Liana Monroe – 6:43 p.m., East Coast Inn
The hotel smelled like salt and old carpet.
Liana sat by the window, watching waves crash against the cliffside. The sun was sinking, but she barely noticed. Her laptop screen glowed before her, half her face reflected in it—haunted, sleepless, hiding under a name that wasn't hers.
She hadn't eaten since morning. The only thing she'd managed to swallow was guilt.
The phone on the table buzzed. Unknown number. Again.
She let it ring out.
A moment later, a text appeared.
"You're not safe there."
Her blood turned to ice.
She typed back before thinking.
Who is this?
No reply.
Her pulse raced. She pushed the phone aside and opened her laptop, scrolling through the files she'd copied—the evidence she swore she'd keep hidden.
Recordings. Bank transfers. Encrypted messages between senior palace officials. Proof that someone in power had orchestrated the entire setup.
But something was wrong.
Half the folders were missing.
Her chest tightened. "No…"
She checked the backup drive. Empty. The files she'd copied last night were gone.
Then the cursor began to move—by itself.
Her breath caught.
Someone was in her system.
The mouse opened her documents folder. Slowly, deliberately, one by one, files began disappearing.
She yanked the Wi-Fi plug, heart pounding. The cursor froze. Then a black box appeared in the center of her screen.
White text blinked into existence.
STOP DIGGING, LIANA.
Her mouth went dry.
A second line appeared beneath it.
YOU'RE NEXT.
She slammed the laptop shut, stumbling back, her heart beating so fast she thought she might faint.
The lights flickered.
Then came the sound—a faint click from outside.
She rushed to the window. A black car was parked across the street. Same as last night. Engine running.
Her phone vibrated again.
Another message.
"You should have deleted everything when you had the chance."
Her fingers shook as she typed back, Who are you? What do you want?
Three dots blinked for a few seconds. Then—
"The truth. The same thing he's looking for."
Her stomach twisted. He.
Adrian.
She sank into the chair, breath shallow. Whoever was after her knew about him. Knew about both of them.
A low knock echoed at her door.
Three slow taps.
Her pulse froze.
She stared at the door, every instinct screaming to stay silent.
The knock came again—harder this time.
Then a voice, muffled but unmistakable.
"Liana… it's me."
Her breath caught. She knew that voice.
Adrian.
But how—?
She crept toward the peephole, her hands trembling.
The hallway light flickered once, twice—then went out completely.
When it came back on, the doorway was empty.
But on the floor, someone had slipped a note under her door.
She bent down slowly and picked it up.
No name. No seal. Just one sentence, written in the same slanted handwriting as the photo Adrian found.
"He's closer than you think."
Liana's hand shook. She turned toward the window again—
And froze.
The car was gone.
The palace was too quiet.
That kind of silence didn't bring peace—it suffocated.
Prince Adrian Vale walked the corridor leading to the lower archives, where the palace's internal security system was monitored. Every step echoed, too loud against the marble floor. The scandal had stripped the palace bare—no whispers of protocol, no soft greetings, just the faint hum of cameras that no longer felt like protection.
He'd stopped trusting them.
A soft click broke the stillness. From the shadows stepped Mara, one of the youngest cybersecurity officers. Barely twenty-five, brilliant, and terrified.
"Your Highness," she whispered, glancing over her shoulder. "You shouldn't be here."
"I was told you found something," Adrian said. His voice was calm, but his eyes weren't. They carried the exhaustion of a man hunted by both the world and his own bloodline.
She nodded, hands trembling as she held out a flash drive. "The night the video went online, there was a system breach. Not external—someone accessed the security servers from inside the palace."
Adrian frowned. "You said it wasn't internal."
"It wasn't." She swallowed hard. "But whoever did it used credentials from the royal access network. The kind reserved for family and senior officials."
The air seemed to thicken.
Royal access.
Family.
"Who's logged in under that ID?" he asked.
Mara hesitated. "That's the thing… it's been wiped. Someone deleted the log. But the deletion trail—it was done manually, sir. Not by a program. Someone wanted it to look clean."
Adrian's jaw tightened. "Someone inside my family."
"I didn't say that—"
"You didn't have to."
He took the drive from her, sliding it into his pocket. "No one else sees this. If anyone asks, tell them the system is clean."
Mara's eyes widened. "Sir, if they find out I—"
"They won't." His tone softened. "You've done enough. Thank you."
As she hurried away, Adrian turned toward the dark hall, the weight in his chest heavier than before.
If royal credentials were used, that meant only a handful of people could have leaked the tape—
his father, his mother, or his uncle.
But there was another name he couldn't escape.
Liana Monroe.
He pulled out his phone, scrolling through the message he'd left her last night.
No reply. No read receipt.
Nothing.
He looked toward the horizon, where the city lights flickered beneath a gray dawn.
Whoever had started this hadn't just exposed him—they'd buried something bigger. And he intended to dig it up, even if it meant burning what was left of his crown.