Once Upon a Time: Billionaires in Disguise: Flicka

by Blair Babylon

  A row of black SUVs was parked along the driveway, doors open, waiting.

  Flicka was almost to the cars when the air cracked around her.

  She flinched, ducking, and looked back.

  Not again. Dear Lord, dear Jesus, not again.

  Looking back was stupid. Flicka should have leaped into the car. She knew it was stupid as soon as she turned, but she had to look.

  Wulfie and Rae were back there.

  Dieter was back there.

  When she turned, Wulf and Rae were lying on the ground. Wulf reached for her and covered her with his body.

  Dieter was falling on top of both of them, shielding them both.

  But he was looking at Flicka, his storm-cloud gray eyes wide as he watched her and drifted toward Wulf.

  Flicka reached toward him, her hand closing on empty air.

  Behind her, Pierre’s voice ordered, “Quentin, maintenant!”

  An arm cinched her waist, and she was yanked from behind into the SUV.

  Quentin Sault, Pierre’s head of security, had grabbed her and thrown her in the back seat.

  Still watching out the vehicle’s door, she saw some other wedding guests running toward them to take shelter in their car, but one of the security guys slammed the door as the SUV jumped forward.

  Behind her, Pierre asked, his voice frantic, “Are you all right? Were they shooting at you again?”

  His arm slid around her waist.

  “You are okay, yes?” He looked at her dress, stroking her sides.

  Flicka swiveled in his grasp as the speeding SUV buffeted them from side to side as it tilted around corners. “I’m fine, right?” She looked at the blue dress she wore, and she was rumpled and wrinkled, but not bloody. Nothing hurt. “Yes, I’m fine. I’m fine. You’re okay?”

  “Yes, Quentin shoved me inside just as the first round hit.” Pierre held her to his chest. “After yesterday, I didn’t know what to think.”

  She broke his embrace and leaned over the front seat. “Who was down? Was Wulf hurt? Rae? Georgiana? What happened?”

  Quentin was on his cell phone, speaking in rapid Monegasque to someone. He leaned his head back and told her, “We have no accounts of injuries. The area is cleared. I am liaising with Luca Wyss of the Hannover team. He will give us specifics. I will tell you if anyone was wounded.”

  “Tell me if Wulfram von Hannover is all right!”

  Quentin spoke into the phone, then to her, “He is in his car, unhurt and secure.”

  “And Rae Stone? And Georgiana? And Dieter? And Alexandre?”

  “Who are Georgiana, Dieter, and Alexandre?” Quentin asked.

  “Georgiana Oelrichs or Johnson. I’m not sure which she would say. Dieter Schwarz, who is Wulf’s head of security. You should know that. Alexandre Grimaldi, Pierre’s cousin and third in line for Monaco’s throne. You should have been protecting him. You should know where he is. Why don’t you know where the number three is?”

  Quentin talked on the phone some more, mostly just saying yes or no after he gave them the names to check on. He covered his phone and told her, “I have been transferred to Dieter Schwarz. He is calm and professional and, I assume, unhurt. Neither Luca nor Dieter have information about Georgiana or Alexandre. We will add them to our must-trace list.”

  “Thank you.” Flicka sat back in the seat.

  Pierre wrapped his arms around her. The smoky scents of whiskey and his aftershave wafted from his collar. “We’re not going to the supper. We’re going straight to the plane. I want you safe at home, inside the Prince’s Palace in Monaco. It’s a fortress. We’ll be safe, there.”

  Flicka rested against him.

  He kissed her temple. “My security men will make sure you’re protected.”

  Texts

  Flicka von Hannover

  I hid the texts from Pierre.

  I don’t know why.

  The SUV sped along the freeways of Paris, engine whining as they raced under the afternoon sun and heading for the airport.

  Alexandre had called Quentin Sault directly to check in, and Quentin had told Flicka afterward that Georgiana was with Alexandre and safe.

  Flicka wasn’t at all sure that Georgie was safe if she was with Alexandre Grimaldi, but knowing that the sniper hadn’t shot her was a step in the right direction.

