Spy Girl (Spy Girl #1)

I open the side door out of the castle, and have to blink to believe what I’m seeing. The boys aren’t smoking cigars. They aren’t standing around the fire anymore. No one is.

My skin prickles. I hadn’t heard a thing. No guns, no fighting, no shouting.

Where could they have gone?

But then I see two bodies twisted on the ground. At the far side of the courtyard, several men are bundling what looks like two more bodies into a van.

Daniel is my first thought. I take off at a sprint as the van pulls away. There’s no way I can catch it.

I head for the bodies.

Daniel is one of them.

He’s lying prone, one arm under his body, the other stretched out beside him. He’s not moving. Not at all. My heart breaks into pieces, thinking he’s dead. Thinking that I’ve failed him. That I’ve failed them all.

I roll him over, bracing to find blood. There is none. His clothes are intact. His head flops to one side, his eyes closed.

Tears form in my eyes as I dance my fingers across his neck frantically trying to find a pulse. I give a sigh of relief when I feel the regular thump-thump of his heart beating.

Then I see something on the side of Daniel’s neck.

It’s a tranquilizer dart. That’s how they got all four of them so silently and so fast.

Peter is the other body on the ground. He has a pulse, too. Whatever they’ve been shot with is just a sedative. They weren’t meant to die. But who knows what’s happened to Ari and the Prince.

I roll Peter and Daniel onto their sides, neither one moving.

I give my fingers a kiss, press it against Daniel’s forehead, and whisper, I love you.

I take a deep breath, trying to let go of my emotions and focus on what drives me.

But I find it to be the same answer. Love. I’ve come to care for both the Prince and Daniel, not to mention Ari.

This is my mission. My love. My pain. My past. All muddled together, like a song inside my soul.

I stand quickly and spring to action. I use my phone to call the emergency number, recite my access code, and calmly tell the voice on the other end to alert the Montrovian guard that the Prince has been kidnapped. I hear a wild babbling chatter, but I hang up, knowing they’ll figure it out.

I look down at my heels. My wrist. Instead of my father’s watch, I’m wearing a diamond and ruby bracelet. Instead of my teched-out heels, I’m wearing the ones the Prince gave me.

I have no car.

No gun.

Only the phone in my hand.

And me.

I take off running, hoping it will be enough.





X X X





I ditch the heels and chase after the van, but it had a head start. I cut through the rose garden and see tail lights disappearing around the bend. I race past the guards, yelling that the Prince has been kidnapped. I leave them, radioing frantic messages as I push on, heading north, in the direction of the van.

I leave the grounds by scaling the castle wall, jumping over it, then running as fast as I can down the hill we sat on to watch qualifying. Where all the guards are, I have no idea.

I race into the town center, passing lines of luxurious storefronts. My lungs are burning, but I don’t slow my pace.

I have to keep going.

But the tail lights have gone. The van has gone.

The Prince has . . . I take a deep breath. I’m not ready to admit that yet. I can’t fail.

I have to find them.

A Jaguar approaches, heading in the opposite direction. The engine rumbles. It slows, the headlights blinding me. The engine growls, tires squeal, and the Jag rotates in the street, swirling around. The headlights are no longer blinding. The car slides to the curb next to me. The driver leans over and flips open the passenger door. I stumble to a halt.

“Get in,” a British voice says.

It’s Gallagher! I could kiss him, only I don’t. I sink into the passenger seat just as my lungs are about to give out.

“Someone just kidnapped the Prince,” I sputter, “and my brother.” I point down the street. “Go!”

He floors it, causing the engine to crackle and roar. I’m shoved back into the seat as we race down the street.

“A black van,” I say. “They got onto the castle grounds somehow. I think they shot them all with tranquilizer darts. They left Daniel Spear and Peter Prescott, took Lorenzo and Ari.”

“A black van?” he says. “That should make things easy. In the dark. At night.”

I sigh. “Just keep going.”

He does, weaving the Jag between traffic and junctions, hurtling through lights at the last moments of yellow. He’s hunched forward. Staring. But he’s right. Finding a black van in the dark, isn’t going to be easy.

“Wait,” I say.

He slows a fraction, and looks over at me.

“Ari puts trackers on people.” I wave my phone. “I have an app.”

“Why would he need to track people?”

“Oh, he doesn’t,” I lie. “He’s, um, really smart and trying to create the next great technology.”

“I see,” Gallagher says, totally unconvinced.

“And since you asked for my help, I guess, technically, I’m a British spy like you. And I think it’s up to us to save them.”