Page 127 of The Prince of Broken Crowns

Assuming he has a question about one of the contacts I gave him, I answer it. “Hey, what’s up?” I say with the phone pressed between my shoulder and ear as I exit my dorm room.

“I’m sorry,” is Noah’s response.

A cold chill slithers up my spine. “What happened?”

“I called one of your contacts, Aiden, and we set up a time to meet up to make a deal, but when I showed up, this group jumped me, dragged me to this house, and now they’re forcing me to make this call.” The shakiness in his tone reveals he’s worried. “They said, if you don’t come to this place by six o’clock, bad shit will happen to me—ow, dammit, I’m doing what you’re telling me to do,” he says to someone else. “Fine … Maddy, Aiden wants to talk to you.”

I could hang up, and maybe I should. But I’ve never been the kind of person to put my shit on someone else—that’s my parents' thing, not mine.

“Hey, Maddison,” he says into the phone, sounding elated. “I heard a rumor that you have a bounty on you, but no one can get a hold of you. So, imagine my surprise when I get a call from a guy who knows you. Lucky me.”

“What do you want?” I snap, balling my free hand into a fist.

“I think you know the answer to that,” he tells me. “But in case you’re as dumb as your father, I’ll spell it out for you. Meet me at the old theater on northside, the one that’s been closed for ages, or your little rich friend will become best friends with the canal.”

While I hate most north-siders, Aiden was never a truly awful person. In fact, I once overheard him tell my mother he’d take care of me and her if anything happened to my father. I guess that was bullshit, like everything else in my life.

I swallow the lump welling in my throat. “I thought you were my father’s friend.”

“I am, but you know how these things work, Mads,” he replies with a tiny bit of remorse in his tone. “Money is tight, and I need it more than I need to be on your father’s good side. Besides, he’s in jail for a long time.”

My heart is pounding so deafeningly inside my chest as I rack my brain for a way out of this. In the end, I know what I have to do.

“Fine,” I grit out. “I’ll be there.”

“You better,” he says. “The clock’s ticking. Tick. Tock.”

He hangs up. So do I.

Gripping my phone in my hand, I backtrack to my room, grab my bottle of pepper spray, then head out. I try not to think about where I’m going, because if I do, I’ll psyche myself out. I just put one foot in front of the other, walking out of the school and across the parking lot toward the bus stop. When I reach the gate entrance, I quicken my pace.

I’m so distracted that I’m not paying attention to my surroundings, which is a first for me.

I don’t hear it until it’s too late—the sound of footsteps running after me. When I do pick up on them, I start to whirl around, but a bag gets pulled over my head before I can see who it is. I lift my fist to punch them, but arms wrap around me, and then someone grabs my legs.

“Maddison Averly, you have officially been captured by the Royal Academy Society,” a male voice fills my ears.

I’m not above screaming, so I open my mouth to do just that. However, a hand covers the scream before I can.

My lungs burn as I inhale, and it dawns on me then.

I think I just got chloroformed.

Before I can process that, darkness overcomes me as I pass out.

River

Maddy has been acting strange since we spotted the paparazzi taking photos of us. I don’t blame her—it is a lot to take in. I feel terrible and know I need to talk to her about it, especially with us being in this faked dating agreement.

It’s consuming all of my thoughts until I get a call from an appraiser who has an unexpected opening, apparently after a cancellation. Maddy left the necklace in my room, so I grab it then try to call her so we can hit the road. But her phone goes straight to voicemail. I remember she has class, and since I’m running low on time to make it to the appointment, I send her a message that I’ll take care of it and let her know the results. Then I head out to the car, noting the sky is still bleak with clouds.

By the time I arrive at the appraiser’s, rain is again pouring from the sky and drenching the roads. I sprint inside the building to meet up with the guy doing the appraisal. He’s on the older side, with black hair and glasses. When I hand him the necklace, his eyes widen in awe.

“I haven’t seen one of these in a long time,” he informs me as he carefully studies the pendant from the other side of the glass counter. “If this is a genuine necklace, son, then you have something extremely rare here.”

“Really?” I play dumb, like I have no clue what the necklace could be.

He glances up at me. “Where did you find it?”

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