  Flicka’s phone in her purse buzzed.

  She pulled it out and angled the screen away from Pierre.

  The number was unknown because, of course, they hadn’t been texting each other, not at all, not for years.

  The text read, Durchlauchtig, are you all right? Tell me this is you.

  Flicka hesitated over the text, biting her lip. He was just using his old nickname for her as code, so she would know it was him.

  If she had asked her friends, they would have told her not to answer. She’d never told anyone about her relationship with Dieter, of course. He’d insisted. But they knew someone had broken her heart that summer.

  She texted back, I am fine, Leiblingwächter. They missed.

  As she tucked her phone back into her purse, Pierre asked, “Who was that?”

  “Wulfram,” Flicka said, “just making sure I’m all right.”

  “Good.” Pierre looked out the front windshield as they neared the airport.

  Second Betrayal

  Dieter Schwarz

  I swore that I would never lie to him,

  but I will not let him die on his wedding day.

  Dieter and Wulf leaned against the bulkhead in the narrow Gulfstream jet, watching everyone strap into the wide leather seats while the jet engines whined, idling.

  Rae Stone was in the back row, fidgeting with her coppery hair and looking out the porthole window.

  She shouldn’t be so near the window. Now that Wulfram was married, Dieter needed to chew him out on operational security more. Both of them had gotten lax the last few years, but the several shootings during this little vacation in Paris made Dieter nervous.

  His arm itched where he had been shot.

  Wulfram muttered to Dieter in Alemannic, the Swiss dialect that they spoke together, “Have we recovered Lizbeth and Theo yet?”

  Dieter nodded and lied his ass off. “Luca Wyss assures me that they have been picked up by the Welfenlegion and are at the hotel. They’re shaken up, so they’re going to rest for a few hours. We’re going to be full here, anyway, when the rest of the cars arrive. They’ll have to take the Challenger.”

  The other jet Wulfram had rented for his retinue was a Bombardier Challenger.

  “Good. Is there anything they need?”

  “Nope. Some food, some rest, a stiff drink, and they’ll be fine.” Not too much, not too little. Wulfram could detect lies better than most people Dieter knew, and Dieter rarely lied to him about anything other than Flicka.

  Wulfram said, “Make sure Luca knows that they’re to have anything they want.”

  Dieter smirked at him. “I don’t think anyone has ever complained about your hospitality, Wulfram.”

  Even out of the corner of his eye, Dieter could see the change in Wulfram’s posture and energy. His body stiffened. His fingers twitched, almost a clench of his fists.

  Wulfram said, “Just make sure he knows, Schwarz.”

  Yeah, Dieter probably shouldn’t have said it quite like that. He needed to be more subtle, if he was going to get Wulfram and his new wife in the air and away from whatever the hell was going on here in Paris.

  He nodded. “I’ll make sure of it. We should take off as soon as possible, Herr von Hannover. Once we’re in the air, we’ll all be safer. It’s the only way we can assure your safety at the moment.”

  “How many more people are en route from the hotel?”

  “Ten. They should arrive within the hour.”

  “Thank you, Dieter.”

  Wulfram walked to the back of the plane and sat with his wife.

  Dieter glanced at the text again.

  The word Leiblingwächter on the sc
reen soothed him, both because he was sure that Flicka had written the text and because she had called him her darling guard. Her anger at him over the last two years had picked at him every day. He had no right to ask for her forgiveness, but he craved it.

  He desperately wished that she were on this jet, too, and on her way to safety. Those Monegasque Secret Service guys did not have her security as their primary objective. He wished he knew what the hell their primary objective was.

  An hour later, the Gulfstream’s jet engines revved up, whining as the packed plane rotated to taxi to the runway.

  Dieter sat beside one of the white-haired American lawyers who probably wouldn’t understand Alemannic.

  Dieter cranked his muscle-bound body around in his seat, regretting slacking off on his flexibility training yet again, to check that Wulfram was far in the back of the plane, still sitting beside Rae Stone.

