Casimir was sitting in a gaming chair and scrolling on his phone that was plugged into a power strip on the end of the long, U-shaped desk.
“But can you use it to hack into our cell phone system? Can you use it to find Dree?” Max asked.
Arthur continued, “And I think we’ve got a handle on that infiltration problem of yours. Some friends of mine hacked into your military’s intranet.”
“Arthur!”
“What? I didn’t do it. It’s notmytransgression, nor is it mywholly inadequate cybersecurity.”He sipped the coffee.
Maxence grabbed Arthur’s arm. “I don’t care about security. I’ll walk into the damn Crown Council meeting with a shotgun if I think it’s necessary, butI’m not going to walk in there at all unless Dree is safe.”
“Speaking of the election and the Crown Council—” Casimir consulted his watch. “The election is seven hours from now. You should be making your presence known and networking. Maybe a television appearance. But definitely, you should be in the palace. You could lose this if you don’t take it seriously enough, you know?”
“I don’t want to be the Prince of Monaco,” Maxence said, dismissing that asinine idea once again.
“You keep saying that, but you certainly don’t want to end up with your uncle Jules on the throne. There’s nowhere in the world you would be safe from him.”
“Right, so I need to sway the election to someone who’s ethical, someone who’ll be the right sovereign for Monaco. Iknowthat. That’sthe plan.”
“And you need to be there to do that.”
Maxence turned back to the computer equipment. “As soon as we find Dree.”
Twist stood up and walked over. “We’ve already hacked into your cellular network—”
Max handed him the fourth cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich. “Shouldn’t it have taken longer than that?”
“Oh, hey, thanks,” Twist said, peering into the bag. “Yeah, itshouldhave taken hours, but I hopped in within a few minutes. You need much better security protection on it.”
Arthur nodded. “Told you.”
Twist continued, “We’re running searches to see if we can locate your phone. It’s a good thing Arthur cloned your phone a few years ago—”
Maxence spun and glared at Arthur.“Years?”
“—because it made it much more likely that we’ll be able to pick up its signal. Hello there, Maxence. Long time, no see.” Twist offered his hand to shake.
Maxence grudgingly turned away from Arthur, who was still staring at the computer rig with lust in his silvery eyes.
The yacht’s door was still standing open, and a cone of sunlight spread through the room and reflected on the computer screens.
Tristan’s blue eyes matched the electric blue computer screens running a graphic-interface operating system, and yet his eyes were striped with a fathomless deep-sea sapphire. He was a white guy, probably Norwegian and German ancestry from the Midwestern look of him, with strong cheekbones and a jaw like a right angle, but he was tanned from living on the Mediterranean Sea. His thick dark hair had a wave to it, though it was neatly trimmed.
Tristan cocked his head to the side and raised his eyebrows at Maxence, a look of concern on his face. “Heard you ran into a bit of trouble last night.”
Maxence waved him off. “I’m fine.”
Tristan shrugged. “Okay, but if you want me to hack their ship’s radar so they sail around in circles for a month until they run out of fuel and sink, let me know.”
Max laughed at him. “That’s vicious.”
He grinned, showing perfectly straight, white teeth. “I don’t like bad guys.”
Arthur glanced at Twist with one eyebrow raised.
Twist hadn’t been one of Maxence’s closest friends when they were at Le Rosey, the billionaires’ boarding school Max, Arthur, and Casimir had attended from the time Max was five until he graduated from upper school. Twist and the other scholarship kids had arrived for high school, but he’d been around enough that they’d gotten into trouble together a few times, which was the bedrock of any friendship. The scholarship kids had hung out amongst themselves most of the time, partly because they hadn’t matriculated to the boarding school until they were teenagers and partly because some of the rich kids were snobs.
Tristan had been one of the few teenagers in the world who’d shown so much promise and ambition that he’d been plucked from his parents’ farm and admitted to the Le Rosey boarding school in Switzerland. He’d been given a world-class education and a chance to rise to rule the world, and he’d grabbed onto that shining opportunity and hung onto it. Connections could be forged at Le Rosey that could not be acquired any other way. How else could a Midwestern farm boy like Tristan end up standing on a yacht in Monaco with two royal princes and an English nobleman?
