’s a family photo. She can’t be more than five or six in it, and she sits on her mother’s lap. She looks so much like her mother that it’s almost eerie seeing them together.

  Her room looks like a room in a palace with antique furniture, silk fabrics, and tastefully decorated walls. But here and there, there’s a splash of Anna. In her office, there’s a bulletin board with concert ticket stubs on it. A bobblehead of Thor sits on her desk. There’s a shelf in her office where there’s a cluster of family photos, mostly of her, Auggie, and Chris as kids. There’s another of her and a very pretty young woman. And then I see a small carving that I recognize because I have one too. We made them at camp. I pick up hers and run my finger over the initials carved under it. We had carved each other’s initials in the base of each bear. I smile at the memory.

  Princess Susanna seems like one person to me now, and then there’s Anna, a completely different person.

  My thoughts are torn from me as I hear movement in her bedroom. I turn and peer around the corner.

  Anna is laying the laptop on the bed, she hardly glances up at me as she begins furiously typing.

  “Anything?” I ask as I meander back out into her bedroom.

  “I’m confused,” she says frowning.

  “About?” I prod as I walk over to her.

  “The IPs that are used…it doesn’t make sense,” she says as her brows furrow and her typing speeds up.

  “I don’t understand. What do you mean?” I ask her.

  “Just give me a minute,” she says as she bites her lip in concentration. All I see are numbers and symbols scrolling across the screen. I sit down next to her and rub her shoulders. She’s tense, too tense.

  “Hey, calm down. It’s OK,” I whisper in her ear.

  She shakes her head.

  “Damn it, I don’t understand,” she mutters. I place my hands on her arms and pull them back, forcing her to stop typing and to look up at me.

  “Tell me what is going on,” I demand calmly.

  “Remember that I traced the M email to Sebastian?” she says.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  “Well, I ran this search. Sebastian had another email account set up on his assistant’s computer. But the IP address associated with the account he was emailing, comes up in three places. It’s an IPv6 address, so it’s a little different than what many people use, but it’s the locations that are bugging me. It’s not the fact that it’s more than one in this case,” she explains.

  “OK, that’s like the link to the internet ID number thing, right?” I ask.

  “Sort of, yeah,” she mutters, staring back at the screen.

  “So, where are those locations?” I ask her.

  “The summer palace, a café downtown, and…here,” she says, her voice fading on the last word.

  “I don’t understand. You mean Norddale here?” I ask, confused.

  She shakes her head. “The palace,” she says.

  My body tenses under those two words.

  “Jesus Christ!” I say loudly.

  “Logan, remember when we contemplated whether this was an inside job?” she says to me.

  I nod. “It’s an inside job for sure. Sebastian was a pawn. M was a pawn. Sten is a pawn. I can’t believe I was so blind,” she says.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, confused once again.

  “The emails…I went through them, ran encryption. They aren’t the ones behind this. Someone hacked Sebastian’s email. Someone re-routed IP addresses to Sten and Uncle Eddie’s house, and M…well, according to those emails, M was ‘taken care of.’ So, that leaves our security, staff, and the rest of us,” she says, looking up at me.

  “OK, so we’ve decided who it can’t be, who can it be?” I ask her frowning.

  She pulls her arms back to the computer and hits a few keys, her fingers trembling as she does so. I place a hand on her shoulder, trying to reassure her. Emails start popping up, and I read them.

  She points to one in particular. “It’s not just one person. It’s four people. And I know who they are,” she says as she pulls up four separate emails.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I look at the emails from over her shoulder. They are all talking about details that no one would know except our families and inner circle of staff and security. So, that narrows it down, but I’m missing something because although I can tell these emails are to three separate people, no three people pop out at me.

  “What am I missing?” I ask.

  She points to the first one. “Who knows all the whereabouts of my father and your father?” she asks.

  I frown again. “Well, I guess their security and secretaries,” I muse.

