Chapter 6.

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I sat on my bed with my laptop open as I scrolled through my brother, Rave's profile on the agency.

I had three older brothers and a sister. I barely saw them. I had seen all of them last Christmas – five months ago, well, besides my eldest brother, Rave. He was twenty-five. I hadn't seen him in years. Four years, two months to be exact. He wasn't dead; I knew that because his profile was constantly updated with the missions he completed. I never understood why he never came to see us, never replied to my emails and never answered my calls.

I don't know why, but I still called him once a week, as I did with all my brothers and my sister. The difference was, they always answered, he never did.

I grabbed my phone and dialled Rave's number. I waited as it rung until the familiar sound of his voicemail started.

"Hey, Rave here. Kind of busy right now, leave a message and if it's interesting enough I'll call you back." It finished with a chuckle and I smiled.

I sucked in a breath. "Hey, Rave... How are you? You probably won't answer... I'm good..." I began telling him how my week was so far, with meeting the princes and Maximilian forcing me to speak to fifteen random people and hang out them and with his friends while actually speaking to them. I guess it was fun...

After I hung up, I went into a part of the site that analysed some new weapons we might have had. It was what I got excited about, weapons. What they did, how they worked, how they were made. Even the bullets excited me. I hadn't killed a lot of people. Just two. 3rd and 4th level agents got all of the assassination jobs. The only way you as a 1st or 2nd level agent killed someone was against life threatening situations if there were no 3rd or 4th agents close by. I usually just fired guns into dummies or walls at our base.

I looked up as the door clicked open and watched as Adrian stepped inside. He was wearing the same thing he had worn this morning, a black Armani suit, black shoes and a white shirt beneath it, the only difference was that his tie was gone, the first couple of buttons on his shirt undone.

"Hello." He smiled shutting the door behind him.

"Hi." I said slowly. I felt slightly nervous in his presence, even earlier in the gym, it was because he was like his father. He was going to be King. He had that commanding, confident presence about him as soon as you looked at him. His brothers did too, but his was amplified in a way.

"You know, this is your room, no one would mind if you changed it a little bit." He said.

"It's fine. I saw yours; it's not that much better." He laughed at my reply and I looked at him as he did.

He looked somewhat different for the few seconds he was laughing.

"Touché." He said sitting at the edge of my bed. He held his posture, as I was sure I did too, I knew that because it was something Maximilian complained about in every class we went to because he would slouch in his seat.

I tilted my head at him, asking silently why he was in my room.

"I tend to do this with every person assigned to watch my brothers. I do not like having someone I do not know around them, so I get to know their guards." He said pulling some blue cards from his pocket.

I laughed before I saw his face and stopped.

"You're serious?" I asked raising my eyebrows. He shrugged flipping the top card.

"So, how long have you been a bodyguard?" he asked.

"Uh... I haven't? So... about three days now." I said. He raised his eyebrows.

"Okay, I saw your fighting though, so you have that covered. Have you killed anyone?" he asked.

"That's classified." I replied seriously.

"No one ever answers that one..." he mumbled. I laughed.

I continued to answer his questions about my habits, whether I drank or did it excessively, and things like that.

He finally put the cards down as he glanced at his watch.

"Dinner is in ten minutes." He said.

"Great." I smiled taking the cards from my bed, "So, Adrian, have you ever been a bodyguard?" I smiled at him having read the first card. He laughed.

"No," he said, "Though I have had about four... well, head bodyguards, and some people that follow me around on their orders." He said. I nodded.

"How many people have you killed?" I read the second card.

"None... on record." He said. I laughed as I looked up at him, my smile dropped when I realised he was serious. I didn't have to say anything for him to know I wanted an explanation. "So, answer: I have... I was nineteen... I was with Max, in the back yard. It was getting late but we were still playing outside, much to our guards' dismays. Anyway, there was a noise and the guards went to take a look at it, they left us alone and someone jumped out and attacked Maximilian. He was still learning how to fight, I knew more than he did so I took the guy on, I ended up smashing his head against the fountain – it was a mistake, because we tripped and I fell on top of him while he hit his head, hard, he died. Not that I care. He tried to hurt my brother."

I was staring at him shocked.

"So, well, one of the guards took the fall for that, he did not go to prison, it was self defence." He said.

"Why did he take the fall if it was said to be self-defence?" I asked.

"Because the press would have loved for it to be me." Oh.

"Now, how many people have you killed, Jessica?" he asked.

"None." He was asking Jessica, not Aria, so technically I was not lying.

"Hm." He made a sound giving me a smile before he stood up. I bit my lip watching him walk out of my room before I jumped off my bed and slid my feet into a pair of pumps and made my way downstairs after him.

-----

After dinner I was back in the gym, I had been training for about an hour when I heard a click. I turned and glared at Maximilian seeing him standing across the gym with his phone in his hand.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

"Gabe said he wants to see what you look like when you're not the school uniform." He said.

