Spy Girl (Spy Girl #1)

“What the hell?” asks a female voice.

Spy Girl turns. Ophelia is rushing into the room, looking around and trying to figure out what’s going on.

“Ophelia, I’m here to help. Stay down while I clear the rest of the building.”

“Clear the building?” She laughs as she surveys the bodies on the floor. “It looks as if you have already cleared the building. But no matter, I can hire more where they came from.”

Spy Girl swings into a tactical position. “You did this? I thought it was Clarice.”

“Clarice? You think my sister could have done all this? Oh no. My sister is clueless. She’s probably at home, jumping the bones of that idiot boy she thinks she’s in love with.”

“Where is Viktor?”

“He got a tranquilizer dart to the neck like the others. He’ll wake up and assume he had one hell of a night. And then he will become King. With his father’s world wide connections, there is nothing I won’t have,” she says, pulling a gun from her jacket and pressing it against the Prince’s temple. “Drop your weapons, or I kill him now. Although, he will die soon enough. You all will.”

Spy Girl has no choice. Although she’s a good shot, the chance of Ophelia shooting the Prince before a bullet could kill her is too great.

She reluctantly places the guns on the floor in front of her and holds up her hands.

“You ruined your dress,” Ophelia comments. “Which is fitting and slightly poetic. I can hear the account in the papers. A torn ball gown covers the dead, would-be Princess on the night the Montrovian monarchy dies.”

“How will you end the monarchy, Ophelia?” She knows the longer she keeps her talking the more time she has to figure out how to kill her.

“We get rid of this worthless excuse for a prince, for starters. Sorry about that. You seem to really like him. And you’re nice and surprisingly good with a gun. Something that would be valuable in the new world order of Montrovia.”

“If you kill the Prince, then you could be Queen.”

“Absolutely. Allowing me to do whatever the hell I want. And what I want is to systematically dismantle this farce of a monarchy, starting by selling the Strait of Montrovia to the highest bidder. Once that’s done, we close down our borders to these wretched tourists, shut down our port, sink all the yachts, and abolish gambling. We will ruin the country that shunned us all because—”

“All this because Daddy didn’t love you?”

The Prince winces as Ophelia digs the barrel of the gun into the side of his head. “Shut up!” she says, becoming agitated. She turns her gun away from the Prince and waves it in the other direction. Exactly what Spy Girl wants.

“You don’t know anything,” Ophelia rants, taking a few steps toward her. “You don’t know what it’s like to be treated like a nobody in France when your blood is royal. If it weren’t for my father’s philandering ways, my mother wouldn’t have taken us away to live like paupers.”

While Ophelia is ranting, Spy Girl puts her hand to her chest—suddenly remembering what she tucked into her bra earlier.

“You’ve hardly been living like paupers here. I overheard you telling Allie that your custom dress for the Queen’s Ball cost a half million euros.”

“Pocket change, now. I will soon be the richest woman on the planet. The Saudis appear to be determined to own the Strait and keep upping the ante.”

“You can’t do that!” the Prince yells.

“Actually, I just changed my mind, the first thing I will do is tear down the castle. Dismantle it brick by brick just like I will the monarchy.” She waves the gun in his direction again, her focus back on the Prince.

That’s all it takes.

Spy Girl leaps forward, first knocking Ophelia’s gun to the ground and then slapping a pore strip on her forehead.

“What the hell is that?” Ophelia says, looking up, cross-eyed.

“Put your heads down!” Spy Girl yells to the captives as she jumps up to the ceiling, grabs the exposed metal pipe above her and swings her body toward Ophelia. Her feet connect with Ophelia’s chest, kicking her across the room as the strip explodes and blows her back into the nearby window.

When the dust settles, Spy Girl picks herself up off the ground and dusts herself off.

“What the hell was that?” the Prince says. “How could you even—the way you shot—where did you learn all that?”

“Finishing school,” she replies as Gallagher comes running into the building with his gun drawn.

He surveys the carnage, then looks at her in astonishment. “Did you do all this?”