Alan and his best friend Ellie are enjoying being able to hang out on their summer break. Ellie has known about Alan's desire to be Allie for several years, and they plan one of their many shopping trips to the mall while their parents are at work. Little does Allie know that her simple day of secretly being out with her best friend would suddenly spiral into a whole new life!

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The Legal Stuff: Suddenly Royal © 2020 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2020 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface

I saw the announcement for Erin's Reluctant Princess Contest and immediately had an idea, but with everything going on in the world couldn't get much energy to write it. Since my last book that I posted on here it's been a really busy time in my life, but I really wanted to get a chance to put this story out there! Since I've procrastinated beginning to post there will be some days I'll throw another chapter up in order to make my goal of having it all completed by the deadline for the contest. I have twelve chapters written and plan on two more for this part of the tale. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 11:

I WAS SO scared of what they would say that I stood there trembling. Grandma Becky wasted no time though in wrapping me in the biggest hug she could. “Oh Allie, I’m so sorry…” she told me.

I cried for a long while in her arms before looking up at Grandpa fearfully of what he would say. I needn’t worry though, because he just wrapped me in a big hug too and picked me up off of the floor. Unlike my mom, Grandma Becky, and me he wasn’t a short guy. He was nearly six and a half feet tall, and picked me up like a little kid.

When everyone had kind of settled down Grandma Becky asked, “What do you know?”

“She was shot twice, they’ve got both bullets out, but they’re still working on some internal bleeding,” my other grandmother said.

“Oh my God...” Grandma Becky dissolved into her own tears then.

At some point Ellie had dragged me to the bathroom and helped me clean off my face and go to the bathroom, before I came back and rejoined everyone. I had a grandmother on either side of me and alternated between tears and shaking for what seemed forever before a doctor came in.

“Nelson family?”

“This is her daughter, we’re her parents,” My grandfather said. “How is she?”

“I’m glad to say she is doing okay. We’ve got her stitched up at this point and stabilized. The wounds were about as bad as they could be without killing her, so she’s going to have a long road to heal – but the good news is she should make a full recovery.”

“Can I see her?” I asked him.

“I’m sorry, but you have to be at least thirteen to go into the ICU?”

“I’m fifteen,” I told him. “Can I see her now?”

He looked startled, “You can’t be fifteen…?”

“She is,” both grandmothers said in stereo behind me.

“Well then, give us about an hour and we’ll have her setup in the ICU. You can have thirty minutes, but we need to let her rest more than anything. She probably won’t wake up until at least tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you,” I told him.

I was exhausted then, and so glad to hear that Mom would make it, that I ended up curling up on Grandpa’s large lap and falling asleep.

.

“ALLIE? THEY’RE READY for you to see your mom,” I heard.

I sat up and realized I wasn’t just having a nightmare before – I was living one.

My three grandparents and Ellie walked up to the ICU together. When we entered the ICU wing a nurse stopped us. “Who are you here to see?”

“My mom, Karen Nelson,” I told her.

“Oh sweetie, I’m sorry, but we can’t let anyone under thirteen in with her…”

“Again?!? I am fifteen,” I told her with a sigh. I looked at Ellie, “The one time I want to have people actually believe my age?”

“She’s really fifteen?” she looked at my grandparents.

“Yes, she is,” Grandpa said.

“In that case I’ll let her see her for up to thirty minutes. You all can have ten minutes each afterwards, then we’re going to close down visitors until tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” I told her.

She walked me to a room and I looked at Mom through a glass window and felt the tears begin streaming again. Mom was hooked up to a ton of IVs and a ventilator. As she led me inside, she told me, “The ventilator is just a precaution at this point. The doctor expects to take her off of it tomorrow morning.”

I nodded and walked to where she had one hand that wasn’t plugged into IVs and squeezed it. “Mommy it’s me…” I told her. “I… I… You have to get better,” I told her. “I love you so much, you have to get better!”

