Royally Flushed

Misguided Directions

~Malia~

Sitting in the backseat of the town car with Louis was almost torture, especially considering I had to watch every little thing that I said.

I could tell that Louis was attempting to be flirtatious but it was impossible to pay attention to him at all when I was just worried about saying something that might tip off Gordon to the fact that I was aware of his connection to the King's Horses gang.

I wondered why he would allow his tattoo to show through when the symbol for that specific gang was all over the internet, and anyone with half a brain would link those two images together.

Louis had said something that I didn't catch as I had been lost in thought and I had to shake my head to clear my mind.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I asked you why you had said that you told that man goodbye already at his funeral..." he began, clearly confused as to why I had been acting so strange.

"Oh, that..." I trailed off, not sure where to start.

I looked up and caught Gordon's eye in the rear view mirror and turned away immediately, wanting to shrink down to the size of an ant and never be seen again.

"Gordon, would you mind putting up the privacy divider please?"

"Not at all your Highness," Gordon stated, his gruff voice matching his rough exterior.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the privacy divider went up between us, glad that I could finally look up without catching his eye on accident.

"Umm...where do I start? I guess it all began when Daniel and I dated when I was fifteen back home. He was a senior and I was a sophomore, and he had enlisted in the military since he turned eighteen while he was still in school. We had only been dating for nine months and he went away to do basic training.

"He came back home for a bit until he was called for deployment and was stationed overseas in the middle east when word came that he had stepped on a land mine and didn't make it. I was notified as well as his entire family and there was a funeral and everything, and I was heartbroken...he'd been my first real boyfriend.

"Then when word broke that he was actually alive and well, gambling and having a grand old time in Las Vegas, the press dug up our old pictures on my social media that I never deleted because I thought he was actually dead, and tried to say that I was cheating on you with him, which was impossible as we know."

Louis had never really been at a loss for words up until that point in my story. His blue eyes were filled with concern and I could tell there was more he wanted to say, but I pressed on.

"He came over last night to...apologize, I guess? He said that since the news broke and proved he was still alive, he figured that since the cat was out of the bag he would come and see me. He told me he got mixed up in some things he shouldn't have in the military overseas and that they forced him to fake his own death, and that if he didn't then they would have killed him for real, and he never elaborated on who these evil people were that made him do it in the first place...

"So, there's that story, which one do you want to hear next?"

He blew out a puff of air and ran a hand through his dark hair that I knew from personal experience felt just like silk.

"And now he's Henry's personal bodyguard...I wonder just who recommended him for the job..."

"What are you getting at?"

"This is just a theory, but I've had it for a while now. I believe someone from the gang I was telling you about is close to the royal family, but I can't be certain who."