  “Marcus, Victor, Fredrik, and Gregor,” she says. “Your father recently switched security detail. He does this on a regular basis. You’ll learn. It’s a thing in your country, rotating the guard. Anyhow, if you wanted to always know the whereabouts over time, you’d have to be with the king all the time. Fredrik has only been privy to that information for a short time.”

  “Gregor,” I say dryly.

  “Yes. But for us, there are two possibilities. Because of my mother’s death, my father kept Victor in place. Therefore, Marcus and Victor worked in conjunction with each other,” she says.

  “But then, who’s the fourth person?” I ask.

  She takes a deep breath and pulls up the fourth email. “No one else in the family has the same protection setup as my father. I…don’t want to believe this, but the words, the phrases even…Hans,” she says, looking back at me, tears in her eyes.

  “What? No,” I say.

  “It makes sense though, Logan. Hans owns a company, a company that would benefit if our countries had no monarchies. I just…I can’t reconcile it. I don’t want it to be him,” she says.

  “Maybe it’s not, maybe, it’s someone setting him up, like Sten? Maybe Sten wants it to look like Hans?” I ponder.

  She shakes her head. “No, because Sten wasn’t at a café, at least not while he’s been here. But the café is in the building that Hans owns. It’s his company’s building,” she says.

  “Are you sure?” I ask her.

  She nods. “I don’t want it to be,” she says, her lip trembling.

  I pull her into my arms, trying desperately to wrap my head around all of this. I still don’t understand how Anna is jumping to these conclusions so quickly. And second, I don’t want it to be Hans either, for Anna’s sake.

  “Anna, show me what you are seeing. Walk me through all of it,” I say to her, still staring at the screen over her head in complete confusion.

  She takes a breath and pulls out of my embrace, looking back at the screen. For the next fifteen minutes, she carefully walks me through the dark web, the email accounts she’s hacked, and the encrypted messages that she’s found. Then she sighs and pulls up a message that is talking about Hans’s plane that was bombed.

  “This is how I know for sure,” she says, pointing to a line on the screen.

  The bomb needs to be placed in the back cargo hold. There’s a secret compartment I had built there. Move the blue side panel over and you’ll find a hidden door. The combination is 3-3-2-8. Make sure to secure the panel back over the door once the bomb is in place.

  “That’s my aunt’s and uncle’s birthday. Only my uncle would know that there was a secret compartment on his jet. My aunt hadn’t flown on that jet yet. He had bought it while she was doing charity work,” Anna says quietly.

  This time, I believe her. She’s right. There is no confusion. Even though that email was sent from Sebastian’s email account, Anna has shown me that the account was indeed hacked and the messages deleted, only they weren’t deleted because whoever did it hadn’t yet wiped a backup cloud linked to the email, probably because hacking the email company’s server was a whole lot harder than hacking one email account.

  “Uh, why didn’t you st
art with this?” I ask, looking back at her.

  She shakes her head. “I…I don’t know. I…Jesus, Aunt Lara…” She trails off and turns back to the screen.

  “He can’t be alone with Aunt Lara!” she suddenly exclaims, jumping off the bed. I get up, following her as she sprints across the room and throws open the door.

  “Anna?” I hear Lucas ask.

  “Where’s Pete?” she asks him.

  “He’s—”

  “I’m right here,” Pete says, running up from around the corner. “What’s wrong?”

  “Did Hans leave to go back to the hospital, yet?” she says, her breathing coming harder with each word.

  “He just left, maybe two minutes ago. Why?” he asks.

  “Jesus, we need to go, now!” she exclaims, grabbing his hand and dragging him down the corridor. Lucas and I follow them.

  “I don’t understand, Anna. What the hell is going on?” Pete says, coming to an abrupt stop at the top of the staircase.

  He grabs Anna’s arm to stop her from tumbling headfirst down the staircase. “It’s him, Pete. It’s him!” she exclaims, tears flooding her eyes as she practically screams the words.

  “Calm down. How do you know this, Anna?” he asks her. His grip on her tightens slightly, and I take a step forward.