I stayed in the room with her until my time was up, “Mommy I love you; I’ll be back tomorrow…” I followed the nurse out the door and collapsed in Grandpa’s arms crying.

.

THE NEXT THING I knew was the feeling I was being carried. I saw we had already made it back to our house. Grandpa had me over his shoulder like a little kid. “Huh, wha…” I said.

“So, you decided to wake up,” he said to me while Grandma unlocked the door. I looked over his shoulder at Giuseppe who seemed to be taking a close look around the house.

“What time is it?” was about all I could get out then.

“It’s about eleven, time for you to get some sleep.”

“What about Mom?” I asked as he passed through the doorway without showing any signs of putting me down. Instead he placed me on his hip like I was a toddler or something. Grandpa was so much taller than me I guess that wasn’t a big deal though… “You can put me down you know…”

“I could, but we’re just going straight up to bed with you,” he told me. “Your mom won’t wake up until the morning anyway. You need to get some sleep!”

I tried a few other arguments as he carried me to my room and finally sat me down. I looked around and grabbed my new bear and hugged it as he left. Grandma walked in and looked around, “Well it looks like you have gotten quite the start here…”

I just nodded.

“Your mom told us already about this,” she told me as she sat down next to me and hugged me. “We don’t care who you are, boy, girl, Prince, Princess… you’re still our grandbaby.”

I flung my arms around her and just began crying again. “What if she doesn’t get better?”

“Oh, honey she will get better! It’s going to take a while, but I promise you she’s going to get better! The doctors did a great job today and when she wakes up tomorrow, you’ll see she’s okay,” she hugged me tightly.

We sat there for a long while before she squeezed me tight again and said, “Come on, time to get dressed for bed Princess.”

I numbly nodded and stood up. The dress I was wearing was completely wrinkled and a mess by that point. I was sad because it was a nice dress! Grandma left the room and let me change into one of the other sets of pajamas we had bought yesterday. It was a simple short shorts and t-shirt set that featured ice cream cones. Once I was dressed, I went to the bathroom to make sure my face was as clean as it could be. We’d washed the makeup off my face hours ago – I’d had some serious raccoon eyes before that. Brushing my teeth was quickly followed by running a brush through my hair and putting it into a loose ponytail to sleep in.

Walking back into my room Grandma was setting a glass of water on my desk, “Thought you probably needed something to drink,” she told me.

“Thanks Grandma,” I told her and drank about half of the glass in one go.

“Going to have to be daintier than that now,” she told me with a strained smile.

I cringed, “You know everything?” I asked.

“I always have,” she told me. “I even guessed you might have wanted to be a girl before all of this.”

“Wait, what?!?” I asked.

She smiled, “when you were little, you stayed with us for a week one summer while your mom had something to do. I’d guess you were four or so then… I watched you only play with little girls anytime I took you to the playground. When boys asked you to play you just said ‘no thanks’ and went back to the girls. One of my friends had her granddaughter for a week too and we got you two together. You played with dolls and dressed up in her clothes every time we turned around.”

“I did?” I asked, not remembering this at all.

“You did,” she told me. “I had a feeling you were more of a princess than a prince even then.”

“Why didn’t anyone ever say anything?” I asked.

“Not our place,” she told me.

“What am I going to do now?”

“Well, first thing is you’re going to get some sleep. Then we’re going to take it one day at a time.”

I nodded and climbed into bed. Like with Mom the last couple nights she insisted on tucking me in. A kiss on my forehead and I grabbed my bear and rolled over and let more tears stream from my face until I fell asleep.

.

I WAS WOKEN up by shouting and the smell of smoke. I coughed badly and jumped quickly out of bed. I was feeling the door to see if it was hot when it suddenly banged open and Giuseppe barged in. “Princess we have to get you out of here,” he effectively picked me up like my grandfather had coming home from the hospital. The smoke became thicker as he carried me downstairs and out the back door.

“Grandma and Grandpa!” I said frantically.

