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Trace didn’t know exactly how she’d react, but he knew one thing for sure. She wasn’t going to take it well. The thought of hurting her made him say more roughly than he meant to, “In the meantime, there’s still a chance this doesn’t have anything to do with that old case, or with me, so keep your eyes peeled. And make sure she takes a different route to and from school every day, so if she is being tailed they don’t latch on to a pattern.”
Liam started to protest, and Trace knew he was going to say that they always did that. “Sorry,” he said, holding up a hand to cut Liam off. “I know you know what to do. You don’t need me to tell you how to do your jobs, but just bear with me, okay? I don’t want anything to happen to the princess just because nothing’s happened up till now. I don’t have a clue how long that tail’s been out there. If they’re following me that’s one thing. It’s something completely different if they’re following her. I don’t have to tell you to be extra careful when you’re on duty.”
“You’re right,” Alec replied for both of them, his voice as hard as steel. “You don’t have to tell us that.”
* * *
Damon pressed the button to turn off the encrypted laptop, waited for it to power down, then closed the lid. He tapped an impatient finger against the side for a moment, considering the new orders they’d just received. When Lukas walked into their hotel room ten minutes later carrying a bag of take-out chicken and fixings—spicy chicken for him, original recipe for Damon—Damon was ready. More than ready. Eager, in fact. Almost excited, although being the professional soldier he was he knew better than to let excitement control him. They had trained for this type of covert operation for years, and now the word had been given. The rest of the team was on its way, a rendezvous had been arranged, and a target—a new target—had been designated.
The two men dug into their rapidly cooling dinner, and as they ate Damon relayed their new orders. “Difficult,” he told Lukas when he was done. He tore the meat from a chicken leg with strong teeth, then tossed the denuded bone back into the box.
Lukas leaned back in the easy chair drawn up to the hotel room’s tiny table. “Difficult?” he murmured as he considered the word. “Yes.” He nodded. “And dangerous.” He smiled, but the smile didn’t soften the hard planes of his face, it just made him look more sinister. More threatening. This was not false advertising. Lukas lived for danger. So did Damon. Why else were they here?
“The slightest mistake could be fatal.”
A bark of laughter came from Lukas. “You speak of mistakes with him involved?” He shook his head. “You know him. When has he ever failed at anything he set out to do? He has meticulously planned this to the last detail, see if I am mistaken. Failure is never an option. Not for him.”
They spent the next hour discussing various scenarios, different outcomes. They accepted with a shrug that death for one or the other was a possibility, just as they had accepted the potential for death or incarceration with their original mission. Neither had a death wish, but it wasn’t something they would dwell on either.
The two men were unusually close, almost like brothers, having come up through the ranks together, and were now part of the same elite cadre. Not just doing, but training others. They were not without ambition, but both had eagerly volunteered for this dangerous mission out of a near-fanatical devotion to the man whose word was law to them. They had carried out their original orders with military precision and thoroughness, and treasured the few words of praise they’d received.
Now, with this new mission, they would not only have the opportunity to show what they could really do in a more dangerous and challenging campaign, they would do it under the eagle eye of the man at the helm. What more could an ambitious man ask for?
* * *
Less than a week later Trace got the call he was both hoping for and dreading. The State Department had found a replacement for him—a top notch DSS agent with fifteen years under his belt, including two years guarding the Secretary of State. He didn’t speak Zakharan, which was why he hadn’t been tapped for the job the first time around, but the DSS was putting him through the same language crash course the Jones brothers had gone through. Keeping the princess safe was still the top priority, and this new man had what it took to do that.
Trace was on duty that Thursday, and had planned to tell the princess as soon as he saw her that when she returned from Zakhar after Christmas break there would be someone new on the team guarding her. But he kept putting it off. Somehow the conversational opening never appeared. He couldn’t tell her when she was driving, of course. Even though her driving had vastly improved over when she’d first arrived, there was no point in telling her something that would upset her when she was behind the wheel.
