by Nana Malone
I’d hoped to see Jessa again, but the team briefing didn't include her, even though it was all about her. I considered trying to find her after the meeting, but it was probably best if I kept a low profile. Matthias was still trying to help me locate my father, but so far he had nothing. That needed to be my focus for the time being.
Well, at the moment, my focus was delivering bad news to the team. “So, we have a problem.” Ethan handed out copies of the reports as I continued. "There has been a fire at Hope House."
Roone frowned. "Is everyone okay?"
I nodded. "Yeah. No one was harmed. Some residents were taken to the hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation but nothing too serious. The fire was pretty localized to the office, and it was unoccupied at the time.”
Roone stirred next to me. I wanted to ask him if he’d seen Jessa. But from the tight set of his jaw, I could tell he wasn’t in any kind of mood for those questions. When he spoke, his voice was low. “So, the one place where all the files would be kept goes up in flames.”
I shrugged. “There might be another offsite location, I don't know.”
Ethan's voice was mellow when he asked. "What about James Morgan, the director, do we have any other information on him?"
I shook my head. God I was such a fuck-up. I was supposed to be in charge of things, but I’d lost the princess on my watch, my father might have used my security protocols to access information on her whereabouts, and I couldn’t even manage the simple things like what the fuck was stored at Hope House, if anything. Right bang-up job I was doing.
You didn't fail. She is safe. Just things didn't go exactly as planned.
"To our knowledge, he doesn’t know anything. Based on the information he gave Jessa, he's not part of this. We're still trying to determine if there is any correlation between the sketches that Jessa sent him and the attempted kidnapping at the gala. We do have one resident who reported seeing someone.” I glanced down at my files. “The guy with the tats was described as having a distinctive one with a shield, a snake, and a knife on it. It also had some language he couldn’t understand.”
Sebastian cursed. “So the fire was no accident.”
I shrugged. "Likely not. The tattoo could very well be the anti-Winston Isles crest. The language he didn't understand could have easily been Latin, or it could be pig Latin, for all we know. But, the local police took the statement. I'll get access to it and can tell you if it's the same tattoo or not once I hack their system tonight. I’m hoping this particular department isn’t behind on paperwork."
Roone muttered a curse and ran his hands over his face.
Everyone was silent, as if no one wanted to be the one to break the news. “So, let’s not all volunteer at once to tell Jessa this news.”
Sebastian cracked his neck. “I can tell her.” He turned his gaze to Roone. “But maybe she'll take it better from you?”
Roone cursed under his breath again. “Let’s keep it official. This should come from you. Or Ethan.”
I shifted my gaze to my partner. “Trouble?”
Roone shook his head. “Later.”
I had a feeling it was going to be a hell of a story.
Jessa
There was a knock at the door. I still didn’t know how I should feel about being here, but the view of the ocean from my bedroom balcony was certainly helping me warm up to the idea of it all.
I had a perfect view of the Tower Garden with a direct line of sight to the ocean. Outside my window, hibiscus and bougainvillea grew, filling my room with their sweet perfume. When I heard a knock, I jogged to the door and opened it. Penny stood on the other side. “Hey. I came to see how you were doing.”
The queen was checking on me? “Oh, you know… I just found out that I’m a secret princess, so yeah, I’m feeling pretty awesome.”
She chuckled low. “Can I come in?”
I stepped back. “Of course.”
She immediately removed her shoes, placed them by the door, and let her feet sink into the plush carpeting. “I’ve always loved this room. It has the best rugs.”
“Did you spend a lot of time in here?”
“Um, yeah, sometimes I needed to make an escape. I wasn’t always the best Royal Guard. As this is a guest quarters, I could often come and bury my woes with a bottle of wine in this room.”
“That’s good to know.”
She shrugged. “I was a disaster, to be honest.”
I laughed.
“So how are you doing? Really?”
“Things are topsy-turvy I guess. It’s only been a couple of days, but part of me feels like I belong here. Not necessarily the palace, or anything like that, but I don’t know, there’s this feeling of… home. My first night, I arrived and dropped my bags off and then ran down to the beach and put my feet in the water. It sort of felt like homecoming, you know?”
Her smile was fleeting. “Yeah, I know. Even when I was in New York, I knew that I wanted to return. It’s funny, because I spent my whole life wishing I didn’t have to be here.”
“How did you know that you belonged here?”
“At the end of the day, it was home. Sebastian was here. It sounds so ridiculous and anti-feminist, but I fell in love with him in New York. And in a way, I also fell in love with the islands again. All of a sudden I became furiously protective of what was mine and what I’d grown up with, you know?”
“Do you still paint?”
She grinned. “Yeah, I was painting this morning. It’s weird… I get these cravings, and I end up with paint still on my nails.” She held up her hand, and sure enough, there was some light blue paint. “At the same time, it’s like this part of me was activated when we were in New York, and I had to take care of Sebastian. A part I didn’t even know existed. That part that was all about me having to be badass. I’d never connected with being a Royal Guard before, until then.”
