“That makes perfect sense. I am pleased to sign it for you.” He scrawled an illegible, loopy mess on the line. “Is it that big, blond brute from the Monaco Casino whom I see has followed you over here?”
In the month since she’d changed jobs, Bastien hadn’t asked about Dieter again. “No. He’s just a friend. I got to know him at the Monaco.”
Prissy grabbed the documents out of Bastien’s hands, crimped her seal on the page, and signed on the notary line before she trotted back to her office to work on the spreadsheets.
Bastien raised his eyebrows at Prissy’s wordless retreat. “I’d hate to think of you two divorcing. You’re such a pretty couple. Who are you getting rid of?”
Before Flicka could grab the residency affidavit off the bar, Bastien flipped the top of the paper up and frowned. Indeed, his hands shook a little. “My liebling Gretchen, what have I signed? Is this for some other woman?”
Flicka bit her lip, but it probably wouldn’t matter. She could leave Nevada soon, anyway. “It’s for me.”
“Friederike Augusta von Hannover? This is not your name.”
“I didn’t want my ex to find me, so I’ve been calling myself Gretchen. My legal name is Friederike.”
When he dropped the paper on the bar, the older man looked like someone had punched him in the gut. His cheeks flushed pink, and he was breathing heavily. His eyes looked like a thin film of glass covered them. “You’re not Gretchen Mirabaud.”
“No.” She squinted at him. “I never told you my last name. Or that last name, anyway.”
He looked at her. “You’re Friederike von Hannover.”
“Um, Bastien? I need you to not tell anybody—”
“I have to go,” he said, dropping some money on the bar. “Best of luck with your divorce, Friederike. I really must go.”
Finally Filing
Dieter Schwarz
Day 43 in Las Vegas,
an eternity.
The divorce documents were filled out, signed, examined by Joachim Blanchard via email and a secure VOIP facilitated by Dieter’s tame hacker Blaise, notarized by Flicka’s boss Prissy who glared at the unfamiliar names at the top but did not deign to ask, copied, and bundled in an envelope to deposit with the court.
“But how will we serve Pierre the court documents?” Flicka asked him. “You can’t do it. It has to be a ‘disinterested’ person.”
“And I don’t want to leave you here alone,” Dieter said.
“Hiring a process server to go all the way to Monaco would be exorbitant,” she fretted, “at least a month’s salary, and we don’t have that. And Pierre would just refuse to take them, anyway.”
Dieter said, “I have just the guy. I’ll bet he’ll even let us watch through a body cam.”
Three days later, after a furtive dead-drop in the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area outside the city, Flicka and Dieter watched on his phone screen while Alina played with tiny plastic pans on the coffee table where they rested their feet. She muttered in her baby voice, “T’sheshe-uncle cook.”
Their take-out Chinese bags sat on the dining table, cooling and forgotten when they’d gotten the message that it was go-time.
On Dieter’s phone, the screen was blank. Slivers of light glimmered on the edges. The top corner of his phone read 6:19 PM, the local, Las Vegas time.
Dieter did the calculation in his head. Perfect. It was after three in the morning in Monaco.
Flicka asked, “Are you recording it?”
Dieter tried not to grin too gleefully. Aiden Grier hadn’t told Dieter what he’d planned, but Aiden had a flair for the overly dramatic covert op. “Oh, yes. Blaise has a feed that he’s recording, too.”
They needed proof Pierre had received the documents. In a perfect world, Pierre would sign a receipt for them, but the whole point of a process server was so that a witness could testify Pierre had received the divorce notice if he wouldn’t sign for it.
And they were recording it.
On the phone’s screen, a white circle appeared in the darkness.
In the circle of blinding white light, Pierre Grimaldi rubbed his eyes and squinted. White cloth covered him, a bed sheet. He shouted, “What the hell!”
The view was not from the side of the bed. Aiden Grier must be suspended from the ceiling, hovering over the bed and staring straight down at Pierre.
Dieter bit down on his molars to keep from cracking up.
Something rectangular fell from off-screen into the circle of light and landed on Pierre’s stomach with a sharp slap.
On the phone, a man’s voice shouted with a Scottish burr, “Pierre Grimaldi, you’ve been served!” The R’s rolled on for days.
Pierre roared, “Guards!” and fumbled for the nightstand to ring the security alarm installed there.
With a click, the white light vanished. Though the screen was dark, they could hear a whirring and a man’s raucous laughter.
Dieter couldn’t help chuckling. “Aiden does enjoy his work.”
Flicka was staring wide-eyed at the screen, though she was grinning, too. “I can’t believe he did that!”
“Pierre has been served,” Dieter said. “He has twenty days to respond. Let’s eat that Chinese food before it gets cold.”
Later that night, Dieter breathed slowly, feigning sleep as always.
Flicka’s hand stole through the sheets to his shoulder, and then her arm slithered across his chest.
He didn’t let his respiration change, breathing as deeply and slowly as a sniper in a nice, dark hide.
A rustle and a shimmy of the mattress, and her soft body curved against his side.
Dieter slept.
