Page 5 of A Fierce Princess

I wink at him. “Yes, ye of little faith,” I say as I slowly open the door, which doesn’t sound an alarm because…I hacked it too.

“How long do we have?” he asks as we look both ways and make a break for it.

“About four hours until shift change,” I whisper to him as we make our way from the palace grounds.

We are about two blocks from the palace when a car rolls up. The window goes down.

“You two gonna catch a taxi?” I hear Sonya’s voice. I laugh and open the door to get in the back of the car. Auggie piles in after me. Hugo is driving. Hugo is Sonya’s cousin and the way I met her. He was university friends with Auggie, and Auggie dragged me to a party one night when I was visiting. Sonya was there, and we became fast friends.

“Christoff and Kayla are waiting at the club,” Hugo says as he steers us through the city. He pulls up to a back alley, and a door opens. Christoff waves at us. We scamper out of the car, which Hugo parks illegally. Hugo probably doesn’t give two shits about his car getting towed. Hell, his father would probably just buy him a new one. His father controls one of the largest gas and oil exploration companies in the world. He inherited it from Sonya and Hugo’s grandfather.

We walk through a dark back hallway, and then up a set of steps. There’s room there and it’s private. We shut the door and look down at the dance floor beneath us through a double-sided mirror. Everyone has on face paint. Sonya opens her bag and lays out a variety of face paints.

“Go at it,” she adds as she begins smearing shimmery gold paint on her face. She also produces wigs for each of us. By the time we finish, we look hilarious, but no one in their right mind would think we are royalty.

“Let’s party,” Hugo says, as he opens the door, and we proceed down the stairs to join the crowd on the dance floor.

The beat of the music penetrates my bones, and after three glasses of whatever Christoff keeps bringing me, I’m not feeling a thing. I lose myself to the bass and the dancing. We dance and dance and dance some more until my watch tells me it’s time to get back to the palace.

I pull Auggie down, so I can whisper in his ear. “The clock strikes midnight,” I say to him. He nods, knowing that our time is nearly up, and we have to return.

The others nod to us. Everyone has been drinking, so I call a cab and have it drop us off about three blocks from the palace at an apartment complex which we always use as our “home base” for such trips. We get to the wall and make sure the coast is clear. Fortunately, this passage opens by a row of high bushes on a side of the palace grounds that abut a dead-end lane, so there’s usually not many people milling around here.

We open the secret door and scurry inside past the cameras, and straight into Chris. We both pause and look up at our big brother. His face tells me that we are in majorly big trouble.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” he says.

Auggie glares at Chris. “None of your fucking business is what we are doing,” he snarls as he pushes past Chris.

“The fuck it’s not. Get your ass back here,” Chris growls before his gaze comes to rest on me. I shiver under the anger I see behind his eyes.

“Explain yourself,” he snarls to me.

“Leave her the fuck alone, Christian. It wasn’t even her idea. She’s twenty-one years old. She’s supposed to be having fun, enjoying life, not caged up in here like some exotic bird,” Auggie says as he stops halfway down the dimly lit corridor.

“Aug,” Chris starts with a sigh as he runs a hand through his hair, “you can’t just go out. You aren’t normal people.”

Auggie rolls his eyes. “No fucking shit,” he groans. “What the hell do you care? It’s not like we got caught.”

Chris gives him a hard stare. “I caught you,” he confirms.

“So? You gonna run and tell Dad?” Auggie asks.

“Aug, don’t be an arse. I’m not going to tell Dad because he would go ballistic,” Chris says.

“Well, then, shut the hell up, and let us get to bed,” Auggie says as he starts walking again toward the exit.

Chris turns back to me. “I expect better from you,” he says, shaking his head. He turns and follows Auggie out into the palace’s east wing.

I head to my apartment, shower, and change into my favorite t-shirt and sweatpants. Then, I silently head up to the tower. The tower in the west wing of the palace has two of my favorite rooms. The first one that I enter on the top floor is a two-story circular library. It’s not our largest library, the main library on the ground level is enormous and is part of the palace that is open to the public for special occasions. This library is our family library. It is filled with giant leather chairs and ornate mahogany writing tables. The walls are completely covered in bookshelves. A ladder that moves lets you climb the shelves to the second story. On the second story, there’s a narrow walkway, and at the end of it, it appears as though the shelves end to reveal a few feet of wall on which a portrait of my mother hangs. Only the end of the bookshelf holds a secret passage that can only be opened by pulling down what looks to be a first edition of Gulliver’s Travels while pressing in on a fleur-de-lis that’s carved on the shelf. The end of the bookshelf pops open and allows just enough space for a person to slide inside. A narrow set of stairs leads up in a circle behind the shelves. At the top of the stairs, is a small room. It has no real windows, although it has a few faux stones that can be moved to allow sun into the room. My mother had somehow run a power strip in from the library behind the shelves. It’s the only source of power in the room, which still has wall sconces for candles every few feet. The floors are stone, the walls are stone, and there is only an old chair, a desk, and a shelf. I also brought up some bean bag chairs, so I could be comfortable. One single lamp is lit by the power strip, and my secret computer sits on the desk. This room has been held as a secret for the women of the family for six generations. It’s believed to have been built for my great-great-great-great-grandmother by her father as a place to hide from her annoying little brothers. There are always rumors of the secret room. My brothers had told me about it as a young girl. But it wasn’t until my mother brought me here, just a few weeks before her death, that I became privy to one of the closest-guarded palace secrets.

It’s lonely having it to myself now, but it also allows me a place to go that is all mine. And that is priceless.

I look at my computer, the one I painstakingly built. It’s perfect. It’s powerful. And it’s my secret. I pull up the program I had running all day. I curse as I see no hits. My secret obsession has become a bit of a problem. When my mother first died, I remember worrying about my mother’s crown. It was a slim crown, a tiara with diamonds and sapphires, and a fleur-de-lis. It is made of silver. My mother inherited it from her mother-in-law who inherited it from her mother-in-law, who was gifted it by her husband, the king. I was to be the fourth generation to have that crown someday. My mother wasn’t much for pomp and circumstance, but she did wear that crown as much as possible. The night of her death, she stayed later than my father who was called back to the palace to attend to a political issue in parliament. She had presented an award at the gala for her most favorite charity, a charity that still exists and helps children survivors of war who need medical assistance.

I obsessed over the missing crown until it merged with my love of hacking. Now, I scan the dark web daily to see if I can locate it. I know it has to be somewhere out there, hidden in a private collection of some underworld billionaire. I know I won’t rest until I find it.

I sigh as I look over the findings of my search today. Sometimes, I come across something that I may anonymously bring to the attention of the authorities. Call it my inverse Robin Hood secret. I steal from the evil rich and return to the rightful rich.

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