Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
TRISTAN
The east wing study at Teddy’s estate is more secure than the drop house. It is most logical for us to be here. It makes the girls really happy too.
I’ve spent the last hour rerouting my systems here, spreading monitors across the mahogany desk that usually hosts nothing more threatening than estate ledgers. The room is directly across from the suite we’re staying in.
Killian leans against the far wall, arms crossed, watching me work. “How is Lily handling everything?”
“Surprisingly well.” I don’t look up from the screen.
“They’re back in the vault?” I joke, but is it really a joke?
When Teddy found out Lily is a princess, she was ecstatic.
She started pulling out all the crowns she could find.
I think I heard her mumble something about Lily needing a bejeweled scepter to match and apologizing that she doesn’t already have one.
They’re having fun with it. Better than dwelling on it, and I have to give it to the girls. They are resilient.
“Still in there.”
The screen in front of me flashes with different incoming data. I’ve been pulling every thread I can find on the queen of Grandeurs—her financials, her security detail changes, and her communications patterns in the last few years.
“She’s not giving up,” I say. “The two men in the alley were scouts. Low-level, disposable. To her, at least they were.” It’s fucked up because one died with her name on his lips. That’s deep loyalty.
“Now what?”
“She’s setting up a new plan of action.” I pull up a satellite image of the Grandeurs palace, zooming in on the eastern wing.
“Five encrypted communications have gone through in the last eighteen hours. All linked to the same server. They are using burner phones and rotating locations, but the pattern is consistent.”
Killian pushes off the wall and moves to stand behind me. “Professional.”
“Professional enough, but it only slows down the process. You can still find them. Right now, she’s in a holding pattern.”
Killian nods in acknowledgment. I pull up another file. I was finally able to track down Victor’s old mission logs. Once I cracked the current code, it was easy, but there is a window before it closes, and I’ll have to start again.
“It’s all of Victor’s old mission logs, the ones I could never fully get into,” I tell Killian. “The queen might be waiting us out, but she knows we’re on to her. To what degree, I’m not sure, but her men never came back with the girl, so she’s aware Lily has some sort of help.”
A thought I don’t want to have is why didn’t they simply kill Lily? It would have been their easiest course of action. Why were they wanting to take her?
“Abduction, not assassination,” Killian says, reading my silence. “They want her breathing.”
“Which means the queen needs her for something.” I scroll down through the mission logs. “Victor’s extraction order. Decades ago, off-books, king himself requested it. One infant from a rural clinic, fire already burning down, a house with planted bodies. No witnesses, no survivors.”
“That’s a pretty standard cover.”
“Standard except for the addendum.” I highlight a line. “Package to be delivered to a neutral location for transfer to state care. Not to the palace or a distant family member in another country, but she was going to be placed in state care.”
Killian leans closer. “The king didn’t want her raised royal.” I don’t believe that to be the reason. It was about more, about him in the end.
“He wanted her hidden.” I scroll down. Victor was supposed to hand her over seventy-two hours after retrieval.
He went dark for three weeks, then resurfaced in Maryland with a daughter and a legit birth certificate.
There had to be a person really fucking high up in the chain of people to work all those details out.
There’s no way in hell he could’ve pulled that off alone.
“He kept her.”
“He chose her,” I say. “And then he reached out.”
Killian straightens. “To the king?”
“Off-books and encrypted. It was buried in diplomatic traffic.” He had to have had help, but it’s not surprising.
The man had gone on to be the head of the FBI.
I pull up the transmission logs, dated three weeks after the extraction.
“Victor sent word. The package was secure. In a caring and loving home. Return was no longer an option.”
The study door suddenly opens. My Lily stands there in one of my shirts, hair mussed, her eyes still filled with sleep. They made it out of the vault finally. She blinks a few times.
“You’re both staring at screens,” she says. “Should I be worried about anything?”
I hit a button that turns all the screens black. “Come here.”
She crosses the room barefoot, and I pull her into my lap without thinking. Killian glances away, giving us privacy.