“They’re fine, they got out already,” he told me.

“What’s going on?” I asked as he sat me down and I turned around to see our house going up in flames.

“I think someone really hates what your mother does?” He said kindly. “I’m not sure.”

He helped me hop the back fence into Ellie’s yard and I found her mom waiting for us. “Oh my God!!! Allie, are you okay?” She asked me.

I shook my head and ran into her arms for a massive hug. She squeezed me tight, “We need to go out front. Hopefully it won’t jump to our house, but just in case,” she told me. On our way through their house she grabbed a fleece blanket that she wrapped around me. Grandpa was on the ground having trouble breathing when we got out front.

I ran to him, “Grandpa!”

I was hugged though by Grandma who stopped me, “He’ll be okay, just let him have some room to breathe. Are you okay?”

I nodded but coughed then. Several minutes passed as the firetrucks and ambulances showed up. Neighbors came out of their houses and stared as my house seemed to go up in flames quicker than I would have imagined possible.

A paramedic came and checked on Grandpa first, insisting that he go to the hospital. Grandma rode with him while another checked me out and had me breathe oxygen for a little while as they checked me out. “Since she’s a minor I think she needs to get checked out at the hospital too. Where’s her mother?” the EMT asked Giuseppe and Ellie’s mom who had hovered over me.

“She’s in the hospital…” Giuseppe said.

“Umm…”

“Look, I’m head of security for her, I can ride with her until her other grandmother can meet us at the hospital.”

“Head of security?” the EMT asked.

My eyes just stared at my house then though as the roof was punched through by a fireman on a ladder truck as the others sprayed water and foam everywhere to put out the flames. I cried what tears were left inside of me as the doors were slammed shut and they took off. “I’m right here with you,” Giuseppe said a moment later from the passenger seat of the ambulance.

I laid on the gurney and cried! My mom had been shot, and now we had no place to live even when she got better!!!

.

THE RIDE TO the hospital seemed like it took forever! My sobs became hiccoughs, and I just wanted to wake up from this horrible nightmare! At the hospital, they unloaded me and had me settled in an ER exam room pretty quickly. Giuseppe came in with me and waited, “How are you holding up?” He asked me.

I shrugged, still breathing with the oxygen mask on.

A doctor came in then and began looking at me. He listened to my lungs and soon had the mask off of my face at least. “I think you’re a really lucky young lady,” he told me. I want to keep you here for another hour just to make sure your oxygen levels stay stable and you don’t have more issues I’m not seeing right now.”

I nodded, having no energy to do anything else. When he was gone, I looked at Giuseppe, “What happened? Why was my house on fire?”

He sighed, “The FBI will be investigating that. My guys had done a walk around the perimeter while we were gone, but I think someone must have snuck in your house and planted some sort of explosive device.”

“A bomb?!?” I choked a few times and took the water he offered.

“Nothing that crude from what I can tell. More of something meant to just catch on fire and spread. The smoke detectors didn’t go off either, so I think they probably disabled them too.”

I looked at him in shock as my dad’s mom came through the door. “I came as soon as I could. Are you okay?!?” she asked.

I felt she was surprisingly concerned given I’d only known her a few days. I shrugged, “I think they’re going to let me out after another hour.”

“What happened? You said you had this in hand?!?” She asked Giuseppe in terse Italian.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty, while we were away today, they snuck past the one person I had left to watch their house. I warned you it would be very difficult to watch her here with the limited detail I have.”

“Is this because of her, or her mom?”

“I don’t know… Could be either. Her mom definitely kicked over an anthill with the case she was working on. It could be someone from the other family that wants her out of the way too…”

“What are we going to do?” she asked him.

“Finish getting her checked out, let her see that her grandparents are okay, and then we need to start looking at getting her somewhere safer. She doesn’t have a place to stay here at this point anyway,” he told her.

