Dieter Schwarz
It wasn’t an unusual fight.
By the time Dieter got home from work that day, Gretchen was already pissed off at him.
As he walked in the front door and set down his computer backpack, his daughter Alina toddled up to him, arms outstretched. He picked her up and nuzzled her neck, which always made her giggle.
Her tiny body wiggled in his arms as she laughed, “Daddy! Daddy, tickle!”
Her fingers wormed into his collar and, even though Dieter was tired, he pretended that she was tickling him and laughed, hopping around like he was trying to get away from her even though he was holding her against his chest.
From the bedroom, a woman’s voice shrilled, “Are you finally home?”
Oh, that tone.
Dieter glanced at his phone, which showed just a few minutes after six o’clock. “Yeah, Gretchen. I’m home.”
“Finally.” She stormed out of the bedroom wearing a clingy red dress and poking an earring through her ear. Her blond hair curled around her face.
Yet, there was something about her stride.
She wasn’t just pissed at him. Excited energy crackled in her legs and the way her elbows were standing out from her body as she fussed with the earring.
Dieter set Alina down, and she wove through his legs, playing. He asked Gretchen, “Did we have plans tonight?”
“No, I have plans tonight with my girlfriend Ladanna. I met her at my gym, so we’re meeting for drinks and dinner tonight so we can really talk.”
“You look nice,” he said. “Maybe we could get a babysitter this weekend and go out.”
“Huh,” she said. “Maybe you could get home on time or stop traveling to Europe for weeks on end for ‘work,’” she spat the word, “so I’m not constantly cooped up with that baby. I am starved for adult company.”
“I called you every day.” Even though she had hung up on him within a few minutes each time. “And I’m home.”
Gretchen picked up her purse and stalked over to the door that led to the garage. “She has three bottles in the fridge. Make sure you warm them right. Also, there’s baby food in the pantry. I think she needs a diaper change, too. I don’t know when I’ll be home. Don’t wait up.”
She slammed the door behind her.
Dieter swung Alina up in his arms. “Well, baby girl, looks like it’s a daddy-and-daughter night. Do we want pasta? I went for a long run at lunchtime. I need carbs.”
He sniffed her back. She giggled and wiggled in his hands.
Yes, time for a diaper change.
Dieter said, “We’ll deal with that, and then make us a nice pasta, ja?”
Next Flight
Flicka von Hannover
At T-3 days,
disaster.
Almost two months later, Flicka picked up her ringing phone. She crammed the phone between her ear and shoulder as she worked in her suite high in the Montreux hotel where Wulf and Rae’s wedding was to be held in three days.
Three days.
The thought made her hands and legs quiver.
“Hello?” Flicka said, scooting her laptop aside to take notes on a notepad. She was old-fashioned that way.
The large white-enameled desk, all so very tasteful, held her computer and several tablets, all powered on, plus scrap paper, scratch paper, and crumpled notepads. Papers—some of them probably important—fluttered around her feet.
A mug of steaming coffee started to go over the edge, but she caught it and sucked down a gulp that warmed her mouth with sugary sweetness. Flicka had discovered caramel macchiatos when she was in the US, staying with Wulf and Rae.
Several of her admins sat at their own, smaller desks and were following up with the various caterers, suppliers, and guests who had not RSVP’d yet.
Flicka’s tablets were showing pictures of various weddings previously held in the ballroom downstairs.
Her computer screen had twenty-seven tabs open, all to various flower arrangements and chair wraps.
She had sent instructions to the concierges to make sure that they had at least twenty staff members on hand who could origami the thousands of unbleached, raw silk napkins she had ordered into perfect little swans.
She had sent instructional videos.
She had sent napkin specifications.
She had sent starch brands and concentrations in which the napkins must be laundered prior to the origami session.
Yet the hotel staff was dithering about the damned swans.
Damn it, Wulf would have thousands of those napkins folded into goddamn perfect swans for his wedding even if she had to personally stand over those staff members while they did it.
Three goddamn days before the wedding, and the damned staff was dithering about the goddamn swans.
Her phone rang again, jangling near her ear and vibrating against her jaw.
She dropped it into her hand and glared at it. Her swipe on the screen hadn’t managed to quite answer the call.
And her brother was calling her on the phone. He should be on a goddamned plane, flying to Switzerland for his wedding in three days.
She swiped open the phone, catching the dot this time. “What?”
His voice was icily calm, as always. “Reagan is in hospital. The wedding will have to be postponed.”
Flicka sank back in her chair, her hand covering her mouth. “Is she all right?”
“We don’t know.” He paused, a pause that made Flicka’s heart clench. “At the moment, she is fine.”
“How fine? On ventilators, fine? Had surgery and is recovering, fine?”
“Demanding her textbooks. Watching movies on her tablet because she is bored.”
Flicka turned away from her admins and whispered into the phone, “And the baby?”
“So far, also fine.”
Flicka listened, her heart pounding in her ears, while her brother explained placenta previa, a condition where the pregnancy was riding too low in the uterus and might rupture.
Rupture.
Her hands shook. “Wulf, what are they going to do?”