  Most people wouldn’t see the difference in him, but Dieter could. Every time Wulfram looked at that woman, he caught his breath like his heart had started beating again. Every time another man looked at her, Wulfram’s breath stilled like he was pulling the trigger on his sniper rifle.

  Dieter only wished that his own wife had that effect on him, but he loved her. They had a daughter who would be nearly as beautiful as her mother. His work left very little time for arguing, anyway.

  Yet they managed.

  He dialed Luca on his cell phone. “Have you secured Valencia and Pajari yet?”

  “Negative,” Luca said. “Valencia is not answering his phone, and we can’t get a signal from the tracking application. Pajari never had one of our French SIM cards installed.”

  “Elands. Use Grimaldi’s security for the hotel. Send everyone else into Paris to find them before we land in the States.”

  “Before you land? Von Hannover is leaving without them secured? How in great, sulfurous Hell did you convince him to be sensible?”

  “I told him that we had Valencia and Pajari at the hotel.”

  “Jesus Fucking Christ.”

  “He will fire me as soon as he discovers it, no matter what happens to Valencia and Pajari. If you don’t find them safe by the time we land, he will also kill me with his bare hands.”

  Dieter was overstating only a little.

  He torqued himself around to glance at Wulfram and Reagan again. They were speaking softly, foreheads together. Wulfram was smiling a small, real smile, not that cold slash he showed the world.

  Dieter turned back and stretched his long legs to the bulkhead, saying to Luca, “But I’m not going to let him die on his wedding day.”

  The plane rolled backward, readying to taxi toward the runway to leave.

  He’d had a few stolen moments with Flicka. He’d hoped for one last one to tell her to get the hell out of her marriage if she wasn’t happy.

  Once you had a kid, leaving became so much more difficult.

  If he tried it, Gretchen would use Alina as a pawn during the divorce proceedings, and he couldn’t stand losing custody of his daughter.

  Honeymoon

  Flicka von Hannover

  We canceled our honeymoon in the Seychelles.

  I’m still not sure why.

  The Prince’s Palace in Monaco was a fortress.

  Literally.

  Stone walls rose around the stronghold that overlooked the dark blue harbor. In the Middle Ages, the castle had been a working fortress and defended the ships docked in the port far below. A fresh, salty breeze blew off the Mediterranean toward the palace, ruffling the flags flying above.

  Security guys hustled Flicka and Pierre from the helicopter that landed at Monaco’s small heliport to a waiting SUV and ferried them in a caravan, through red stop lights, toward the Prince’s Palace on the headland Monaco Ville, high on a cliff that overlooked the Mediterranean harbor and port.

  Jordan Defrancesco drove them, as usual. He’d taken a special defensive driving course and could spin the car in a one-eighty if they needed to turn around.

  Quentin Sault rode shotgun.

  Although the Palace had a small, militarized unit of bodyguards and soldiers, the Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince, they and their uniforms had become more ceremonial the last few decades. Now, they mostly paraded around the Prince’s Palace for the tourists while the Secret Service and the army provided the royal family’s security.

  And that was Quentin Sault, et al.

  On the way, Flicka turned to Pierre, who was sitting beside her in the back seat. “You need to be more discreet.”

  He looked at her and raised one dark eyebrow.

  “Anne Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire, was hinting that you and she went away for a weekend a few weeks ago.”

  He frowned and took Flicka’s hand. “I’ll talk to her. Did it upset you?”

  “Only in that she thought it was acceptable to bring up the subject.”

  He kissed her knuckles. “I’ll make sure that it never happens again, and I’m sorry about that.”

  “Thank you.”

  Flicka went back to looking at the scenery. Monaco was such a beautiful place. It was the gold coast of the Mediterranean near the French Riviera, and the pristine sea and blinding white beaches pleased her.

  With the caravan tucked inside the courtyard, the Secret Service men fanned out to secure the perimeter.

  It was nice that Pierre was taking no chances with her safety. He was even holding her hand, resting it on the seat so outsiders couldn’t see, of course, as the SUVs wheeled into the courtyard of the palace. Their security detail emerged first, reconnoitering the area, an unusual move in one of the safest countries in the world.