I thought about interrupting them and letting them know I knew enough Italian to understand them too, but chose to keep silent. ‘Sometimes it’s good to hold a card no one else knows about,’ I thought to myself.

“Care to share what you’re talking about?” I asked. “I’m not a big fan of being treated like a child?”

My grandmother looked at me and said, “I was asking about what happened… We were talking about taking you home with me at the end of the week to Osané. I’m thinking we should take you sooner than that to get you someplace safer.”

I nodded at that, “What about Mom? And my grandparents? Our house?” Tears fell down my face at the reality slamming into me.

“We’ll go see your Mom and your grandparents after a while here. Is there anything else you were supposed to do this week before we left?”

I shrugged, “I was supposed to see my doctors.”

“Which doctors?” She asked

“Doctor Ramirez and Doctor Haskill,” I replied without much enthusiasm.

“Giuseppe, Geneva is outside, see if she can’t set up meetings with them?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said.

He left and she came over and held my hand, “I am so glad that you’re okay Allie,” she said. I looked up at her use of my informal name and smiled slightly. “I’ll have some people go through and see what they can salvage from your house when the fire department says it’s safe to do so.”

I nodded, “Thanks… I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“Insurance will take care of most of the physical things I’m sure,” she told me. “And what it doesn’t I’ll make sure we do everything we can. For now, I’m quite frankly nervous that this happened last night. We don’t know if it was related to your mom’s attack yesterday, or perhaps because of your new position.”

“People would kill me just because I’m a princess now?” I asked. “I never even wanted this?”

She shrugged, “There is a fair amount of fortune and prestige with the throne. I don’t hold a significant amount of power, but there is enough that perhaps someone wants it…”

“Who’s in line after me?”

“Your second cousin Mikael Montalvo,” she answered.

“Would he do this?”

Her blank answer was not even slightly reassuring. “I just wanted to be a normal girl…” I complained and drew my knees up to my chest to hug them.

She put her arms around me and said, “You’ve never been a simple girl, you just didn’t know it. Nothing about this changes who you are!”

I sniffled and nodded as a knock happened on the door. “Up for a visitor?” Giuseppe asked.

I nodded and was practically tackled by Ellie and her mother. “You’re okay, right?” Ellie asked me.

I nodded, “They wanted to keep me for another hour just to make sure…”

“Oh my God, I can’t believe everything that’s happened!” Susanne told me. “If there’s anything we can do Allie…”

“Thanks,” I told her. “For now, I think my grandmother has most of it in hand…”

“I’m, I’m Alexandria’s grandmother Maria,” she told her.

“You’re the Queen, right?” Susanne stuttered.

“Right now, I’m just Alexandria’s grandmother…” she told her.

“Well it’s nice to meet you…” Susanne said. “What are you doing with her now?”

“Good question…” she told her.

Giuseppe came in and said, “We’ve arranged that she can see both of them here before she’s discharged in about an hour.”

“What?” I asked.

“Your doctors,” Grandma said. “After that we’ll go check on your grandparents and your mom.”

“Are they at this hospital?” I asked. “I don’t even know where I’m at.”

“No, this is the Children’s Hospital sweetie,” Susanne told me. “They took your grandparents to the same hospital as you mom.”

“Okay,” I said. I could feel adrenaline draining, but I couldn’t see myself going to sleep anytime soon. Another knock came on the door and a man in a suit entered along with a uniformed police officer.

“Maybe we should make some room here Ellie,” Susanne said to her. She kissed me on my forehead, “If you need anything call me!”

“Umm… what’s your number? My phone is most likely gone forever?”

“Let me write it down… Ellie, we should give her yours obviously too!” she told me.

The two men waited patiently as they left, “Hi, I’m Agent Matthews, and this is Detective Perez,” he said pointing to the man next to him. “Because of everything with your mom and your house we’re going to be working together with this investigation to determine what happened.”

I nodded, “Thank you,” Grandma said next to me.

“Before we begin, you are?”

