Happily Ever After (Runaway Princess: Flicka, Book 5)

by Blair Babylon

  Ten minutes later, Dieter and Flicka were belted into the car and driving north through the wintry afternoon. The light snow had cleared, and the sun was burning away the thin clouds above them. He squinted as the sunlight bounced from chrome fenders and mirrors of the cars driving around them.

  Flicka reached across the console between the seats, palm up. Dieter slid his fingers between hers while they sped through the French countryside. She looked out her passenger window, craning her soft neck to watch behind them in the rearview mirror.

  He guided the car down the narrow street, walls and dying bushes on one side, an auto repair shop on the other.

  Beyond that corner, brown, dead fields lying fallow for the winter alternated with white-walled houses surrounded by bushes and trees. Cheery red tiles slanted over the roofs. Even the plastered walls encircling the houses were capped with the same red, rounded tiles.

  They drove through the afternoon countryside for five minutes until he turned the car onto a larger highway, trucks and cars speeding in several lanes in both directions. Motorcyclists wove through the traffic.

  He managed the maneuver one-handed, so he didn’t need to release Flicka’s soft fingers.

  In half an hour or so, they should be outside any dragnet the police might set for them.

  Dieter pressed down on the accelerator, feeling the strain in his knee.

  Five minutes after that, a group of police cars and a large police van screamed down the other side of the highway.

  A helicopter followed.

  Flicka asked, “Do you think they were looking for us?”

  “It’s possible,” Dieter replied, watching the flashing lights fade into the distance in his side mirror.

  It was more than possible. It was absolutely likely, and the police and National Guard might be installing a roadblock somewhere ahead of them.

  Pierre had probably told the French that Flicka had been kidnapped, and France would certainly respond with all resources to rescue a kidnapped princess.

  Dammit.

  Dieter stuck their car in the slow lane and drove well under the speed limit, doing nothing to attract attention. In the rearview mirror, cars and trucks lined up in an orderly formation, and no police cars wove through the traffic that he could see.

  Still, he didn’t begin to breathe more easily for another half hour, until they passed through the town of Nimes and were headed for Lyon.

  Flicka settled back in her seat and squeezed his fingers. “You okay?”

  “Better now. Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

  “I’m doing okay. Better now that we have a destination. I’m sure this will come as a shock to you, but I like everything all planned out, nice and neat, with goals and timetables.”

  Dieter laughed, and it felt so good to laugh with her. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “There are worse ways to be.” She stared at the front windshield. When Dieter stole a peek at her, she was smiling.

  He asked, “Do you think your father will tell Wulfram what’s going on?”

  “I’m sure of it. After that whole misunderstanding where our father kidnapped Wulfie’s wife and told her crazy family she needed an exorcism—”

  Dieter repressed a snort and a growl.

  “—Wulfie kind of took over our father’s finances and liberties. He’s doing it to protect Rae, but our father can’t leave the house without guards who answer to Wulf. They would need to clear everything through Wulfram. I’m sure that’s just a formality, though.”

  “It’s good that Wulf will know you’re safe,” Dieter said.

  “Yeah, I wish I could have called him from that cell, but you’re right. We needed to make one call to someone who could help us, not just reach out for fun.”

  “Yeah,” Dieter said. He chewed on his lip, wanting to talk, but the words he thought of seemed wrong.

  Flicka said, “I think Wulfie will come around at some point. You guys have too much history to lose your friendship over a name.”

  His hand holding the steering wheel cramped. “I hope you’re right.” He didn’t think she was.

  “You miss him,” Flicka said.

  He turned the car around a gentle curve, following the thick traffic on the wide highway. “It isn’t like we were married or something.”

  “No, but it’s as deep as that,” she said. “You were friends, best friends, the very best of friends, until you weren’t.”

  God, that felt like a knife in his back.

  No, it felt like a knife wound in his back, a violent emptiness where muscle and blood should be, but weren’t.