  “Pete, let her go,” I say to him. He looks over at me but releases Anna.

  “I have to be sure of this, Logan. What she’s saying…it’s treasonous,” he says.

  Anna grabs Pete by his collar with both hands. “Pete, I swear to god. No, I swear on my mother’s grave. It’s him. I ran a search. I found an email. Only he would know what was in that email. There are others. We have to go, now! I’ll explain everything on the way to the hospital,” she cries out as she releases Pete and starts down the stairs.

  “Pete reaches for his earpiece, and although sensing it, Anna spins around. “You cannot tell Victor or Marcus or Gregor! They are in on this. There may be others. You can tell Jack, but that’s it, for now,” she says as she turns and heads back down the stairs.

  As if a switch has been flipped, Pete looks at a wide-eyed Lucas, nods, and starts down after Anna. Lucas looks at me. “You heard her. Let’s go,” I say to him as he follows Pete with me right behind him. We all bolt to a tinted-window SUV parked and jump in, it’s like a scene out of a movie as Pete radios the front gate. The gate flies open as we speed down the drive. Two guards clear traffic as we pull out and start making our way toward the hospital.

  Pete has Jack on speakerphone as he winds around the narrow streets of the city center.

  “Ross,” Jack answers.

  “Jack, you need to get to the hospital, now,” Pete says.

  “What’s wrong?” Jack answers, his voice taking a serious tone.

  “Jack, it’s Hans. I ran the search. I found emails. It’s him,” Anna says loudly, almost too loudly for the small confined space of the vehicle.

  “Anna, that’s a pretty major accusation. Are you sure?” Jack responds.

  “Damn it! I am one hundred percent positive,” she yells. “Will you just believe me?”

  “Jack, she’s right. I read the email. He gave instructions to M about his plane. No one else would know that information,” I say as I grip Anna’s hand in mine and squeeze it.

  “Shit. OK, I’m on my way. Don’t do anything until I get there, understood?” Jack barks.

  “Jack? Victor, Gregor, and Marcus are all part of this,” Anna says.

  “Anna, we’re already investigating those three. But Hans…” He trails off.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t have believed it myself, but there’s no way it was Sebastian or Sten. Not with the information he gave M. I’ll show you everything later, right now, we have to get to the hospital. As of yesterday, Hans thought Aunt Lara was going to die. He had no reason to do anything else with her, but now…we have to get there,” she says.

  “Pete, are you alone?” Jack asks.

  “No, Lucas is with me,” he says.

  “I’m sending men to the hospital now. Don’t go up until they get there. Use the back way,” Jack instructs. “I’ll be there soon.” And with that he hangs up, leaving the vehicle in utter silence as Pete steers us through the back streets toward the parking garage of the hospital. We manage to sneak in alongside some other cars. The fact that we arrive in just one vehicle doesn’t tip off the paparazzi like we did when we rolled up in a caravan.

  Once inside, Pete pulls us into a back hallway. “We’ll wait here,” he says.

  “No, we are going up now!” Anna demands.

  “Your Highness, it is not safe. You heard Jack,” Lucas says.

  “And Jack isn’t your fucking princess, I am, and I demand that we go see my aunt, right now!” she yells and stamps her foot. If we weren’t in such a fucking messed-up situation, I would say she looks downright adorable and sexy as hell all at the same time. But the look on her face tells me now is not the time to mention this.

  “Anna, you heard Jack. We wait here,” Pete says.

  “Fine,” she says. “I have to use the bathroom.”

  Pete sighs.

  “I’ll come with you,” I say to her. She gives me a look, but I’m not sure why. Pete follows us down the hall, and as we approach the elevators, the doors open and she pops inside. I manage to get in before they close, but Pete does not. The last thing I see is his shocked face.

  “What the fuck are you thinking?” I yell at her.

  “Save it. I’m not waiting for Jack and his minions to arrive. We don’t have time,” she says as the elevator stops and the doors open. I follow her as she strides down the hall to the guards standing outside Lara’s room.