Another pause. “So far, bed rest.”
“You sound unconvinced.”
“I can’t lose her, Flicka, no more than I could lose you.”
The pounding in Flicka’s ears thudded louder. “Is there a danger of that?”
“It appears so.”
Flicka slapped her computer shut and stacked her tablets on top of it. “Is Dieter there with you?”
“He is in town. I haven’t called him. We’ve had a staff problem here, and I need to change the security schedule for this weekend. One of our security personnel quit suddenly. With Rae in the hospital, we need extra security, and now we’re down a man.”
“Call Dieter. I’ll be there as soon as I can get to Geneva and have them gas up Pierre’s plane.”
“You don’t need to—”
“Of course, I do. I’ll be there soon, Wulfie. Hang on until I get there.”
“Have you spoken to our father recently?”
“Why would I want to do that?” she asked.
“In the last two weeks, he has attempted twice to sabotage my wedding.”
“What the hell?” She froze, a tablet flickering in her hands.
“Once by sending three young women to try to lure me away from Rae, including Josephine Alexandrovna.”
Josephine Alexandrovna had been one of Flicka’s bridesmaids and one of her best friends for years. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“I assure you that Josephine Alexandrovna, Kira Augusta, and Marie-Therese were there and had been told that I had already broken the engagement and was actively looking for another bride.”
Flicka rubbed her forehead, trying to forestall a migraine from their idiocy. “And they were that stupid.”
“Shocking, but it seems that they had it on excellent authority.”
“Father.” Her distaste for the word almost made her sneer it.
“Absolutely.”
“I can’t believe Josephine fell for that.” Josephine Alexandrovna was one of Flicka’s closest friends. They were supposed to have a vacation together when Wulf’s wedding was over.
He said, “I’m afraid so.”
Sadness crushed her. “Can I still speak to them?”
“Oh, certainly. Rae had her revenge upon our father, and they helped her. It was spectacular.”
Flicka would need all the details. She would hunt down all four of the women and demand details. “And the second time?”
“The other attempt was worse,” Wulf said. “He contacted Rae’s family and convinced them to kidnap her to perform some sort of exorcism. It endangered her life.”
“Holy Hell, Wulf. Did you strangle our father?”
“No.”
“Did you finally cut him off financially?”
“That’s of no matter, but my point is to be careful. He might not have given up. If he tells you anything about Reagan, don’t believe him.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I don’t believe anything that old goat says, not after he tried to screw up my wedding.”
“Good.”
“I’ll take care of everything about the wedding, Wulfie. Don’t you worry your pretty little head. And I’ll be there as soon as I can get that plane in the air.”
She set the phone down and surveyed her admins, five women who were all staring at her with wide, questioning eyes.
Flicka said, “Change of plans.”
Yoshihito
Flicka von Hannover
Yoshi and I have this thing—
Flicka arrived in a car driven by Luca Wyss who had picked her up at the airport.
She ran in the front doors, yelling, “Wulf! Wulf! What the hell is going on?”
The main entertaining space just inside the front doors stretched to the back windows that overlooked the sun-drenched lap pool in the courtyard. A grand staircase rose from one end of the room toward the living quarters. The whole house was upholstered in soft shades of gold and beige with bright lapis lazuli accents.
“Wul-fie!” she yelled.
“I’m here.” A man’s low voice reached her. He strode out from behind the staircase, where that unobtrusive corridor was.
The hallway back there wasn’t precisely hidden, but you wouldn’t realize the house extended that far back unless you knew where to look for it.
Wulfram was wearing blue flannel pants. A blue concert tee shirt covered his burly torso.
Wulf wore suits every day.
Those were jammies.
At seven o’clock in the evening, Wulfram von Hannover, heir to a defunct throne of Germany, was wearing jammies.
Oh, shit.
While he was still halfway across the room, Flicka yelled at him, “Tell me what’s going on with Rae!”
“She’s—stable,” Wulf said, walking over. When Flicka looked at his feet, he was wearing soft, leather house slippers. “We’ve been able to bring her home. She’s not bleeding at this time. It appears there is no immediate danger.”
Flicka sank down to the floor and held her head in her hands. “Did our asshole father do this somehow?”
Wulf chuckled. “I don’t think there’s any way he could have. This is a purely medical condition.”
“Stress?” Flicka asked. “His shenanigans with kidnapping her or sending Josephine and the others? I chewed them all out while I flew, by the way. They’ll never talk to him again, let alone do anything he says.”
“No. This is anatomical. Rae is calling it, “a thing that happens’ and is very blasé about it.”
“And let me guess,” Flicka said, still sitting on the wooden floor. “You are less chill?”
Wulf raised one blond eyebrow at her. “Not at all. I am the pinnacle of ‘chill.’”
Flicka left her purse and laptop bag lying on the floor and struggled to her feet. “Well, I’m glad I’m here, nevertheless. As far as postponing the wedding goes, my admins are calling and emailing absolutely everyone. I called a bunch of the important people on the way to the airport because that’s a frickin’ hour-long car ride from Montreux to Geneva, and then a bunch more while I was waiting for the airplane people to gas up the plane and whatever else they have to do.”