Counterclaim
Flicka von Hannover
Legal Ties That Bind.
Pierre had twenty days to respond to the court notice, and he waited until the very last day.
Nearly three weeks later, Flicka was at work when she heard the news.
Her bar was humming along smoothly, sucking money from gamblers who were betting on keno and sports in a desperate attempt to win something before they lost everything. People shouted at the screens and talked, clinking their glasses and rustling their tickets. An argument raged in a corner about NFL officiating.
For those several weeks, ever since she had dropped the divorce documents on the clerk’s desk, seen them stamped, and received a receipt, she’d felt like the legal ties that bound her to Pierre had thinned. It felt like she was holding a giant ax above the tendon of their legal bonds, ready to swing that sucker and chop the crap out of it. It felt like power.
Prissy had given Flicka another raise after she’d done the monthly tallies, nearly cackling her glee. “I can’t believe you never went to bartending school, Gretchen or whatever your name is. You certainly know how to push the liquor.”
Flicka laughed. “I’ve been around alcohol my whole life. I bleed Jägermeister.”
Prissy snorted and sent her back to the bar.
There, Flicka surreptitiously checked her phone that she had hidden behind the row of Kentucky bourbons while sports fans cheered and yelled at the players on the televisions in the dark casino.
A text from her Parisian lawyer Joachim Blanchard read, Grimaldi has filed a counterclaim contesting divorce and seeking dismissal. Claims that Nevada has no jurisdiction because he is resident of Monaco, claims diplomatic immunity to any proceeding against him, essentially claims that you cannot divorce him anywhere that he says you can’t. Shall I write response?
A link below his text led to an electronic copy of the paperwork filed with the county.
Flicka wanted to throw her phone across the room. Those legal cords were tougher than they looked, and they were goddamn strangling her.
When she looked over to where Dieter sat, playing poker, he was gripping his phone so tightly that his knuckles had turned white, but he sat back in his chair, tossed some cards into the center of the table, and glanced at her.
That odd blank
ness on his face meant that he was as angry as she was.
They should have expected something like this from Pierre. Of course, he wasn’t going to let her have a quickie divorce in Nevada and be done with him. That bastard was going to do everything he could to make this as painful as possible, the asshole.
Fine. Her ancestors were battle-tested warrior princes, not thieves who pretended to be Catholic monks to sneak into a castle and murder the guards. If Pierre wanted a fight, she would damn well fight.
Flicka texted back to Joachim, Yes, draft the response.
The next day, Flicka sat in the front yard while Alina played with her two little friends, Meti and Tabitha. They gamboled around the yard like puppies while she sat in the October sun. The desert had finally cooled enough to be tolerable.
The text from the lawyer Joachim read, Judge has set a hearing date for two weeks from now to decide if grounds for dismissal exist. She may rule on anything at that hearing. I’ll be there.
Dieter opened the door behind her. “Did you see it?”
“Yeah.” Alina and the other two girls were rubbing their hands in the dirt and comparing grubbiness. Flicka was not sure that was hygienic, but they seemed to be having too much fun to interfere.
“Pierre will send lawyers.”
“I’m sure of it.”
“I can’t believe that son of a bitch is trying this. I can’t believe he’s saying that you can’t divorce him, that you have to remain married to him whether you like it or not.”
“I can believe it.” Flicka watched the children, alert to intervene if they started to throw dirt. They didn’t, though. They just compared their dirty hands with each other. “He likes to control things. A whole country isn’t enough for him. He has to control me, too.”
“He knows you’ll have to be there in person. He’ll probably send his Secret Service to try to kidnap you and take you to Monaco.”
“I’m sure he will.” Flicka watched the desert sun dancing through the leaves of the trees. Cool air crossed her face. These might be her last few days in Las Vegas, so she breathed in the dusty air and watched the pretty baby Alina playing with her baby friends.
“I won’t let him take you,” Dieter said, sitting down behind her and wrapping his arms around her. “Like I said, if anything happens to me, Magnus Jensen will lead you out. Be ready for him. Knowing him, he’ll rappel from the ceiling at three in the morning, just to one-up Aiden.”
Flicka pressed her cheek against Dieter’s, and his rough stubble ground against her skin.
The desert sun shone on the trees and the yard, and the babies babbled happily to each other.
A question occurred to her, a question about the name Dieter and the name Raphael, but she didn’t ask it.
She didn’t want to know.
That night, after Dieter fell asleep, she reached for his shoulder, just to feel his skin under her palm. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, just loose shorts.
That initial reach was the hard part. After that, his skin soothed her, comforted her, and she wanted more of his solace with every passing minute. The slim, rougher lines tickled her fingertips, and she traced his scars over his chest. Her hand trailed over his rounded pecs and the scant softness of blond, masculine hair between them.
She scooted a little closer, letting her arm settle over his chest.
His breath remained smooth and slow, definitely asleep.
Flicka cuddled closer.
He moved under her arm.
Flicka almost jumped back, but no, she had given up the darkness and pain.
Dieter wrapped his arms around her and tucked her head under his chin, sighing, “Flicka.”
