I looked down at the silver USB drive in my hand.

I knew the risks of showing him.

If I did, Rachel’s carefully constructed world would fall apart.

But my father’s death had been a murder, and my mother was being kept as a hostage in all but name.

“Your father’s suspicions are correct,” I said. “But not in the way he thinks.”

I plugged the USB drive back into the port.

The blue light on the drive flickered, and the laptop screen groaned back to life, displaying the temporary cache files I had managed to salvage before the remote wipe.

I turned the screen toward the Prince.

“This is Arthur Whitmore’s signature,” I said, pointing to a scanned PDF of a secret covenant.

Alexander leaned over the desk, his brow furrowing as he scanned the lines of text.

His fingers tightened on the gold hilt of his ceremonial sword.

“Whitmore?” Alexander muttered. “He is a close adviser to my father’s council.”

“He is also the man who killed my father,” I said.

I opened the image of the silver Mercedes crumpled against the stone barrier.