"Wait, you sent that to someone?! You didn't ask!" I said outraged as I pulled a shirt over my sports bra.

He gave me a look, "I'm a prince, I don't need to ask for anything." He smirked.

"You're an asshole." I said. Who the hell did he think he was?

"Mmm, yeah, and if I was not a prince you would 'beat my ass', correct?" he asked.

"No, I'll beat you right now, and if you weren't a prince I'd also put a bullet through your brain."

"Whoa, calm down. What is this I hear about bullets?" I heard Adrian.

"Maxi, stop making trouble." Edward said as he walked in with his brothers.

"Do not call me that." Maximilian said through grit teeth.

"Aw, Maxi, it's cute." Edward chuckled as I pushed at his brother.

"Beat me, try." I raised my eyebrows as he pulled his jacket off. He was wearing trousers and a long-sleeved white shirt.

Was he serious?

"He is." Adrian answered my silent question, I shot him a look and he smiled, "I'm really good at reading people." He said.

"Fine." I smiled at Maximilian as he joined me on the mat while kicking his shoes off.

I gave a bow, surprised when he followed my movements before we both just stood there. He was waiting for me to attack.

I ran at him before jumping so that I could kick his head, but he slid low before turning around and attempting to hit me as I landed, I expected it and blocked his fast fists one after the other before I delivered a blow to his jaw, it was a harder hit than I expected to give him, but he didn't seemed too phased by it as he delivered a kick to my side right after it. I blocked a kick from his other leg before quickly contemplating a kick to a clearly open spot between his legs, but I decided against it, friendly fight – keep it friendly. I shoved his other leg back as he tried to kick my neck before I lifted my leg and shoved my foot right into his stomach.

I heard him grunt as fell back but he quickly flipped over so he was back on his feet and smirking at me.

"My brothers went easy on you?" he raised his eyebrows, "Is this really all you've got?"

I rolled my eyes at his attempt to mess with my emotions and get me angry at him. "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, come find out."

I heard chuckles from his brothers and realised all three of them were seated on the mat across the room.

This time he came at me, but I had already memorised his attack. He seemed to repeat kicks while just raising his foot higher every time, it was easy for me to block and then see his hand movements before they came, because those too were repetitive.

Somewhere along the line, I realised he was doing a sequence, and out of habit I was matching it so none of us were actually landing any blows to each other.

I didn't even need to try too hard to catch him off guard when he went to kick my neck, I ducked low before I grabbed his ankle pulling it forward so he fell onto his back before I slammed my elbow to his gut and then brought it to his neck as I pinned his arm behind his head while my knee on his abdomen kept him pinned to the matt.

"Who taught you that?" I hissed staring into his blue eyes intensely.

He chuckled, "My previous body guard." He said.

I let him go as I jumped to my feet. That was breaking one of the agency's most strict laws.

"Who?" I repeated.

"His cover name was Vincent. We never knew his real name." Maximilian jumped to his feet and began hopelessly trying to straighten out his clothing; he gave up giving an annoyed sigh as he pulled the white shirt off revealing a white tank top beneath it.

"Cover name..." This Vincent person told them a lot.

"He got permission from a 4th level agent, someone that used to be my bodyguard." I turned to Adrian who was walking towards us.

Why would someone so high be spilling everything about us to clients?

"Who is the 4th level?" I asked.

"We do not know, he changed his name a lot." I knew he was lying, but he obviously was not going to tell me the name of this corrupt agent. Fuck, I needed to get his name...

"What happened to Vincent?" I turned to look at Maximilian.

In the portfolio I received about Maximilian, it said his previous guard had just disappeared.

Maximilian swallowed avoiding my eyes and rather looking at the door across the room. I narrowed my eyes.

"He died." I raised my eyebrows at Edgar, "He was watching Max, there was some bomb threat, Max had found the bomb – as he was supposed to – Vincent tried to cut it loose while he let Max get out, guess he could not disable the bomb. He got caught in the explosion."

I stared at him shocked.

"You didn't think that was an important thing to tell the agency when you asked for his replacement?" I asked.

"We did not want them to over-do it like they did with us, once each of us were surrounded by five guards at a time." Edward said.

"So you lied? Oh my God –" I brought my hands to my head.

"No. We did not lie. We just... censored. It is not that bad." Edgar said.

"Not that bad? I'm not trained for 3rd level weapons! I haven't learnt how to disarm bombs and fire bazookas yet! This isn't just a guarding mission, this is protect you at all costs, I can't do that because you lied!" I yelled at them.

"Hey, no one said anything about bazookas." I shot Maximilian a glare and he raised his hands stepping back.

"Jessica, calm down. There will not be another bomb; we have that taken care of it. It is probably a 2nd level guard assignment." Adrian said.

"It better be." I glared at him before grabbed my bag and walked out to go to my room.

If this turned out to be third, and the agency finds out and also realises that I had known about it, forget doing that 3rd level test, I would not even be 2nd level anymore. Hell, I would be lucky if they didn't suspend me.

*****