Good. “How about you introduce me at the next meeting? I can be a Bull’s Quest patron with views that you’ve recently learned align with theirs.”
“Of course.” His nod was eager. “Actually. There’s a jeweler in Ledge Square that sells those silver pins. If you wanted to seem enthusiastic, you could get one made ahead of time.”
“Thanks.” She’d do that. “When’s their next booking?”
“Uh.” He typed on his laptop, pressing backspace more than any other key. “Next Sunday night.”
“Call me if that changes.” She stepped forward and wrote her number in the margin of an invoice on his desk. Then she showed him photographs of Tommy and Jonah’s attackers. “Did these men ever attend? Years ago?”
He considered each face carefully, and when he looked up, his frown was wary. “Is there a problem, ma’am?”
Would she be here if there wasn’t? “Answer my question, please.”
“Yes, I think so. But they were alright. And the men who still meet here—they seem like decent people.”
Jeez. Her father would string this guy up like a paper chain and shake the money from his pockets. Probably already had.
“Yeah.” She turned to leave. “That’s where they get you.”
On Wednesday morning after breakfast with Kris, she received confirmation that the men under surveillance had not just worked on the west wing renovations, but more relevantly, on the balcony construction. Closer. As she dug into progress reports, time logs, and purchase orders, searching for red flags, she couldn’t shake the feeling these men were soldier ants. If they really had contributed to the balcony’s shitty structural integrity, who had planned it? Who’d been so sure the royal family would dine up there at all?
And did they have new plans now? Instructions to harm Kris or Mark or Tommy?
Or all three at once?
Focused to the point of fixation, it wasn’t until midafternoon on Thursday that she read the memo from housekeeping informing her that Philip Varga was being relocated from the servants’ quarters to a royal family suite at the order of Prince Kristof.
She was out of her office in seconds.
“Johansson,” she said, a hand over her ear. The door to the security suite sealed shut behind her as she raced toward the nearest staircase. Her skin prickled; her head felt too light. “Report your primary’s location.”
“Summer drawing room,” came the woman’s reply. “Third floor.”
“Alone?” Frankie’s shoulder protested as she swung hard around the bottom post of the bannister. She launched toward the first floor, her boots taking every second step.
“Meeting with several members of parliament. Another half an hour at least.”
“Get him out.”
Hanna’s voice turned hushed with concern. “Is he in danger?”
“No.” Pressure spread across Frankie’s chest, a metal breastplate secured too tightly under her skin. “I need ten minutes. Say he has to sign something as a matter of urgency.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
By the time her footsteps pounded down the arched corridor toward the third-floor drawing room, her brow was damp. Hanna slipped inside the room at her approach, and a half-minute later, emerged with a bemused Kris in tow.
“Another contract? I just signed—” He broke off with a frown when he saw Frankie waiting, hands on her waist and breathing hard. “Hey, you okay?”
“I’ll bring him back,” she told his guards, and then, without looking at him, she said, “Follow me.”
She set off the way she’d come and Kris matched her pace in silence. After a quick call out over comms, she cut toward the portrait hall as the nearest unoccupied space, a grand room of blushing pale pink wallpaper and gold-framed portraits.
The sound of the door closing echoed among his immortalized ancestors.
“What’s going on?” His voice was low behind her as his hands rested on her shoulders. “You’re upset.”
“You.” She spun to face him, gratitude thick in her throat. “Acknowledged Philip.”
Comprehension slid across his face in a one-sided smile as his hands resettled on her shoulders. “Turns out he’s family.”
Her muscles were stiff under his palms. “You didn’t think to mention this last night? The night before?”
“I figured you’d already been told.”
Technically, she had. The memo had been sent to her on Tuesday. “But you’ve always spoken to him like—like you don’t even . . .”
“Like him?” he asked wryly.
She nodded, biting her bottom lip, scarcely understanding what Kris had done.
“He warned me not to hurt you.” A shadow flickered in his eyes and he stepped into her, his touch drifting down her arms and sliding around her hands. “Not to keep you a secret, like Noel did to him. Obviously that’s