“I’m still super fascinated by that. You protected him, which is amazing.”
She laughed and then eased down onto the couch, sitting next to me. “Amazing sometimes, but it was tricky. Difficult. I didn’t like lying, but I had a direct order from King Cassius.
I licked my lips. “Was it a direct order for Roone?”
Penny sighed and nodded. “Yes. Once it was decided how we were going to approach, he was forbidden to spill all the beans. He couldn’t tell you that you were a princess and that he was there to guard you. You saw Roone. He’s such a soldier. And Sebastian was afraid—"
“I might have run.”
“Yes, exactly. Which was why Sebastian decided that we were going covert.”
“I know he didn’t have a choice. I do, I guess. Well, at least now I do. But God, I just… once we started—" I stopped myself. I wasn’t sure how much I was supposed to say, or if I was supposed to say anything.
“Once you started hooking up?”
I lifted a brow. “You know?”
Penny laughed. “Oh my God, Roone can’t seem to take his eyes off of you.”
“Yeah well, he’s very pretty to look at. And he can be so sweet.”
“Yep, that’s Roone. He’s insightful and smart, and loyal. He would rather cut off his arm than do anything to hurt Sebastian or Lucas. He will call them on their shit too, which is awesome. Works wonders for me and Bryna. I think, honestly, he’s the reason Sebastian finally got over being angry with me. Are you angry with him for lying?”
“Yes. It’s complicated.”
“But he loves you furiously.”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t love me.”
Penny shrugged. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
There was another knock at the door, and I stood. “Should I be expecting more visitors?”
She nodded. “There’s someone else I think you need to see.”
When I opened the door, my heart stopped. “Ariel?”
Ariel gave me a sheepish smile. “Hey, Jessa.”
I turned back around to stare at Penny. “You know
her?”
Penny smiled. “Yeah, she’s my best friend. Apparently, you were starting to replace me in London.”
I turned my attention back to Ariel. “Was Meet Cute even real?”
She shrugged. “Real enough. And surprisingly, you and Roone actually did make a good match. The algorithm even said so. If it hadn’t matched you guys on its own, I would have paired you for the sake of the mission, but it’s legit.”
I stepped back to let her in.
She and Penny hugged tightly. I closed the door and slowly walked back into the sitting area. “That whole time, Meet Cute, wine at my place… all an act?” I could feel the bile rising again.
She shook her head. “No, not an act, but absolutely for your protection. We did our jobs.”
I rolled my eyes. “Was any of it real? Is Chloe real? The Evans?”
She held up her hands. “Resist the temptation to do that. You will pick apart every interaction trying to worry about what was a lie and what was the truth. Just know that I genuinely like you and Roone has real feelings for you. Just know that and deal accordingly. Otherwise, it gets a bit weird.”
“Actually, we do have something to tell you,” Penny said.
I glanced between the two of them. “Oh my God, this looks like bad news. Please tell me Roone is not married with children or something.”
Ariel grinned at me. “He wishes that someone would have him.”
“I would have him.” Yeah, my libido was not allowed to have a vote. New rule.
Ariel started to speak. “Jessa, there was a fire at Hope House.”
I sat forward in my chair. “Oh my God, James, Lulu…”
She put up her hands. “They’re fine. Everyone was fine actually. There was some smoke inhalation, but everyone is fine.”
I held my hand to my chest. “Oh my God. Jesus. What happened? Electrical? Gas?”
She and Penny exchanged glance. “Arson.”
I sighed. “Oh my God. Does this have to do with me?”
Ariel inhaled and exhaled slowly. “It’s a possibility. One of the residents reported seeing someone with a tattoo. The one you’ve been chasing. He’s given a description of it to the police, and they’re keeping an eye out to see if the tattoo comes up on their databases.”
I shook my head. “What is that tattoo?”
Penny pulled out her phone. She held up the screen and I saw what looked like a crest. There was that same Latin inscription, a shielded crest by the castle, and what looked like a chain of some sort, a broken chain. But it was faint, and then there was… was that an eagle? “I don’t know what I’m looking at.”
She explained it to me. “This is the Winston Isles crest. The chain, the broken one, symbolizes when King Jackson set everyone free, and the Phoenix symbolizes an island nation rising from the ashes of British rule. And the Latin inscription says, No man bows before this King. King Jackson preferred equality long before it was even a thing to talk about or think about.” Then she pulled up another photo. “This is the one with the dagger, the one you recognize.”
I nodded. As I looked closer, I saw that that the chain was replaced with a serpent and the dagger was stabbing the phoenix. “That looks worse, now that I know what everything stands for.”
She nodded. “Yeah. This is the crest used by a faction who believe that Sebastian and Lucas have no claim to the throne. That’s the only information we have so far. We’ve been trying to piece it together. My dad has some information, but anything that you can tell us would be incredibly helpful.
I shook my head. “All I have is what James gave me, and Phillip.”
Penny and Ariel frowned. “Who’s Phillip?”