  Dieter swallowed hard. He couldn’t imagine his mouth saying these things to anyone, except Flicka. If he could talk to anyone, he could tell her how much his heart hurt. “When Gretchen and I divorced, it wasn’t this hard. Nothing was right, there, from the beginning. I knew I couldn’t force that to work, no matter how hard I tried for Alina’s sake. It was doomed from the start.”

  She said, “It was the same with Pierre and me. It seemed so logical on paper because I was floating through my life without feeling anything. So I married him. Of course, it didn’t work out. I think everyone knew he was using me, though I don’t think many people knew why. I’ll bet Therese Grimaldi did. Christine probably didn’t. I don’t know what Abigai Caillemotte thought about me.”

  He picked up her fingers and held them to his lips, kissing the backs of her fingers as he spoke. “I hate that he did that to you.”

  “I didn’t like it very much, either.” Her voice was light, but there was a world of hurt in there, he could tell.

  Dieter said, “I don’t think Wulfram knew about Pierre’s other wife. He never told me about her, anyway. I’m sure he would have told you.”

  “I don’t think he knew about her, but he tried to warn me off, anyway. We had several very quiet, serious conversations about Pierre, but no one can talk me out of anything, you know.”

  Dieter smiled behind her hand. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  Flicka slipped her fingers out of his grip and lightly backhanded him on his arm.

  Dieter chuckled.

  She asked him, “Is your real birthday October twenty-sixth?”

  “Raphael Mirabaud’s is. I’m not sure who I am.”

  “You’re Dieter Schwarz,” she told him, firmly.

  “Okay, I know who I am, but I’m not sure which birthday to use.”

  “You’re such a Scorpio. You’re not a Virgo at all. I don’t see how we’re going to get past that.”

  He picked up her hand and wound his fingers around hers. “Maybe we’ll figure out a way to reclaim my birthday.”

  “We were in Las Vegas in October. We should have done something for your birthday.”

  “I brought cupcakes home that day, just because.”

  She nodded. “I remember. That’s good, I suppose.

  “Your birthday is coming up in a few months.” February twenty-second, if he remembered right.

  “Yeah. Whatever. I’m totally a Pisces: serene, able to move with the shifting tides, and fluid.”

  Except when the napkins were polyester. “Of course you are, my love.”

  They drove toward Geneva, where Dieter’s family awaited them.

  Raphael Mirabaud’s family.

  He needed to warn Océane what was coming.

  When Your Daughter Is Running

  His Royal Highness Phillipp Augustus,

  the Hereditary Prince von Hannover und Cumberland,

  Prince of Great Britain and Ireland,

  Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg,

  et cetera.

  My daughter,

  my heart.

  Phillipp Augustus tapped the screen of the phone in his hand and tipped his head back to roar, “All hands on deck!”

  Butlers wearing black suits emerged silently from where they had been readying themselves to serve tea. Housemaids bustled into his sitting room from whatever they had been cleaning. Chauffeurs and secu
rity people jogged in from their respective duties.

  Within minutes, twenty people assembled in his large sitting room among the antique, golf-leafed furniture and paintings of Phillipp’s noble and regal ancestors. Haughty kings, princes, and duchesses looked down their noses at Phillipp and the servants.

  Yes, they looked down upon him. Phillipp had been removed from the Hannover family seat at Schloss Marienburg, the Gothic revival castle in the mountains of the Black Forest, to Kaiserhaus, a twenty-room cottage in the city, because he had played court games badly. His son, Wulfram von Hannover, had taken over the family’s finances and left Phillipp destitute.

  Destitute.

  He was sequestered here in this shit hovel with no one and nothing, and he hated Wulfram for it.

  Phillipp Augustus, the hereditary Prince of Hannover, drew himself to standing at his full height and surveyed his meager staff. They shuffled, standing in three lines before him. “My daughter, the Princess of Hannover, is in danger. All staff will ready themselves to meet her at Le Rosey school in Rolle, Switzerland, tomorrow morning. Security is paramount. Everyone will go, however, to see to her every comfort and need. She will be removed to Schloss Marienburg immediately after we retrieve her. I’ll await her there.”

