The Millionaire's Royal Rescue

“Just this. It looks like some sort of thumb drive. An older one.”

Grayson returned the rock to its spot and then moved next to her. She handed over the bag. All the while, she wondered what could be so important about a computer file that it cost her mother her life.

“What do you think is on it?” Annabelle asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s very important.”

“It is,” a male voice said from behind them. “Now turn around slowly.”

Dread inched down Annabelle’s spine like icy fingers. When she turned, she gasped. The man standing there holding a gun on them was someone she knew—someone the king knew and trusted. It was one of the palace staff, Mr. Drago.

He was an older man with thinning white hair and the gun he held on them looked to be even older than him. The hand holding the large revolver shook, but she didn’t know if it was from nerves or age. Either way, she wasn’t feeling so good about his finger resting on the trigger.

“Drop the bag to the ground and kick it over here,” he demanded.

Grayson did as he said without any argument.

“And now your keys.”

Annabelle had those. She pulled them from her pocket and dropped them to the ground. She gave them a swift kick sending them skidding over the concrete patio.

“Why?” Annabelle hadn’t meant to speak—to do anything to provoke him, but the word popped out of her mouth before she could stop it. With the damage already done, she asked, “Why did you kill my mother?”

After the man picked up the plastic bag and the keys, he stuffed them in his pocket. “You don’t understand.” His eyes filled with emotion. “No one was supposed to get hurt.”

The tremors in his hand grew more intense. The gun moved up and down, left and right. And yet his finger remained on the trigger.

“Your mother, she just wouldn’t quit interfering. Just like you. I warned you to leave the past alone, but you just couldn’t.”

“I...I just need to know the truth—to understand.” Annabelle couldn’t believe she was staring at the man who had killed her mother. Nothing about the man screamed murderer to her and yet, he’d almost come right out and admitted it. “Why did she have to die?”

The man expelled a weary sigh as though he were shouldering the weight of the world. “Since I’m leaving this island—my home—and never coming back, I suppose I can tell you. My wife...she was sick. She needed to be flown to the United States for treatment, but I didn’t have that kind of money. And then I got an offer. For some information about the country’s defenses, I could get the money necessary to save my wife’s life. I’d have done anything for her. She...she was my world.”

Annabelle helplessly stared at the man who’d murdered her mother. His hand with the gun continued to shake. And his finger remained on the trigger. Anger and disbelief churned in her gut. And worst yet, she’d dragged Grayson into this mess, risking both of their lives. She deeply regretted her rash decision to rush out here without security.

There had to be a way out of this. Maybe if she kept the man talking a bit longer, a plan would come to mind. “So what went wrong?”

“Your mother caught on to the plan somehow. She said she was going to tell the king, and I just couldn’t let her ruin everything.”

And then a memory fell into place. “It was you that I saw arguing with her in the South Shore piazza the evening before she died, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. “I was trying to find out how much she knew. I needed to know if she suspected me. She wouldn’t tell me anything, but then the next day we met again. She said she’d intercepted a note to me—”

“Your name is Cosmo?” For as long as Annabelle had been coming to the palace, she’d only ever heard the man addressed by his surname—Drago.

“Yes, it is.” His arm slowly lowered as though he was tired of holding up the gun. In the next breath, he lifted it again. “Your mother said that she was taking it to the king. That’s when I pulled out this gun. She reached for it. We struggled and...and it went off. There was nothing I could do for the princess. The shot hit her in the chest. She...she died before she hit the ground.”

Annabelle’s heart jumped into her throat as she envisioned her mother’s final moments. Her mother had been protecting the king and this land that she loved. She was a hero and no one knew until now.

Annabelle swallowed hard. “What...what happened next?”

“My wife...she died before I could get the data to sell.”

“And what’s on this thumb drive?”

“Instructions on where to deliver the data. And how I’d get my payments.”

“So you never met the person behind the espionage?”