Page 77 of Maid for the Alien Prince

The royal family were big and vast, their influence stretching beyond borders and galaxies. They were ethereal, everywhere. Ges was a new enemy and one that I knew intimately.

It was also possible that he could have friends among the newer members of the staff. The older ones despised him, but they had been supplanted by these newer workers and they were at least going to be friendlier toward him.

Was that how he had gotten into the palace? It was under armed guard all night and either someone let him in—one of the guardsmen?—or he had discovered another way in…

Perhaps the same way Camila had that night when she came to my room…

The pieces were beginning to fall into place, but I really had no idea what they would add up to. There were too many options, too many possibilities…

Or I could have been completely wrong and the truth was that someone had come to burgle the palace and Camila had stumbled upon them. After all, we had come across a sackful of antiques and heirlooms.

Initially, I had assumed it had been planted there, or else it had been one of the staff that had left it as they had been busy replacing the items that Ges had lifted and placed around his room, only they got distracted with other tasks and forgotten about it.

Or they intended on picking it up and taking it with them when they finished their shift for the night…

Again, too many possibilities.

And that made making any plans obscenely difficult. I couldn’t make plans for everything. I needed to choose those that were most likely to yield fruit.

And get Camila back.

I pressed the button for the intercom. “Send the chief staff member in,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” my secretary said.

By the time the chief staff member arrived, I had decided upon what I wanted him to do.

“I want a ransom put out on Ges,” I said.

The chief staff member’s tufty eyebrows rose. “A ransom?”

I nodded. “I want him to always be looking over his shoulder. No matter where he goes or what he does, he will never be free. Eventually, someone will turn him in.”

“What if he’s innocent of Camila’s kidnapping?”

“Then he will have to prove it. After his recent exploits in stealing from me, I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“As you wish, Your Highness. Is there anything else?”

I ran the other potential options through my mind…

So many damn possibilities!

Then I shook my head. “No. That is all. For now. Any updates on the search?”

“Every available hand has spread throughout the estate, covering all potential exits. If someone is here and they try to escape, we’ll spot them.”

“Good.”

But it still made me nervous. No one knew quite how long Camila had been missing. Except for the time that had lapsed on the dead guard’s routine, which amounted to just under an hour as the east drawing room was the last he would check before returning to base, there was the possibility that the kidnapper could have already left the estate and be far from here.

There was just no way to know.

“I’ll put out the word for the ransom,” the chief staff member said. “How much would you like to offer?”

To put a number on the safe return of Camila was impossible. She was worth so much more than any number of credits, any valuable item I possessed.

But Ges might have loyal allies somewhere and there was really only one way to ensure they betrayed him and handed him over to me, and that was to offer something so obscene that there was no way they couldn’t bring themselves to betray him instead.

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