  The security guys, standing in a group with their dark suits that bulged oddly around their armpits and hips, glanced at each other. One of them said, “We’ll need to get approval on this.”

  “I’ll be discussing the matter with Prince Wulfrum presently. He’ll confirm my orders.”

  The guard nodded and stepped back.

  One of the butlers, a rail-thin, hard woman with her hair tied at the nape of her neck, stepped forward. “Everyone, sir?”

  “Everyone.” Phillipp Augustus surveyed his staff, which he found more lacking than usual. He needed more security guards and fewer maids to dust the priceless antiques of his ancestors that surrounded him. He wanted commandos and ex-special forces soldiers, not this group of soft-bodied snotnoses whose job was to keep him in line.

  He told them, “Call in any reinforcements you know. Hell, call in every reinforcement you know. I want my daughter back here in Germany tomorrow, safe, and far away from that rat bastard of an ex-husband of hers.”

  Wulfram might be Phillipp’s blood and bone and the future of the Royal House of Hannover, but Flicka was his heart. Her mother had insisted on keeping Flicka around more than she had the boys, and Flicka had been a cute little blond thing around the castle for several years. He’d doted on her, in his fashion, several times.

  One of the maids stepped forward. Her name was Elise or Liesel or something like that. “Do you mean that we house staff should go, also?”

  Phillipp Augustus scowled at them. “All of you. I want every single one of you in Switzerland tomorrow. Every last, goddamn one of you. Get Flicka and bring her home.”

  Geneva

  Dieter Schwarz

  Who first?

  Océane, of course.

  Five hours later, Dieter stood in the dark before a large house on the outskirts of Geneva, near his parents’ compound but several miles away. He’d skulked in the shadows of the hedges and bushes for half an hour to make sure that Flicka had gotten away cleanly before he walked up to the brightly lit door and rang the bell.

  Columns framed the entrance, limiting his options if he should need to run but providing potential cover if gunshots rang out of the darkness at him.

  Flicka had taken the car and was sedately, calmly, cautiously driving around the outskirts of Geneva to keep moving. They’d established a meeting place and time and a fallback location, but if he missed both of those, she was to continue on to Le Rosey school to meet her father’s staff without him.

  If Dieter had misjudged Océane, he might not be alive to make either of the pick-ups, but he hadn’t mentioned that part to Flicka.

  He suspected she knew, anyway.

  A housekeeper answered the door and stared blankly at him, an unwashed, unshaven man standing on a wealthy doorstep, wearing only black slacks and a black tee shirt in the winter cold. “The family is eating supper. They are not expecting guests.”

  Dieter almost laughed. Yes, Océane would vigorously defend what little quality time she had with her kids. “Tell her Raphael needs to speak with her.”

  The maid lowered one eyebrow, “I will ask,” and closed the door in his face.

  The wintry wind bit through his thin clothes. Ice pinpricked his bare forearms and neck. Dieter crossed his arms, trying not to shiver and wishing they’d had money to buy themselves some proper clothes. At least Flicka should be warm in the car.

  The door flew open. Océane stared at him. “Raphael?”

  He muttered, “Can I come in?” as he tried to stop shaking from the cold.

  She reached out and grabbed his wrist, flinging him into the house, and then fell into his arms. His skin was so cold that she felt hot. “The news said there were more Archangel raids and so many were found dead, but they didn’t mention your name. It was just like last time, where nobody knew what happened to Raphael Mirabaud. Except this time, nobody mentioned your name at all. It’s like you weren’t even there, like you didn’t even exist. Purée, I thought you were dead again!”

  Dieter hugged her. “I’m not dead yet. Why did you say ‘mush’ like it’s a bad thing?”

  “The kids are in the next room, eating supper. I can’t let them hear me swear after the younger one called his teacher une putain prof last year, so it’s all stupid words for me now.”

