The Bossy Prince - Rugged and Royal

Tonight, however, was never going to be easy.

Putting a tracking device on Stefano’s cell without him realizing he’s been pick-pocketed (and then reverse pick-pocketed) was always going to be tricky. The man is perpetually on guard, no matter how many beers he’s had or how much cocaine he snorts up that patrician nose of his.

And even if he were to get a little soft around the edges, his bodyguards don’t drink while they’re on duty.

He has eyes—and guns—on him at all times.

My best bet is to wait for him to join the dancing in front of the stage and arrange to bump up against him, liberating his phone from his suit pants in the process. So far, he’s spent most of the night by the firepits at the edge of the woods, far from where a Romanian punk band has been rocking out for nearly two hours, leaving the thinning crowd thrashing in the grass, sweaty and breathless.

Time is running out—the festival’s programming ends at midnight—and Stefano shows no sign of leaving Nick’s side.

And until he does, I can’t risk approaching either of them.

There’s a chance Nick will recognize me and blow my cover. We haven’t spent much time in each other’s company since I nearly drowned him when we were children, but he’s seen pictures of me with my sisters.

And no—I hadn’t been trying to drown him, just to win a game of Lake Monster Wrestling. He was four, and I was five.

He was a rather adorable four-year-old, I confess. Mischievous and brave without being stupid.

Now…he’s stupid. Nick grew up to become an insipid party boy with a gambling problem, who’s in debt to the mob and kissing up to a murderer in order to maintain his high-rolling lifestyle. He’s getting in deeper with Stefano with every passing day, putting his entire family—and by extension, my family—at risk.

Stefano has a history of settling debts by demanding payment in illegal and usually dangerous favors. If the person refuses to play along, retribution is swift and cruel. One of their loved ones might have acid thrown in their face, as just one horrid example.

If Stefano’s goons throw acid on Andrew or Jeffrey, my sisters could be caught in the crossfire. And I swear, if either of my sisters’ beautiful, innocent faces is scarred for life because Nickolas Von Bergen refuses to grow up and get help for his various addictions, I’ll be tempted to do something drastic.

I would never act on my murder-y thoughts, of course—I’m one of the good guys—but I could arrange for Nick to be forcibly removed to a rehab center in Outer Mongolia. There, he can spend a year far from our families and the mob, getting clean while reading anonymous letters warning him that if he gets into trouble with casinos or dangerous men again, he’ll end up back in a tiny padded room at the edge of the world.

Possibly for keeps.

I make a mental note to talk to my handler, Nadia, about what it would take to make a prince disappear for a while.

When I tune back into the conversation between the two men, Nickolas is still nattering inanely about helicopters. “Have you ever jumped out of a chopper? My brother parachutes out of ours all the time, but seriously…I don’t see the appeal. I get into enough trouble on solid ground, right?” He laughs loudly—drunkenly—and takes another healthy swig of his gin and tonic.

Stefano casts a pointed look at one of the men lurking in the shadows beyond the ring of flickering firelight before saying, “I hear you. But I’m tired of solid ground. Let’s go for a ride. I’ll get you back to your hotel in half the time, and we can talk in private. I have a proposal I’d like to run by you.”

Instantly, I’m on high alert.

In addition to his other methods of debt collection, Stefano occasionally kidnaps people in order to recoup his investments—“Pay up, or Aunt Vicky loses a finger” style.

Nick’s family is obscenely wealthy. His eldest brother is the king of one of the most prosperous countries in Europe, his mother is a pediatric heart surgeon with her own small fortune, and his other brother is secretly making a killing in his spare time with various international investments.

Any one of them could afford a handsome ransom, and that’s not even considering his wealthy aunts, uncles, and cousins.

“All right, I’m game,” Nick says, swaying as he lifts his drink into the air. “Just let me finish. Hate to let a fourteen-euro cocktail go to waste.” He chortles again, his eyes sliding closed just long enough to miss the subtle signal Stefano flashes to his right-hand men, Tony and Thom.

Tony and Thom are stereotypical strong men with too much gel in their dark hair, too much gold jewelry adorning their thick fingers and necks, and baby beer bellies swelling above the waist of their too-tight jeans. But they are strong and ruthless and prepared to do what Stefano orders without hesitation.