Page 68 of A Wise Prince

I’m wondering if this is like the part of the movie where the evil villain talks too much and is overtaken by the good guys while going on and on about nonsense. I can only hope. My training tells me to keep him talking, if he’s talking, then he can’t be hurting us.

“You really have no idea, do you?” he asks me.

“Do you need money?” I ask.

He laughs. “Because of the crown?”

I nod. He laughs harder, an evil laugh that has the hair on my arms rising.

“We don’t need the money, Kate. We needed to get to your dad and the royal family.”

I frown, confused by what he’s saying.

He sighs as though explaining this is just too exasperating for him. “You know where my grandfather was born, right?”

I try to remember, in Europe somewhere.

“Norddale, you twat. He led the society for years, although his attempts to overthrow the monarchy were fruitless. On his deathbed, he made my father swear to take over and bring down as many monarchies as he could, to make governments that were completely by the people and of the people, to get rid of the falsehood of the current systems. Dad was already in the senate. Some thought he wanted the presidency, but he only wants to bring down the presidency. Think about it, we could be a popular democracy. All the people would have all the input, not a few selected leaders. He blackmailed your dad with some stupid affair he had, and voila, he’s been able to get your dad to overturn laws and hand power back to the people. But your dad has been lazy, he still has work to do. And meanwhile, we need to keep amassing money to get people elected into the Norddale and Montelandia parliaments that are anti-monarchists. It’s a war with many fronts.”

I try to understand what he’s saying, but it doesn’t make sense. “B-but…why?”

“God, are you stupid. Don’t you see? The current government structures don’t work. They are ruining us. We need to start a revolution, take back control.”

“But democracies are good,” I say.

He shakes me and my eyes widen. “They are, but not how we are set up. No one man can have too much power.”

I’m so confused, his thoughts are strange. He doesn’t want someone to have power, but he wants power. It makes no sense. I wonder if the drugs are making my brain slow down.

“Why do you have us here?” I ask as I look over at Ashlyn, hoping she’ll wake soon but also not wanting her to wake to find herself here.

“Daddy’s going to come get you, and when he does, well, he’ll change his mind about a few things. We lucked out that you came along too, it’s even better than I could ever plan,” he says.

“W-what are you going to do?” I ask him. Ashlyn stirs, and he puts a finger over my mouth.

“Rest up, Kathryn,” he says before putting the tape back on my mouth and leaving us alone in the room.

August

“Fuck!” I yell as I watch the video again. “Where does he take her?”

My sister is, as always, three steps ahead of me. She pulls up new video feeds. “Last year, I had a series of cameras installed along all our main roads, mostly for traffic purposes, but also…well, anyhow, they show them getting in a black car.” She points to a screen. “Then, they go out of town on the A-25.” She points to another screen. “I tracked them to this exit,” she adds, pointing to the last video feed showing the car pulling off the main road.

“Where does that lead?” I ask simultaneously with my father and Kate’s dad.

She pulls up a satellite map. “Here,” she says as she points to an old estate containing several smaller buildings, essentially creating a small village at the foot of a long drive toward a large manor house.

“That’s a lot of buildings,” Christian states.

“Good thing you called for backup,” a voice says from the doorway.

We all turn to find Jack Ross standing there, leaning against the doorframe like he’s the fucking king of the damn castle.

“What have you found out?” Anna says to Jack as though having him standing here is completely normal. Jack Ross is the head of an international crime unit at Interpol. Or at least, I think he is. My sister knows him from her hacking days and has worked with him on many cases, including a plot to kill her now-husband. The fact that Jack Ross flew here, tells me whatever is going on, is serious, very serious.

Jack walks in but doesn’t sit. “Is everyone here?” he asks. I’m not sure what he means by everyone, but Anna nods. Fucking spies.

Jack turns to President Bradford, who visibly shrinks in his seat. Fuck me.

---