  Dieter could smell the juicy scents of roasted meat and fresh bread wafting through the air. His stomach shuddered and growled, but he clenched his abdominals so Océane wouldn’t hear it.

  She continued, “You’ll learn this with Alina soon enough. Is Alina all right? And Flicka? Mother tried to get them out, but the guards wouldn’t let her through. She came and got me, Ambre, and Anaïs, and we got our kids, and we left that afternoon. She wouldn’t tell us why, but she was persuasive.”

  “They’re both all right. Alina is safely on another continent, behind tall walls and with armed guards. I’m still working on getting Flicka to safety.”

  Océane stepped back and looked around him. “Is she outside? Did you leave her outside in this weather?”

  “No. She’s elsewhere.” Hopefully safe and warm. He’d told her to run the car.

  “Why isn’t she with you?”

  “Operational security.” It was out of his mouth before he could soften it.

  Océane blinked. “You think I would hurt her?”

  This line of conversation could only lead to conflict. “I need to tell you something important about Geneva Trust.”

  “That we’re in bed with Russian mobsters? I think that’s abundantly clear.”

  “That I handed off evidence to a friend, who took it to the police. I gave them everything.”

  “The Geneva police never bother us at the office. They still haven’t sent subpoenas or anything, even after the warehouse incident.”

  Dieter really should have asked why they didn’t. It might have led him to suspect Basch Favre’s bratva connections before he’d betrayed them. “They went to the Zurich police.”

  “Oh.”

  “Océane, if you don’t want to be implicated, you need to talk to people now, starting tomorrow morning.”

  “Are you sure this is real?” she asked, frowning hard. “If I would’ve gone to the Geneva police, they would have made the report disappear, and then the Ilyin Bratva would have made my kids disappear.”

  “I’m sure. I’d trust the guy with my life. He’s come through for me before,” Dieter said, though he didn’t mention Magnus Jensen by name.

  “And the Zurich police?” she asked.

  “If he says they’re clean, they’re clean.”

  She glanced down the wide hallway that led deeper into the house. “I’ll contact them tomorrow morning.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Sh
e nodded, though she swallowed hard. “We’ll have to go into hiding, won’t we?”

  “I’m not sure,” Dieter told her. “The Ilyin Bratva should be in chaos after what happened. I shot Piotr Ilyin.”

  “He’s dead. So is father.”

  Dieter had known that in his gut. “Elands.”

  “Kids!” she whispered and gestured to the door.

  “He was pointing a gun at me. He would have shot me,” Dieter explained, though shame flooded him.

  Océane nodded, though she stared at her feet. “Yes, our father would have shot you. You had no choice.” Her voice was almost a monotone.

  “It sounds like you knew this.”

  She nodded again, and when she looked up at him, her gray eyes brimmed with tears. “I know what he was, and I know exactly how he would have handled such a thing. He has threatened my kids for years, though subtly, obliquely. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  Dieter’s mouth dropped open. “Jesus, Océane.”

  “Well, he had to control all of us, right? With me, he determined that if he had someone show up at one of my kids’ kindergarten classes and take them outside, hand them a flower, and then have the child give that flower to me, I would do absolutely anything he wanted, no questions asked.”

  Dieter’s chest clenched at the memory of Valerian threatening Alina. “All this time?”

  She nodded. “All these years. The kids don’t understand what was going on, really. I’ll have to tell them.”

  He wrapped his arms around her again, and Océane buried her face in his chest. She said, “I’ll do whatever the police say.”

  “That’s best.”

  She shook him off. “Where will you sleep tonight?”

  “I don’t know. We’re just surviving.”

  “Scheisse, Raphael!”

  “Kids?” he asked, pointing into Océane’s house.

  “Go get Flicka,” Océane demanded. “You have to stay with me.”

  Dieter didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t trust Océane, his sister, but so many betrayals made him wary. “We’ll be all right.”