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TWENTY-TWO

'The truth doesn't cost anything, but it could cost you everything.' - Anon

The sound of the car skidding against the gravel and the judder of the tyres make me squeeze my eyes closed as the car picks up speed and we pour into the night. Adam hits the accelerator violently and the car whirls to the right and I let out another shriek.

"Put your seatbelts on!" Adam roars from the front of the car. I fumble with mine, but my hands are shaking too much and I can't push the belt into the buckle.

James leans across my body and takes my seatbelt from my hand. He fastens it and I fight the sudden urge to keep him there in front of me so I don't have to see anything other than his shirt and the smell of his cologne and pretend that being bundled into cars is not going to be another aspect of my life I will have to learn to deal with.

"What the hell is going on now, Adam?" I question, my voice clipped and charged with panic. I look behind us at the lights from the cars following as Windsor Castle becomes nothing but a blur in the background. "Where is everyone?"

Adam says nothing for a moment and then brings his comm on his wrist to his ear. "I have foxtrot, over."

I grimace at the sound of James' code name and glance at him through the strands of my falling dark hair in my face. James has his right elbow propped up on his leg, two fingers splayed across his forehead like he is trying to rub away a headache.

"Adam?" I prompt again, this time more forceful and I can see my head of security's shoulder sag.

"Her or me?" James says without once looking up.

"What?" I look at him with pointed eyes.

"Henry has been standoffish all day, watching me like a hawk. He's been timing my bathroom breaks, murmuring into his coms, and clearing floors we're not even using. The security presence has doubled, and I noticed the way you were both absent for the presentations." James explains. "What fucking breach is it now?"

It's impressive how much James truly picks up on or maybe I am just ignorant.

"Tonight, an attempt was made on your life, Princess."

James stiffens beside me and I feel the temperature in the car drop, almost as if Adam has turned the heat down to freezing as the car rings silent.

"I—what?"

I become aware of the way James' hands clench, his knuckles turning white as the car remains in its state of quiet. I can feel my heartbeat in my ears as I process Adam's words.

"We also believe there is a high chance Prince James would be targeted too."

"By whom?" I choke out, finding my voice.

"Eva," James says at the same time Adam says, "Princess,"

"Is that not a reasonable question to ask?" I blink at both. "Am I not allowed to know who wants me dead?"

"Eva, for crying out loud," James mutters under his breath.

"It's because you're afraid of the answer, right?" I look at the Australian prince with tears in my eyes and my mouth pressed in a firm line.

"How?" I turn to face my attention back to Adam who grips the steering wheel tightly. "How did you know?"

"There has been chatter all day," Adam explains and I note the way he meets James' eye in the rear-view mirror. "A sweep before the interview began saw a sniper with his gun targeted at your chair, Princess." He clarifies.

I suck in a sharp breath.

"And you didn't think to move her?" James spits, exasperated. "You've known something like this could happen all day and you didn't think to move her?"

The sound of a dark chuckle that erupts from James beside me sends a cool chill down my spine. "You were using her as bait, to draw this person out, right? That's why you didn't move her."

And that's when it dawns on me. The missing piece of the puzzle, the answer that has been staring me in the face. "This wasn't a random attack," I don't even hear the words leave my mouth. I'm starting to think that some people thrive in turmoil because turmoil is all they have become to know.

"These security breaches, the attacks, my brother...my brother's death. None of it is random. They want me dead," I swallow what feels like razor blades. "They want all of us dead."

*

The safe house we arrive at looks like an industrial warehouse – just with an insane security presence. It is in the middle of seemingly nowhere and is built like steel with a prison-like wall tracing the entire outside of the premises. We park in an underground garage filled with cars like the one we are in and the door to my right opens and a man who wears a dark grey suit stands with it open, smoothing down his tie.

I step out to face him. He must be seven feet tall because he towers above me looking every bit as scary as you imagine the director of the secret service to look. I try to recall his name, Derek something.

I look over my shoulder to another car pulling up beside us and Henry steps out of the driver's side and scans James and me with what can only be described as a feral look. I see his shoulders visibly slump when he deems neither of us is hurt. He walks over and James pats his shoulder as we're led upstairs via a lift. Adam and Henry stand behind James and me as the director of the secret service looms in front of us, hands clasped in front of him and his eyes on the doors in front of us. He says nothing.

Once they open, we're led out into a foyer where another man dressed in grey greets us. I take note of the pale grey walls, the squeaky white flooring and the way everything seems like it's built like a crime lab. I feel like I am the colour in a shock of white and I have never wanted to hide somewhere so much in my life.

As we round a corner, a woman walks towards us, her dark hair bobbing at the shoulders and it bounces as she walks. She is dressed in a similar shade of grey, her skirt and blazer set looks pristine and polished as if she has not so much as sat down in it.

"Your Royal Highnesses," the woman greets and bows her head. "I welcome you to headquarters. My name is Special Agent Julia Vickerman. I am the lead when it comes to everything to do with the Royal family."

"What are we doing here?" I ask, eyeing the way Henry and Adam stand taller in her presence. This woman is important, I gather. The director of the secret service slips away as Julia turns to her left and opens a glass door and beckons for us to go inside. We walk into a conference-type room and Julia gestures for James and me to sit.

"You do not have clearance to hear this conversation," Julia says to Henry, stopping him from walking through the door.

"I am Prince James Prescott's head of security and have every clearance made available besides that of the Australian director. I am bound and protected to ensure his safety. We are on foreign soil in a foreign diplomatic building. I will be entering this room with him, or I will take the next king of Australia and take him elsewhere. Your choice."