“Maria Eirene Margarita Andino Alessi, Queen of Osané”

“Ma’am, I’m serious, we need your real name?” The agent said.

“That is her name sir,” I told him. “She’s my grandmother.”

The man looked lost and shocked as he glanced at the detective. “Umm… Okay, give me just a second, I need to make a call.”

The FBI agent left while the detective stayed in, “He’s a little out of his depth I’m afraid,” the detective said with a smile.

We sat there for a few moments before he came back in and looked at the detective, “This case is now an FBI investigation. You’re not needed anymore detective,” he told him.

“Yes, he is,” I said.

“What?”

“He stays, ask your questions,” I told him.

“And who do you think you are, little girl?” he asked.

I sat up taller in bed, pissed off by the jerks few moments in the room. It was clear he was a chauvinistic jerk, in addition to an ass, “I am Princess Alexandria Leonora Alessi.”

“And you can come back when you learn some manners,” Grandma told him.

“You can’t impede in an ongoing investigation; we’ll have you arrested on obstruction of justice charges!”

Giuseppe laughed next to Grandma, “You can try… but they both have diplomatic immunity. Perhaps if you leave the detective here, he can ask questions and he’ll let you know what they say. For now, you are getting out of this room.”

He looked like he was going to argue but the detective said, “Matthews I’ll tell you everything they tell me. Get out of here before you do something you’ll regret. A diplomatic incident doesn’t seem like something the Bureau wants? This girl is a victim not the suspect.”

He huffed like some oversized child and left us alone with the detective. “Sorry about him…” he said. “Look it sounds like there have been way too many things happening in the last twenty-four hours to be coincidences, so I want to ask a few questions. First, Princess?” He looked at me.

“Call me Allie,” I told him.

“Allie, your mom was shot yesterday?”

“Yes,” I felt some more tears in my eyes, “I was at a press conference and some reporter shouted out a question if I knew about it… Her boss said it was because of the transgender client she was representing? He said she died on the steps of the courthouse?”

The detective nodded, “She did.”

“Why?”

“We’re not sure… it’s definitely a hate crime. Whoever shot them used a small caliber rifle at a distance. They got off seven shots before stopping and fleeing.”

“And two of those hit my mom?” I gasped.

“Unfortunately… We’re going to speak with her later when she’s awake to see what she might know, but did she say anything about the case to you?”

I shrugged, “The other day she mentioned it was something about a woman who was fired because she was transgendered? It sounded like Mom was on the right side fighting for the woman’s rights. She wouldn’t say anymore though… Mom wouldn’t talk about cases to me.”

“Have you had any suspicious phone calls or anything?” He asked.

I shook my head, “Not that I know of? Mom and I had a quiet life until a few days ago…”

“That’s when you found out you’re a princess?” He asked with a smile, “My daughter was so jealous.”

“Right now, she can take it… I just want to get out of here and see my mom and my grandparents.”

“Just a few more questions, you were asleep when the fire started?”

I nodded, “I woke up to the smell of smoke. I was just about to try and use my door when Giuseppe barged in. He picked me up and carried me out of the house to safety. Luckily my grandparents were already out by then too…”

“No idea how it started?”

I shook my head, “Sounds like it was intentional though…?”

“It looks that way. Do you have somewhere safe to stay right now?”

I looked towards Grandma who responded, “She’s going to be staying with me at the embassy tonight. We had plans for her to come to Osané for the summer at least. Depending on how things are with her mother we may try to get her there sooner so she can be better protected.”

I looked up at her in fear, realizing she still wanted me to leave Mom behind. “I can’t…”

.

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I'll be posting another chapter or two tomorrow. Thank you to all of you who have pressed the Kudos button or posted a comment! I very much appreciate it! Though I don't have to have the story finished for the contest entry, I'm still trying to get it completely up by the deadline for my own internal goal. Please consider leaving me a comment to help motivate my brain and fingers for my marathon to the finish here! Thanks for reading!