The Elite (Romantic Suspense)

Jacob: Burn Notice

We have much to discuss.

Jacob hadn't ever heard someone say that phrase in real life, which only added more unusual things to this already odd day. When Schmidt told him on the plane that the king specifically requested to meet with him, he'd assumed it was to thank him for escorting his daughter home safely. Now, he wasn't so sure.

What Daphne didn't know, what no one knew, was that he was a member of a secret detachment of Montrovia's intelligence community, informally known as The Elite. His identity and those of his colleagues were known only by the king. Jacob had met King Frederick exactly once: When he and his classmates graduated from their training. As the only member of the royal family with direct knowledge of The Elite's existence, and their titular commander, King Frederick liked to meet each graduate personally. If they did their jobs correctly, it might be the only time they did so. 

Jacob waited until Daphne and her father sat before allowing himself to join them. Sitting in front of his king —and next to the princess who wasn't supposed to know that Jacob existed — made him feel like he was on high alert. He had worked his entire adult life for a job he was about to lose. Part of him couldn't imagine that the king would burn him, and yet his ability to continue his career was entirely in the hands of the man staring intently at him from across his desk. He sent up a silent prayer that he still had a job after this conversation.

Frederick heaved a deep breath, looking at each of them with an expression that was more tired — burdened? — than Jacob remembered from the graduation ceremony. "First of all, let me reiterate how happy I am to have Daphne home safely." He fixed his gaze on Jacob. "For that, Mr. Marchant, you have my unending gratitude." 

"And mine." Daphne caught his eye and smiled at him, her princess facade securely back in place. 

"It was my pleasure," he said, wishing he knew the appropriate response for your king thanking you for doing your job. Instead of being proud, he felt a bit like he was receiving a participation trophy.

"That being said," the king continued, the lines on his face becoming somehow even more pronounced as he turned his gaze to his daughter, "we've found ourselves in a bit of an unfortunate situation." Jacob braced himself. There went the rest of his life. 

"Daphne, you have unknowingly collided with a portion of our family's security that you were never supposed to learn about. I could pretend that Jacob was recently hired, but I feel that to be affront to both your intelligence and to the diligent work that Jacob and his colleagues do to protect our family."

"What happens if I know about... whatever Jacob does? Does he lose his job?" Daphne glanced between the two men for a long moment. "Because he didn't tell me anything. I can happily go back to pretending that I've never seen or heard of Jacob in my entire life. Please don't fire him." The words came out in an uncharacteristic rush.

Jacob found himself staring openly at the woman sitting next to him. As far as she was aware, they'd met by accident, and he'd done his job getting her out of a bad situation. Why did she care so much if he lost his job?

For the first time since the conversation began, the King's countenance lightened a bit. "I wasn't planning to fire him. He's too valuable an asset to lose."

Daphne's relief was visible. "Good." 

Jacob relaxed slightly, but until he knew exactly why he was in his room, he wouldn't let his guard down. Right now, all this conversation had done was put him in an extremely precarious position.

Even so, watching Daphne's shoulders slide down her back into the position for textbook-perfect posture made Jacob happy. Other than at his graduation ceremony, his interactions with the princesses had been from a distance. But knowing that the second-in-line would try and protect his job after only knowing him a few hours reinforced his sense that at least one member of this family was genuinely kind. 

King Johnathon cleared his throat. "However, I am going to break protocol in another important way."

There it was. Jacob to tamp down an overriding sense of dread. Could he still be fired if he did something that the King himself insisted on? Was he already too far in to try and get out?

Frederick sat back so that he could see Jacob and Daphne at the same time. "There have been a number of credible threats against our family in recent months. Until recently, our security teams assumed they were someone who enjoyed venting about how much they hate our family online. The problem is that this person — or group," he amended as an afterthought, "seems to have garnered quite a following in a relatively short amount of time."

"How?" Jacob found himself leaning forward in his seat, intrigued that he hadn't heard anything about this previously.

Another long sigh. "Primarily cryptic posts on social media accounts. Some of his followers now have snark accounts that critique every appearance, outfit, speech... anything that one of myself and my wife or my children do is fair game."

"That's been true for years, though," Daphne interrupted. "That's not even enough to draw PR attention at this point."

The king nodded. "You're right. What is worth our attention is that the social media postings have taken a bit of a turn. They appear to predict things."

The words hung in the air between them for a long moment. 

"What kinds of things?" Even as he asked the question, Jacob wasn't sure that he wanted to know.

The king spun his computer monitor so that they could both see a post. It was the exact picture that Isabelle had shown on the red carpet. 

"So Isabelle leaked it after she outed Gus on national television." Daphne seemed unimpressed. "Just trying to ride the wave of publicity."

Jacob was still reading. The caption underneath was time stamped. "It wasn't posted after the red carpet," he said slowly, trying to keep up with the thoughts spinning through his head. "It was posted a week ago." 

Daphne sat straight up, clearly shocked. "A week ago? Why didn't it get flagged by our security teams?"

The king tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace. "Because of the caption." He pointed to a line of text beneath the picture:

Pretty Princess Daphne is about to learn that married life can be anything but a fairytale. Sometimes, life can really drop a BOMB on your plans.

"The social media site flagged it as threatening language and removed it before it got many eyes on it, which is why our security team missed it in their searches."

"So, someone had that picture a week ago and used it to make a threatening post on social media. That was immediately pulled down. And then resurfaced moments before an actual bomb went off." Daphne leaned forward so that her elbows rested on her knees and rubbed her eyes. Her fatigue was apparent even to Jacob.

"The problem isn't that this person had the picture early. Doesn't even really matter that they predicted the bomb — someone else could have taken that caption and run with it, theoretically — but... how many people knew about the engagement a week ago?" Jacob glanced around, trying to gauge the king's and princess's reactions. 

Daphne stared into space for a long moment, processing something. Jacob decided to wait and see who spoke first. Neither of them seemed overly excited to offer that bit of information. 

Finally, Daphne sighed. "No one knew yet. Gus never asked my father's permission for my hand."