Julia purses her lip and then moves aside. Henry takes his stance beside Adam at the end of the room. The tension is thick in the air, but Julia turns towards us as if to ignore the two brooding men in the corner.

"As you will have been made aware, an attempt was made on your life tonight, Princess. Although this is not the first attempt made on your life, this attempt is the most alarming as this attack comes almost undetected."

Julia turns and swivels something on the computer behind her, her fingerprint is registered on a pad that lies next to the mouse and the screen comes alive.

"These are all the dated attacks known to date." A list of dates appears on the screen and my eyes widen. There are pages of them. These have been attacks made on my life?

"Most come from low-level criminals, anti-royalists, that kind of group. I can see this might come as a shock but in truth, as you were up until recently Prince Michael's spare—"

"You're saying I've got off quite easy." I interrupt her, watching as her face falls. Julia tries to regain her composure with a cough.

"In seventy years, we have only had to enact this protocol once. However, we are all joined here under the most unprecedented of situations. Two separate heirs were almost killed in the space of seconds after an attack on the previous heir to the throne, your brother."

"We believe this group to contain some of the most highly skilled criminals we have seen to date. They know our system, our plans and our security protocols. They have knowledge on both of you they should never have been able to obtain."

James scoffs. "So, what you're saying is that this group has infiltrated the secret service?"

Julia's face hardens, "Prince James, we have become to believe the people trying to kill you both are not only in part of your protection detail but are in the staff at the palace, in the very girls you have brought here to marry and even down to the man who irons your shirts to the woman who tastes your food."

"So, who can we trust?"

"No one, Your Highness," Julia stares at James. "As of right now, you can't trust anyone besides the other people in this room."

"What do we do?" I ask, my mouth dry from the knowledge the people who killed my brother are also trying to kill me too.

"You said you have only ever had to enact this protocol once before," James' brows furrow, his voice clipped. "But if Mike is...dead that means they succeeded in killing an heir."

I can tell by the way Julia's face twists that she didn't expect to be having this conversation now. But if James Prescott is anything he is relentless in his quest to find the truth and neither of us will leave the room until we know what we are up against.

"Eighteen months ago a group that call themselves Mutiny made themselves known to us when they first attacked the heir to the throne,"

Julia presses something on her keyboard and a grainy video appears on the screen. She presses play and we see a man walk out in the night. The video is grainy enough that I can't make out the man in the video or where they are, but the figure appears to be alone, walking across a garden or maybe a field. The man in the video checks over his shoulder several times before slipping off further into the night. I frown at the video and lean forward in my seat. Is this the guy who is trying to kill us? Is he a part of the Mutiny group?

The video jumps to what seems to be a phone recording. The person holding the phone is shaky and there is deep breathing coming from the recording. The video shows the same man entering a car – a deep black SUV with lights on.

"What is this?" I feel James become rigid beside me and he is already on edge. "Who is this?"

Julia pauses the video. "The next events you are both aware of," she starts, her voice softens by a millimetre and I can already feel my heart rate spike as she prepares to say what she says next. "As you can see, the man in the video gets inside the car. Seconds later, this happens." Julia presses play and the car explodes in the video in front of us and I fall back against my chair as if the wind has collided me back. James flies out of his chair and crosses the room in an instant. I see Henry reach for him as James screams at Julia.

"What the hell is this?" his eyes are wild as he searches the secret service agent's face. "Why are you showing me how my brother dies?"

"Brother?" I whisper and my eyes glue back onto the video that is still playing in the background. Julia wasn't talking about the English heir to the throne, she was talking about the Australian one.

"Luke," I whisper. My eyes can't leave the screen. The car is on fire, the wreckage around it is astronomical and immediately I feel the plaster on the gaping hole in my heart rip free as I watch how the first man I ever loved comes to die.

"Why would you show us this?" I hiss but the words come out no more than a loud whisper.

"There was no chatter and there was nothing to suggest an attack on Prince Lucas was to occur that night or any time soon. Nothing. Lucas had slipped away completely of his own accord, wanting five seconds of peace after an argument with your father," Julia says to James who is still standing before her, breathing heavily like he's trying to catch his breath. "How could they have known he would do that?" she asks the question out loud, rhetorically.

I watch the screen behind her and take a step out from my chair and closer to the screen. I don't stop moving until I am in front of it.

"What the hell are you saying?" James fires, "and this time stop speaking in long-winded riddles."

The energy in the air shifts once more. "James," I say my eyes not once moving from the screen.

"James," I say his name again and from the corner of my eye, I see his head turn to look at the screen.

"The blast was fatal," Julia's voice echoes in the background. "As you know. However, up until this point, the world believed Prince Lucas died in a car crash. It is what we wanted them to believe, what they had to believe,"

The person holding their phone drops it and it falls awkwardly, landing so that the video turns landscape and at an angle. It takes me a moment too long to register what I am now seeing but the person runs towards the wreckage, ducking as the heat of the fire blazes at their skin. There is no sound, there is nothing but the grainy video and my beating heart but what happens next causes every molecule in my body to seize up.

The person in the video is pulling someone out of the car, someone whose leg is dangling at an inhuman angle and is covered in blood. Someone who is very much still alive by the way their hand reaches out to grip the other man's shoulder.

I hear a strangled cry echo beside me, James. The inhuman nature of the noise makes me turn to him because the person in the video covered in blood is the heir to the Australian throne.

The person in the video is Luke. Alive. It's God damn fucking Luke.



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