Page 46 of A Valiant Prince

“The stakes are high,” he warns.

“They’ll be higher if we don’t do this,” she says. “I won’t hunker down and cower like a frightened rabbit. And my brothers won’t either. It’s a risk, but it’s a risk I know we are all willing to take. We can’t live under a threat like this forever. We won’t.”

“Very well, then. I don’t love it, but I agree, it may be the best option to flush out whoever is behind this,” Jack says. He sighs as he walks through the door. “I just hope your fathers don’t have my balls for this.”

Anna stifles a giggle. I nudge her, and she looks up at me with a grin. I shake my head at my little fierce princess.

Anna looks out the window as Jack gets in a car and takes off down the street.

“Anna, this is risky,” Pete says as he crosses the room to stand beside her.

“So is staying here. And if my hunch is correct, then staying is playing into the hands of the killer,” Anna points out.

“Agreed,” Pete says.

“Good, then prepare yourself because we are leaving here…I reckon in about forty-eight hours,” she says.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Pete says. I know he uses the formality to rib her a bit, and she glares back at him as he heads up to his room to no doubt let Cain and Nico in on the plan.

“This is crazy,” I say, finally finding my voice.

“Yes,” she says. She turns and walks back to our bedroom. I follow her and watch as she logs in to the computer.

“What are you looking for now?” I ask.

“Checking on something,” she mutters. A minute later she closes the laptop.

“What?” I ask.

“Checking to make sure Auntie Lara is still alive,” she says.

“And?” I prod.

“For now, she’s stable and still in the ICU,” she says softly as she crouches down and grabs the papers we had gone through earlier.

Chapter Fourteen

Anna spends the next twenty-four hours scouring the web and every document I’ve brought over here. She pinpoints a number of people in the photographs my mom had, most are staff, a few family members, and security.

“Anna?” Pete’s voice calls from the hallway.

“Come in,” she says.

Pete stands at the door with a phone in his hand. He holds it out, and Anna frowns but takes the phone from him.

“Yes,” she answers. “I see. Understood. Jack, they can’t know anything, or this will all be called off. Fine. Yes. At what time? We’ll be ready.” She hangs up and looks between Pete and me.

“We’re leaving on a flight this evening. Jack wants us to drive to the Cleveland airport. He has a plane waiting there for us. He’ll call you back in a few minutes to explain more, Pete. He has a few additional calls to make,” she says.

Pete nods. “I’ll make sure we’re ready,” Pete says as he walks back out toward the kitchen.

“I should call my grandparents,” I say.

Anna shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Logan. When this is all over, we can come back here to visit them, but we can’t tell anyone anything. It puts them in grave danger,” she says to me, a look of sympathy on her face.

“Oh,” I say, feeling silly that I hadn’t thought of that myself.

Anna crawls over to me and sits on my lap. “First time in espionage, huh?” she says, trying to make light of our situation.

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