“He was a friend of my father’s. He’s the one who gave me the file my father put together and showed me the photos of Sebastian and Roone. Who are these people? And what do they have to do with me?”
Penny shook her head. “I don’t know, but we will find out. All of our lives depend on it.”
7
Ariel
There was a difference between thinking something was fucked up and knowing something was fucked up. When it was just an idea in the back of my brain, it was easy enough to play devil’s advocate to pretend that things might not be as bad as they seemed, to try and rationalize, to work it out, to think of all the possible reasons why my father had vanished. But, when the truth stared me in the face, there was no denying it.
Back in my barely used office, I had a mountain of paperwork waiting for me. Roone and I had been in London for two months, and no one had touched it, save to leave me more work. I wondered how long I’d have access to this place. The Royal Guard had been everything to me.
For years I thought I wanted to escape. I’d thought maybe, just maybe, I should run away from this place. I should hide. But I was glad I had stuck with it. The guard had given me a family. A home the likes of which I’d never really known before except in Penny’s house.
In Penny’s house, I’d always felt like family. Would I still be her family when she found out?
I saw the email from Matthias just as my phone rang. I picked it up. “How bad is it?”
He sighed. “Bad. Your passcode was definitely used to access the files. Time stamped when you were definitely not in the country.”
“I knew that, but hearing you say it, just makes it worse somehow.”
“There’s something else.”
“Fabulous. What?”
“The code that was used to access it was no simple password hack. Someone was trying to leave a message.”
“There’s a fucking message in the code?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t mean anything to me, but maybe it does to you.”
“What is it?”
“’Everyone must kneel before our king.’”
I cursed under my breath. “It’s a bastardization of the Latin slogan on the Winston Isles crest. This is related to the murder of the king.”
Matthias cursed under his breath. “Do we need to get the rest of Blake Security on this?”
“I don’t know.” I ran my hands through my hair, trying to think. “I don’t know what this means.” Was my father working with them? Had he used me?
Of course, he used you, you dumb idiot.
“So then, the next question is where the fuck is my father?”
“Well, I’ve been looking. I searched all uses of his credit cards and passport and found nothing. But if he is involved with someone tied to this conspiracy, then they would have a million ways to get him out, a million places to hide him. Think, is there anywhere that he always wanted to go? Anywhere he always talked about?”
I couldn’t think of anything. “We didn’t grow up with much money. And given his antics, he might not have any friends left.” Then I thought it through. “Actually, there was one place. He always talked about driving the Amalfi Coast. He was obsessed with the old movies, you know? Um, James Dean and those kinds of things. He always said that before he died he was going to drive down the Amalfi coast.”
“Okay, it’s not much, but it’s something. It’s a starting point. But you have to tell team Winston Isles that you have a problem.”
I swallowed hard. “I know. I’m just… I don’t know, buying time, I guess.”
He was silent for a beat. “Like I’ve said before, it will be easier and faster if you just tell them. Don’t try to hide. Let the chips fall where they may. You’re an asset to the team. Nothing will happen to you.”
“And I wish it was that easy.” Because it wouldn’t be. Penny, her mom, Ethan, and eventually, Sebastian, Lucas, Roone, Bryna, and Jinx, they’d all become my family. To have to walk in and tell them this thing, that a member of my actual blood family had done this, had stooped to this level of betrayal, meant I would lose my family.
I would lose game-night Wednesdays. I would lose casually strolling into the castle and straight into the queen’s quarters. I would lose the ability to talk to my best friend whenever and wherever I wanted.
It would all be over.
But they are family. You have to protect them.
He is family too.
Fuck. I hated him sometimes. Even more, I hated the fact that I loved him. How could he do this to me? What would have been worth doing this?
“Look, I know you’re hurting, but you’re going to have to make a decision. With the princess back, we’re going to have to annihilate the threat, so the sooner you deal with this, the better.”
“I know. And I will deal with it. I just have to figure out what the hell I’m going to say first.”
“Don’t wait too long.”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“Oh, the other matter you emailed me about…”
I perked up. “Winchester. Do you know what happened to him?”
“No. Phillip Winchester is in the wind. No hits on his credit cards. University says he’s on sabbatical. Has been for six months.”
“You’re sure? I’m certain Jessa said he was teaching.”
“Don’t know. He’s certainly not this term.”
I had a bad feeling. Something had happened to that man. And he was one person we needed to talk to. He might actually be able to shed some light. “Okay. And Weller…”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime. Let me know if you need me again.”
“I got it from here.”
What was I going to do, choose my father? Or choose the family I’d made from the time I was six?
Roone
“So, you went and fell in love with my sister, huh?”
I glowered at Lucas then turned my attention back to the azure blue of the Caribbean laid out in front of me. I was seated at the Drive Café. It was one of my favorite views of the best surfing beach.
The Drive had been our hang out spot. In the evenings, sometimes there would be live music. Bands would come, and mostly, the women would be dressed in next to nothing. It was ideal. But at the moment, I felt mainly nostalgic.