Page 27 of A True King

“I was waiting for my coffee when a man came in and struck up a conversation with me. It seemed innocent enough until he said my name. I asked him how he knew me, and he asked me to sit down. So, I did. That’s when he showed me the DNA test results and told me the people he worked for wanted to know what you were up to. He gave me a phone and said I had one week to make up my mind. That’s when I went home. I confronted my father, who told me that I was indeed a princess, and he was a prince and that people shouldn’t know that. He thought maybe someone had found out and was trying to make money with the tabloids. Apparently, that happened a few times to Dad. So, I let him think it was a journalist.”

“What did he look like, the man at the coffee shop?”

She purses her lips as she thinks. “Tall, blond, blue eyes. He wears glasses sometimes, but sometimes not. His accent sounds Russian, maybe? He has a birthmark on his neck.”

“And how often did you see him?”

“Only twice. Otherwise, it was just text messages. Until he came to my parents’ home.”

“And how often did you text him?”

“Weekly.” Her face falls on that word.

I reach out and touch her cheek. “Stop wallowing in guilt. We have to move forward.”

Sighing, she rolls over onto her back again. “It was months later that he was at the coffee shop again with the photos of us after I didn’t send a message for a week or so. And then, there was no contact until he came to our village a few weeks ago. He knew so much more. He knew all about what had happened with The 44. He claimed to work with them. He said he could take you and everyone else out. That’s when I got scared and decided to…disappear.”

“And has he contacted you since?”

She shakes her head. “I left my work phone at the Royal Palace along with the one he gave me. I turned my personal phone off and left the SIM card in my sock drawer. I’ve only used burner phones since then.” I wonder how no one found the SIM card, but that is an issue for later.

“What about you?” she asks.

So, I reciprocate. Telling her abbreviated stories she already knows and a few she hasn’t heard. And then I tell her about how I went looking for her and finding the phone. She listens to me, asking occasional questions and laughing at a few funny childhood stories, but otherwise, she’s quiet. When I finish, she rolls back onto her side.

“Will this ever end?” she asks.

“What?”

“People wanting to kill you and your family?”

I shrug. “Probably not.”

Suddenly, I’m afraid. Does she not want to be with me? Maybe being a royal is too much for her to handle.

Chapter Fifteen

Mia

His words chill me. No matter how much I expected that answer, it still is hard to hear. I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I can be in love with a man whose life is always on the line. My own life has been lived as a normal commoner. Well, nearly normal. My family was wealthy, I always knew that, but not over-the-top wealthy. Enough to afford to send me away to school. Enough that we could take nice family trips. I had no idea we were royalty. It would have never dawned on me to even think for one second that I was a princess.

“What do you know about your family?” Christian asks, as though reading my thoughts.

“My dad’s family, you mean?”

Nodding, he props his head up a little higher, watching me intently as I open my mouth to answer.

“Not a lot. It sounds like Dad was a product of an affair that wasn’t meant to be. My grandmother didn’t want my father raised in the palace. King Ivan provided for them, but I honestly don’t know much about her relationship with him after my father was born. Dad doesn’t talk about it, ever. Once Dad was eighteen, he distanced himself from his mother. He didn’t want any part of the royal family. She gave him some money and the rest of what he has, he earned himself.”

“Do you know anything about King Ivan and his son?”

I shake my head. I’ve thought about searching on the internet over the past three weeks, but I haven’t for a multitude of reasons. I didn’t want to go online if I didn’t have to. I wasn’t sure I was ready to learn about my family. And I wanted to speak more with my father.

“Do you know them?” I ask. “We haven’t had any meetings with King Ivan.”

“I’ve met him before. It’s been a while. Dad has had some meetings with him in the past few years, but no, I don’t know them well. Their nation isn’t a neighboring one like Montelandia, so we have less political and economic ties to them.”

I sit up and pull my knees against my chest. “You don’t think King Ivan has something to do with The 44, do you?” I ask, suddenly wondering where his line of questioning is going.

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