The asshole I’m chasing turns a corner, disappearing from my sight.

But I’m the fucking prince of this entire country, and I know every road and back alley. He can’t lose me.

I break into a full run heading in the opposite direction, cutting back around the building. I find the other end of the alley, where I position myself to wait hidden behind a marble pillar.

I hear his footsteps stomping on the cobblestones. He thinks he’s lost me, but he’s still moving fast.

Not fast enough.

As soon as I hear him approaching the pillar, I leap out. I dive forward, head first. My skull connects into his gut―all hard muscle―and I tackle him down onto the cobblestone.

He tries to let out a cry, but I slam my elbow up into his jaw, shattering it.

He crashes to the ground.

I pull out my gun, cock it, and shove it right up against his ruined jaw. “Say a word and I’ll kill you.”

His eyes waver. He must be newly recruited―not trained to withstand interrogation. Good, I got lucky today.

I pull the cuffs off my belt, and snap the cuffs onto his wrists as I straddle him. Once his hands are cuffed behind his back, I rag him into the back entrance of the nearest building.

I lug him behind me with one arm. He’s heavy, but I’m strong. My forearm bulges as I haul him right into the restaurant. It’s packed full of people, and the majority have dropped their forks and knives and are gawking at us.

I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out the royal seal. I flash it and display it around, shouting, “This man is a known terrorist, so everyone needs to get out of the building. Now.”

No one hesitates. The royal seal carries serious weight. Even though I’m the prince, no one knows what I look like. It’s always been a closely guarded secret, mostly for my own protection. Only the king, my father, is a recognized public figure.

All these people know is that I work for the royal family. I doubt any of them suspect I’m Prince Rikard Nordgaard himself.

The restaurant owner looks at me with a creased forehead. He bites his lip, and says, “Please try not to destroy my restaurant.”

I grin. “Don’t worry.”

Once the place is cleared out, I cuff the asshole to a metal pole running along the length of the bar.

I grab a bottle of bourbon from behind the bar and pour myself a glass. I hold it in my hand as I look down at the piece of shit laying strewn on the floor in front of me. He groans, and I see big black and blue bruises forming along his jaw.

“You’re going to tell me what you have planned for today,” I say. “I know you’re green, and I know you don’t want to do this the hard way.”

He spits out blood. “Sydia does not recognize the pretender’s seal!”

I pull the royal seal back out of my jacket pocket and shove it into his face. “Pretender? The Northgaards have ruled for over one thousand years! An unbroken chain of―”

“Of pretenders!” he shouts. “You took Sydia by force. We never agreed―”

I kick him with the toe of my boot.

I know that time is running out. The terrorist attack is scheduled to happen today, I’m sure of it.

I pull out my pistol, cock it, and press the barrel into his kneecap.

“Let’s see how much you really care about Sydia,” I growl. “I’m not going to torture you. Either you tell me everything you know, or I pull the trigger and walk away. I don’t have time for―”

“Okay!” he shouts, sweat beading on his brow. “We’re going to take the castle―”

“The palace?” I ask.

“No!” he shouts. “The castle.”

“Why?” I ask.

The palace has been the seat of government since the mid-1800s. It’s where my father’s throne is located, and where all the important members of government meet. The castle, on the other hand, is little more than a tourist trap at this point.

“Hostages,” he says. “Lots of foreigners…either the king lets them go, which makes him look weak, or he lets us kill them, which makes him look ruthless.”

Fuck.

“When?” I growl, shoving the gun deeper into his knee.

“Soon!” he squeals. “I don’t know exactly when―”

There’s a loud crashing thud behind me, and I spin around to see the door shattering inward. Daylight spills in, and a small canister rolls across the floor.

I raise my gun toward the door, ready to fire, but the canister erupts into blinding white light. The corresponding blast blows out my ears until I can hear nothing but a loud ringing.

Before I can even think of firing my gun, someone tackles me to the ground.

I feel myself being dragged away, not toward the front door, but toward the alley from which I entered.

I reach out to touch the ground as they drag me along, and I feel the cobblestone road of the alley. Are they taking me somewhere out of sight to execute me?

The blindness from the flashing light slowly dissipates, and I see that I’m being dragged by two members of the royal guard. I knew that the Sydian separatists had planted spies deep into our military, but the royal guard itself?

