Page 37 of A Valiant Prince

She shakes her head. “Nothing useful, anyways,” she says to me with a huff. As she says this, she freezes. “Hold on…” She trails off and begins typing a mile a minute.

“What are you doing?” I ask her.

“Trying another angle,” she says.

“What’s that?” I prod.

“Hacking into the royal security servers,” she says.

“Wait, as in your security’s servers?” I ask her.

She glances at the door to our room and back at her screen. “Yes, as in those servers,” she says.

“Anna…I…maybe we shouldn’t,” I stammer.

“Or, maybe that’s exactly why we should,” she says like the badass, rule-breaking princess that she is.

I sigh and pull up a chair for the show. Although, I really have no idea what the hell I’m looking at as she scrolls through code on the screen.

“I’ll get us coffee,” I say to her as I lean down and kiss her head before heading out to find caffeine.

Pete’s in the kitchen when I come in.

“Morning,” he says.

“Morning,” I reply. I make Anna and myself coffee before heading back to the bedroom. I set the coffee down for her, and she thanks me without looking away or stopping the tapping of her fingers on the keyboard.

I sip my coffee and watch her. Her brows furrow and then un-furrow. She frowns and then stops frowning and then frowns again.

“What is it?” I ask her.

“It’s just…this doesn’t make sense,” she says.

“What?” I ask.

“Why would Victor and Marcus ask my father to send us here?” she says, biting her lip.

“What do you mean?” I ask, setting my coffee down on the desk.

“It says here that Marcus determined the locations with Victor that were the most appropriate to send us all. But why would Marcus determine that for Victor? That doesn’t make sense. Victor’s our chief of security. He should be making those decisions,” Anna says.

“How long has Victor been your father’s head of security?” I ask her.

She stops typing and considers the answer. “Well…let’s see. He came on after Lara and Hans were married but before I went to college. I’m trying to remember. I think I was eight or nine, maybe? I don’t know, like ten plus years ago?” she contemplates.

“And how about Marcus?” I ask her.

“Oh, Marcus was longer than that,” she says. “He’s been my dad’s personal secretary for, gosh, since I was little, even before my mother died.”

“Where are your brothers?” I ask her. She types some more before answering.

“So, it looks like Chris is staying at a small inn near Mia’s family’s home just outside of London. And Auggie is at a friend’s chalet in Switzerland,” she says.

“OK…why so separated, especially us?” I ponder.

“That’s a good question,” she notes as she types some more.

She sighs as she leans back in the chair after a few more minutes of searching.

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