Page 53 of A Wise Prince

“Great,” I groan. I’ve opened Pandora’s box.

“Oh, by the way, Jack’s going to be there tomorrow,” she adds.

“Say what?”

Jack Ross is a high-up intelligence officer who works with Interpol and helped us out when Anna stumbled upon a dark web conspiracy to take down our monarchy. I haven’t talked to him since then and that was over a year ago.

“It seems your new girlfriend’s security is former intelligence and worked with him. And, Kate also spilled everything to her. I thought Kate would be smarter than that. We need to keep this shit on lockdown, you get me?”

“Wait, my Kate told her security?”

“Your Kate?”

“Whatever, she should know better,” I say, trying to avoid discussing my Freudian slip.

“I already spoke with her, since some people weren’t answering their phone.”

I sigh. “Anna…” I start and trail off because this whole mission has gone to shit aside from the fact that we now have a piece of my mother’s tiara.

“Auggie?” I hear Kate’s hesitant voice from behind me.

I’m surprised to find both Kate and Jackie standing in my doorway.

“Put me on speaker,” Anna says as though she already knew they were on their way. Shit, she probably did.

Kate

I nervously look over at Auggie. I’m not sure how he’s going to feel about me spilling this to Jackie, but I had little choice.

I’m surprised when Jackie speaks first. “Long time no talk, Knight.”

“Shit, Watermelon, didn’t realize that was you. Small fucking world,” Anna says. Auggie and I exchange confused looks.

“I take it that you two are acquainted, then?” Auggie asks them the question that’s on both our minds.

“Yep. Your bodyguard is a badass,” Anna says to me.

“So is your sister,” Jackie says to Auggie. “What’s the game plan?”

And with that, Anna launches into a plan to draw out the person who auctioned the diamond.

“We are going to use Kate’s connection to Jared,” she starts.

My face pales.

“The fuck you are,” Auggie growls, pulling me against him in some sort of caveman show of domination.

Anna sighs. “Listen, it’s the fastest way to figure this out. I’m not going to be able to get us in with a sheik on short notice,” she says as though she could get an audience with a sheik if she had more time.

“Before I say no, what’s your plan?” I ask, biting my lip.

“Well, what if I were to set up a chance encounter,” she says.

I frown. “Anna, he’s not supposed to be near me. I’m not sure he’d even speak to me. There’s a lot of history…”

“I see. OK. Augs, you’re up! I’m going to have you cross paths.”

Auggie’s jaw clenches.

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