  Usually, the prince’s entourage pulled up to the front of the palace, and he walked inside while waving to the few tourists and staff who happened to be around.

  Flicka’s ancestral home, Schloss Marienburg in Hannover, Germany, was a European castle built during the Victorian age, so it was relatively new. Like the other royal families of the Romanovs, Hapsburgs, and Bourbons, the Hannovers simply built a new palace every few centuries when their fortunes allowed it.

  Schloss Marienburg was a Gothic Revival, fairy-tale castle like something out of a Disney cartoon. Its ivory spires rose on a mountaintop above a dense, lush forest that looked like it hid houses built by dwarves and was infested with granny-eating wolves, but the only Big, Bad Wulf in Hannover was Flicka’s older brother. Though the castle appeared far older, perhaps a thousand years old with its turrets, towers, and portcullises, it was only a hundred and fifty years old, give or take a bit. Some of the houses in America’s New England were older, which had always amused Flicka.

  Schloss Marienburg was a true royal castle, built as the summer seat for the kings of Hannover when they were not residing at their other castles, the Royal Leine Palace and Herrenhausen Gardens in Hannover, and there was a throne room there that housed the 1720 Augsburg silver throne. Her family had loaned the silver throne, together with the other silver furniture, to England for their exhibition about the Hannover kings of Great Britain, when her family had ruled England, Scotland, and the rest of the UK as well as vast swaths of Europe.

  As far as Flicka was concerned, her family still did rule the UK. No war had deposed them. No palace coup had installed another house on their throne. Everyone in Kensington and Windsor Palaces was a direct descendant of Queen Victoria, just like Flicka, herself.

  Many of her friends shared Queen Victoria as an ancestor, too.

  And some of Flicka’s acquaintances.

  Most of the descendants of European royalty looked vaguely similar, like perhaps some of the founding members’ genes were, ahem, overrepresented.

  Prince Pierre Grimaldi, sitting beside her, was one of the few European monarchs or royals who was not descended from Queen Victoria of Great Britain. He was darkly handsome with black hair and dark eyes, olive skin, and sharp Mediterranean cheekbones and jawline. He was glamorously, extravagantly handsome.

  When he smiled,
women swooned, and there was a collective thud as their panties hit the floorboards. At thirty-one years old, he was in that prime of mature manhood, with a deep, thick chest and narrow waist, athletic and masculine.

  Yes, Flicka was smitten, too. The first time he’d asked her to dance at a charity ball she’d thrown, she’d been a little dewy-eyed. She’d been honored and flustered that he’d shown up at all, creating the kind of commotion that resulted in fantastic publicity for her charity. When he’d danced with her three times that night, the gossip pages had gone nuts.

  And so had her brother, Wulfie, who had flown from Chicago to London the next day and blustered around, telling her to stay away from the Rat Bastard.

  How could any girl resist that kind of sexy, forbidden fruit?

  Besides, it wasn’t like anyone else wanted her.

  When Pierre had dropped by the next weekend to take her to lunch, she’d gone with him, even though there had been some kind of a staring match between him and Wulf as she left with him.

  Pierre could take it, though. He could stand up to the European royalty who’d looked down on his family for generations, many generations, because they were merely sovereign princes descended from feudal lords and not royalty.

  Oh, yes.

  It mattered.

  The Grimaldi were Italian feudal lords who had managed to capture the Prince’s Palace, the stronghold overlooking the harbor and port, and ruled from it for seven hundred years, with one brief interruption. The palace had been built in 1191 as a Genoese fortress, and it still looked like it.

  The Grimaldi had never built a Renaissance or Baroque fantasy castle like the other European monarchs for several reasons.

  The main reason was that Monaco was a tiny strip of land seized from France. There wasn’t even room for an airport.

  Pierre’s plane had landed in Nice, France, and they’d taken a helicopter to the helipad that jutted out from a cliff over the azure Mediterranean Sea.