“Did you find something?” she asks, her head resting on my shoulder.
“I found why Victor kept you,” I say. “And why the king let him.”
She pulls in a deep breath, holding it. “And?”
I turn the screen on in front of us so she can see. “The king sent a response to Victor about you.” I highlight the decrypted text. “‘Keep her safe.’”
She stares at the screen, at her birth father’s words from beyond the grave. “So he didn’t want me back.” I can see a hint of disappointment and longing in her eyes.
“He wanted you alive,” I say defensively. I can’t fathom anyone not wanting Lily. It simply does not compute. “He knew the queen would never stop hunting if she thought you existed. It would be better if you were dead to the world, safe in Maryland, than a princess in the crosshairs.”
“So Victor kept me because the king let him.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I gently correct.
“Victor pretty much told him to fuck off. Which I don’t blame him for.
Victor kept you because he loved you.” I kiss the shell of her ear.
“And the king let him because he loved you too. Different ways. Different sacrifices.” I run my hand up and down her side, hating that I can’t change anything for her.
That I can’t take this pain away. Lily must read my mind.
“I’m not upset about how this played out.” She gives me a soft smile. “I mean, I’m here. This is where I want to be. Besides, here I am a princess already.”
“That you are.” I let out a low chuckle. She’s never going to let any of us forget it.
“And now what?” she asks. “The queen knows I’m not dead. So now she’s gunning for me.”
“Someone had to fill her in on it,” I say. “Someone who knew the extraction happened but was not fully sure where you went.”
“We need to find who talked after all this time,” I say. “Someone just handed her proof you survived.”
Lily slides off my lap, standing straight, the sleep now gone from her eyes. “Then let’s find them first.” She straightens my shirt that’s swallowing her small frame, but her jaw is set with that stubborn determination.
Killian has already shifted over to another computer, pulling up personnel files, cross-referencing anyone with access to Victor’s old missions who might have talked.
“I’ll start with the extraction team. See if anyone had financial irregularities, family pressure, or anything that could turn them. ”
Lily’s mouth forms a perfect O.
“And I’ll trace the queen’s recent contacts.
” I stand to stretch the tension from my shoulders.
We’re far from done gathering intel, but there is now a more visible path.
The more information we can uncover, the easier it will be for me to protect Lily and end the threat to her. “Someone fed her this.”
Lily nods. “You seem to have it handled.” She gives me a tentative smile, already moving toward the door. “I’m going to leave you all to it and go check on Teddy. She’s probably reorganized the vault by crown size or gemstone color by now.”
“Tell her I said good job,” Killian calls after her, not looking up from his screen.
Lily lingers in the doorway, hand on the frame, looking back at me. “Tristan?”
“Yeah, princess?”
“Thank you for telling me. All of it.” Her smile is small but real. “Even the parts that hurt.” Then she’s gone.
Killian waits until the door clicks shut. “The son.”
I pause mid-stretch. “What?”
“Prince Julian. Twenty-six, educated at Oxford, currently serving as Grandeurs’ ambassador to the UN.” Killian pulls up a file and rotates the monitor toward me. “He’s been making noise about reform. Anti-corruption. Transparency in royal finances.”
“The queen can’t love that,” I say.
“Making himself enemies.” Killian zooms in to show me. “And three weeks ago, he requested classified briefings on his father’s personal correspondence. Including off-books communications.” I stare at the date. Three weeks ago. That timeline is adding up.
“You think he knows about her?” I glance over to him.
“I think,” Killian says slowly, “that if anyone could find out what the queen is up to or is already on to her, it would be him.”
I sit back down, pulling the keyboard closer.
“Find me a secure channel. Something that won’t trace back.” Not that it matters much. They know where we are.
“You’re going to contact a foreign prince?”
“I’m going to find out whose side he’s on.” I look at the closed door, knowing I’ll do anything to protect Lily. “If he’s willing to take down his own mother, he might be the only person who can end this without more blood.”
I double-check the secure line and bounce the signal… And hope I’m not about to make things worse.