“Prince Rickard,” one of the guards says, pulling me up to my feet.

I reach for my gun, but it’s gone.

I swing at him with my bare fists. He doesn’t even defend himself, just letting my knuckles crunch into his jaw.

The guard behind me says, “We had to interrupt your operation, your Highness. The king, your father, just suffered a stroke.”

The announcement hits me harder than the punch to the face I just inflicted on the other guard.

He spits out blood, but stands straight and manages to look solemn even after taking a punch in the face for no reason.

I look them both in the eyes, then say, “I’m sorry to doubt you, but I need pro―”

The guy that I punched reaches down and holds out a sealed envelope to me. I crack open the seal and begin reading.

It’s a sealed note from the doctor. It doesn’t prove that my father had a stroke. If spies have infiltrated deeply enough into the palace, it could serve as a diversion. Occupy me with my father’s supposed illness, then pull off the hostage situation at the castle.

“How did you know―” I start to ask, but then I remember the fucking GPS tracker that’s been implanted into me. I’m too valuable to be given any privacy or freedom.

“My gun,” I say.

“We need to secure you in the palace,” the guard says.

“Your names,” I ask.

“Reiner,” the one I punched says through bloodied teeth.

“Erik,” the other says.

“Reiner, Erik,” I say. “I need to know I can trust both of you. There’s a Sydian separatist cuffed to the bar inside, and―”

Reiner draws his gun and rushes back inside the restaurant.

I follow close behind him, not sure what he’s going to do. I’m hyper aware that Erik is behind me, and armed.

Reiner points the gun right at the terrorist’s head, and I see the veins on his forearm pop out.

“Wait!” I shout. “He’s already talked.”

Reiner nods, holstering his gun.

“I need you two to let me go,” I say. “The terrorists are planning to take hostages at the castle, and I need to stop them.”

Reiner and Erik look at each other, and then Erik says, “We can’t let you go, your Highness. Our sole job is to get you back to the palace safely.”

I point to Reiner. “You go to the castle. Erik can take me to the palace.”

“We should call the police,” Erik says.

I shake my head. “There are too many spies. I need to assemble a trusted team together at the palace.”

* * *

Erik brings me into the palace, where I immediately rush to the throne room. It’s where my father had the stroke. He’s long been taken down to the medical quarters, but my mother and sister are still there.

The two of them are crying next to the empty throne, kneeling down as if they’ve just been praying. It almost looks like my father is dead.

My father could use my prayers too, but he’s strong, and he needs me to protect our country right now, not sit idly by his empty throne.

“Rikard!” my sister Jannika shouts, rushing toward me.

I hug her as soon as she reaches me, and my mother bites her lip, watching us.

“Rikard,” she says. “It’s time to hang up your gun and prepare to―”

“Father will recover,” I say. “I won’t be king for a long time.”

She grabs me by my shoulders, squeezing. “You need to prepare. We’ve let you wait too long already.”

I know what she’s referring to. She needs me to get married. An unmarried prince cannot ascend to the Nordian throne.

“What common woman do you even know?” my sister asks.

“What?” I ask. Why do women only think of marriage, it’s the last thing on my mind right now. I already had father agree anyway: he’d change the law and allow me to marry royalty.

“I’m to marry Princess Eloise,” I say.

Jannika shakes her head. “Father didn’t want to change the law and give the separatists ammunition against us,” she says. “He wasn’t going to tell you…”

She starts to cry.

A fucking common woman? It was a law enacted over one hundred years ago. It was made to stop a people’s revolution. I never had any taste for commoners, and father promised me he’d change the law so that I could marry a princess and not further weaken our bloodline.

But now he may not wake up, and the king’s last word is law.

“The law,” Mother says. “You must marry a commoner. Jannika,” she says, grabbing my sister by the hand. “You must know someone, someone to Rickard’s tastes.”

“This can wait,” I snap, thinking of the castle, of the hostages about to be taken.

Mother looks up at me with tearstained eyes. “I want to believe he’ll make it, Rikard, but he could die at any moment. You and I both know it. If he dies without a crowned prince married and ready, the separatists will storm the palace, and we’ll―”

I put up a hand, silencing her. “I’ll find someone.”

I really will have to marry a common woman, but first I need to stop the attack. The Sydians might storm the palace tomorrow, but they’re going to storm the castle today.