  The guard puts out a hand. “You can’t go in there,” he says.

  “Well, I’m Princess Susanna of Norddale, and I will go in there,” she says to him. He doesn’t lower his arm.

  “Fuck it,” I say as I push past him and open the door for Anna. The guard looks at us with wide eyes.

  Hans is standing by Lara’s bed. He looks startled when we enter.

  Anna stops abruptly, causing me to run into the back of her. She flies forward and catches herself on Lara’s bed.

  “Anna?” Hans says.

  “Oh…uh…hi,” she stammers as she straightens herself, smoothing her shirt.

  “Why are you back here?” he demands.

  “I…I wanted to see Auntie Lara again,” she says, her words coming out quickly.

  “Well, as you can see, she’s perfectly fine. Now, you should head back,” he tells her. I can see the strain on his face as he struggles to control his temper.

  “Anna, why don’t you give Hans a few minutes? We can wait outside,” I say, trying to keep her away from Hans.

  “I think I’ll wait right here,” she says as she walks over to a chair in the corner of the room and plops down on it, crossing her arms like a petulant child. My badass princess doesn’t like to be bossed around.

  “Suit yourself,” Hans says. His eyes dart from me to Anna.

  “Fine,” Anna says. “Take your time.”

  Hans suddenly walks out of the room. Anna quickly walks up to her aunt, surveying her from head to toe.

  “She’s fine,” I say to her. “See?” I point to the monitors which beep steadily.

  All of a sudden, her hand flies to her mouth. “Hans!” she yells and darts out of the room. She’s back in the elevator before I can catch her. I see her cell phone lying on the ground, and I realize she took off her tracking bracelet before we came back here. There’s no way to find her.

  “Where the fuck is she going now?!” Pete yells as he runs out of a stairwell door.

  “Fuck!” Lucas yells simultaneously from behind Pete.

  I shake my head.

  “Let’s split up,” I yell to them. “She can’t get far. Any idea where Hans just went?” I ask.

  They shake their heads.

  “I’ll go downstairs,” Pete says. “Hans might have gone out back. L
ucas, try the doctor’s cafeteria. I’m radioing Jack.”

  “I’ll look on the roof,” I say. They both give me a look and I realize it was one of my father’s guards with me that day with my father. “There’s a sitting area up there.”

  “Logan, you should stay here,” Pete says.

  “Yeah, well, I should do a lot of things, Pete. But I guess I like to break the rules,” I reply as I throw open an exit door and run up the stairs.

  I open the door to the rooftop garden. Again, it’s empty, devoid of everyone but two people, Anna and Hans.

  My heart leaps as I see that Hans has Anna cornered. But it’s not his proximity to her that makes me stop breathing, it’s the Colt 45 in his hand.

  Hans looks over at me. “Christ, another one,” he snarls.

  “Put down the gun, Hans,” I say as calmly as I can.

  “We both know that’s not going to happen,” he says.

  “You’ll be caught if you use the gun,” Anna says.

  “Who says I’m firing it,” he replies, an evil smirk on his face. “You know, out of everyone, I never thought you two would be the ones to figure it out. That’s why I had you sent so far away. I figured I’d deal with you later.”

  “Well, I never thought my own uncle would try to kill me,” Anna snarls.

  Hans shrugs. “Your families are a means to an end. Trust me, I had to put up with a lot of your royal bullshit for way too many years. I tried to take care of you brats when you were little, but you weren’t where you were supposed to be. You know it was me who suggested you go to that camp once I learned that Logan here was going. I’m sorry, or is it still ‘Eddie’?” he asks, looking at me.

  A chill runs down my spine. The kids that were killed at our camp…that was supposed to be us.

  “After that, I had to lie low for a while. But when I had the chance to take out your mother, that was an easy call. I was hoping you were in the car, but my intel was bad,” he says to me. I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that he just admitted to killing my mother when I see him turn toward Anna.