At the Courthouse
Flicka von Hannover
I wanted to know.
No, I wanted to hear it from him.
I already knew.
Flicka wished that she had a nice pantsuit to wear to her divorce, but all their money had gone toward court filing fees. She wore the trousers and blouse she had bought that first afternoon in Paris, hoping it would be good luck.
Also for luck, she pinned the alpine mountaineering brooch that Dieter had given her for Christmas so long ago to her bra strap by her heart. The gold wires scratched a little, but she had been wearing it every day just in case she needed to flee with nothing but the clothes on her back. It still meant everything to her. In their townhouse, the desert sunlight had glinted on the gold and diamonds and on the little black ribbon in the center.
Her lawyer had told her not to worry about billing his time, thank goodness. She suspected Wulf had a hand with this, or else Joachim knew her trust funds were good for any amount he wanted to bill, eventually.
They waited around the corner from the courthouse, walking in the cool November weather down the sidewalk. The plan was to enter the courthouse through a side door that Dieter had reconnoitered a few days before.
They were several hours early. Normally, operational security would dictate that they should sweep in at the last minute, minimizing their time at the vulnerable point.
Thus, if that’s what was expected, they would do the opposite.
Dieter had groused earlier that Quentin Sault’s Secret Service surely wouldn’t surveil the whole area for hours ahead of time because they were too damn lazy. Flicka suspected Dieter was perfectly correct.
So, just after the courthouse opened, they sneaked into the building through a side door and cleared the small security checkpoint set up there. A small anteroom off the second-floor side corridor seemed like a good place to wait.
Hidden in there, they talked, first holding hands, then with Dieter’s arms around her.
When the first bits of stupid tremors started, she breathed in the cinnamon scent of his cologne and gave up the fear. She was his, now. The fear didn’t belong to her anymore.
She settled into Dieter’s strong arms.
The clock ticked around to the time when they needed to run the gantlet to the assigned courtroom.
The last few days, Flicka had been trying to enjoy every minute.
She spent time talking with Scotta, Prissy, and the other girls at work while she eyed the empty bar stool where Bastien used to sit. She kind of missed him. He’d been a friend, but he had never come back after seeing her real name.
She spent time playing with Alina, teaching her shape names with a wooden puzzle, and just snuggling and watching PBS while they ate goldfish crackers.
And she spent time with Dieter, of course. She’d spent every moment she could in his arms, holding him and being held, breathing him in, and stroking the pale scars that quilted his tanned skin.
The small room was quiet around them. The old-fashioned wooden paneling on the walls probably insulated any sound that might have leaked from the rest of the courthouse.
They sat on a wooden bench. She rested against his broad chest with her back toward him. He held her from behind with his chin resting on the top of her head.
Flicka drank in the quiet, trying to remember every precious second, just in case.
Still drifting in the peaceful silence, she asked, “Is your real name Raphael?”
Behind her, his chest paused breathing.
She wasn’t going to take it back. If someone grabbed her this day, if she was spirited away, she wanted to know.
Raphael Mirabaud
Dieter Schwarz
Everything.
Dieter sat with his arms around Flicka, his heart pounding like he had run a hundred miles.
Of all the things she could have asked him, why did she choose that?
But he’d never lied to her.
Dieter held her more tightly, stroking her upper arm, and he whispered, “Yes.”
His lungs felt scalded like that one time he’d been on the edge of a chemical weapon attack in Syria. Even though he held Flicka in his arms, he sensed she was slipping away from him.
She might be mere minutes from being legally free of Pierre Grimaldi.
Mayb
e she didn’t need Raphael anymore.
Dieter.
Maybe she didn’t need Dieter Schwarz anymore.
He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.
Flicka asked, “And it’s really Raphael Mirabaud, isn’t it?”
His chin moved on her head as he nodded. Yes, it was. He’d denied it for more than a decade, but it was.
Flicka asked, “And it’s the Mirabaud family in Geneva, isn’t it, the one who owns Geneva Trust?”
Raphael, Dieter, cleared his throat. He could feel the violence, the ruthlessness, of Raphael hovering behind him like an evil spirit, ready to possess him. “Yes.”
“I know Valerian Mirabaud, and two of the Mirabaud girls have gone through my cotillion in Paris.”
“I saw them.”
“Were they your sisters?”
“My cousins,” he said. “My sisters are all older than I am by quite a bit.”
“Oh.” She paused, and Dieter’s heart paused with her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because that’s not who I am anymore,” he said. “My name is Dieter Schwarz, no matter what my passport says. I’m your Lieblingwächter. I’m not a Mirabaud.”
“They own a bank,” she said. “What on Earth could they have done that’s so horrible?”
“Everything.”
Dating back to before World War Two and continuing unabated and with ever-growing malice, they had done everything.
His phone chimed in his pocket.
“Flicka, we have to go.”
Trial by Grumpy Sparrow
Flicka von Hannover
I think the judge knew who we were.
A numb shell settled over Flicka as they walked to the courtroom.
In A Faraway Land (Runaway Princess: Flicka, Book 3) Page 17