“File a flight plan?” another man’s voice said. His British accent, so standard in graduates of the Le Rosey boarding school, was underlaid by the slightest Japanese softness.
Flicka looked around the entryway and living room. “Yoshi?”
Wulf flicked his fingers toward the staircase.
Yoshi, who was wearing a proper white shirt and trousers, not pajamas, leaned on the railing at the top of the stairs. He waved and smiled at her. His black hair flopped over his forehead, slightly grown out from when she had seen him at her wedding.
“Hey! Yoshi!” Flicka bolted up the stairs. “I haven’t seen you for months!”
When she got to the top, she jumped into his arms, hugging him.
He laughed and twirled her around. “Yes, I was glad you saved a dance for me at your wedding, even if it was at two o’clock in the morning and we were both sloppy drunk by that time.”
He set Flicka on her feet, and she smoothed down his shirt collar. “You were not sloppy, Yoshihito. You are never sloppy.”
“You were a perfect princess bride that everyone admired, so serene in your reception dress, but I was more drunk than I have been since my undergraduate days. I stumbled while leaving. My security had to help me out of the street, where I had fallen in a puddle of dog piss.”
“I don’t believe it in the slightest. You are making up stories to assuage my conscience. You were the soul of decorum, while I was a hot mess. I slobbered all over the Duchess of Sussex, telling her that I just loved her dress, loved her house, loved her, and gave her a big, sloppy kiss. She may obtain a restraining order.”
“Not at all,” Yoshi said, brushing imaginary dust off her shoulder. “You were—”
“All right, you two,” Wulf bellowed from the bottom of the stairs as he climbed toward them. “You were both equally pissed at the wedding and embarrassing to be seen with. Now get out of my way. I need to see to my wife.”
Flicka and Yoshi stifled giggles until Wulf had passed by and shut the door to his bedroom on the left side of the balcony.
Then they cracked up.
“You were as blitzed as Brahms and Liszt,” Flicka told him.
Yoshi said, “And I thought you were going to end up snoring under a table at your own wedding.”
“Now tell me really, how’s Rae?”
Yoshi stopped smiling. “Placenta previa is uncommon and dangerous. She could bleed to death in less than an hour if it ruptures.”
Flicka flinched. “And what are the chances of that?”
“It depends on how severe it is, and there’s no way to measure that. If it ruptures, she had a severe case.”
Flicka pressed her hand to her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “How long have you been here?”
“A few days, and in and out before that. I was planning to fly with them to Montreux before this happened.”
“And how’s he handling it?”
“He’s stoic, calm, and barely blinks, lest that be too demonstrative.”
Flicka sighed. “So he’s on the edge and ready to implode into a big, black hole of nothing.”
“Precisely,” Yoshi said.
“Damn it,” Flicka said. “I should never have left them. Is Dieter here?”
“He didn’t come to the residence today. He must have been at his office. He has a security business, you know.”
“Yeah, ‘Rogue Security.’ I’ve heard.”
“He hasn’t been around more than one day a week.”
Wulf slammed his bedroom door open. “Dieter is on his way here. There’s been a problem. We need to get him inside right now.”
Betrayed
Dieter Schwarz
When betrayed by everyone,
I called Wul
fram.
The toddler wailed in the back seat, and Dieter checked his rearview mirror, watching her, while he drove.
The fifteen-month-old was more distressed about being restrained than she was raging at her absent mother. Dieter’s anger at Gretchen grew with every passing minute.
Outside Dieter’s black SUV, crowds of cars swung through the five lanes as he drove over the sun-scalded freeway. Even the cacti on the sides of the freeway were shriveling from the heat pounding on the tan concrete and crushed granite on the ground.
His fists tightened on the steering wheel, and he thumbed a button and spoke. “Call Durchlaucht.”
His car rang around him, startling the toddler. She wailed louder, her shrill cry jangling his nerves.
Wulfram answered the phone. “Yes, Dieter?”
The words tumbled out of Dieter’s mouth, leaving a bitter taste on his tongue. “She left me, Wulfram. I don’t know what to do.”
“Who did?” Wulfram’s voice came from the stereo speakers as if the man were all around him.
Dieter lapsed into Alemannic. “Gretchen. I went home. Her clothes were gone. The bank accounts were cleaned out, both personal and business. All is gone. It was millions. She’s gone.”
“Where’s Alina?” Wulfram asked.
The toddler screamed at the sound of her name, her angry squeals climbing. “Gretchen left her with a neighbor and told me where to find her. Can you imagine the heartlessness of it? Gretchen left a note stuck to our television, telling me where my child was, with a neighbor. We don’t even know Lupe that well. Is Hans Werner at work today?”
The silence on the other end of the line told Dieter far more than he wanted to know.
He slammed his fist on the steering wheel. “It was Hans, wasn’t it?”
“I’m not sure,” Wulfram said. “He submitted his resignation this afternoon, effective immediately. I was otherwise involved and just took the letter. He said it was a private matter and asked for it to be handled quietly.”
Once Upon a Time: Billionaires in Disguise: Flicka Page 13
