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

by Blair Babylon

  She keyed in phone numbers with her thumbs.

  The numbers to Raphael Mirabaud’s phones, his old number that he’d had for years and the one to his Las Vegas pawn shop phone, both buzzed a fast dial tone in her ear, disconnected.

  Her hands shook. Pierre’s phone dropped from her cold fingertips.

  Flicka scrambled after it, saving it just before it fell into the open toilet and short-circuited forever.

  It didn’t mean anything, that Raphael’s phone numbers were disconnected.

  He’d smashed his old phone in Paris, so that number was probably gone. Rogue Security had probably nuked it when it had become apparent he was on the run.

  Valerian Mirabaud and the Russian bratva guards had taken the pawn shop phone, so they’d probably mined it for data and then disconnected it. That made sense. They wouldn’t have wanted him to have access to that communication channel if he had escaped.

  When he had escaped. Not if, Flicka told herself.

  She forced herself to believe that Raphael was out there somewhere, that he wasn’t lying dead in a shallow grave somewhere near Geneva after being shot in the head in the warehouse two nights ago.

  The world seemed very lonely, and she desperately wanted to wake Alina from her nap and hug her.

  Flicka braced her arms on the vanity counter in the bathroom and stared into her own dark green eyes, deciding whom to call next.

  Everyone knew she was in Monaco by now, as the palace’s PR department had slapped the selfie picture of her and Pierre onto her social media outlets later that same day.

  Her older brother Wulfram, the man who had raised her from the time she was six and he was fifteen, would have surely seen the picture and would be frantic to get in touch with her. Frantic in his own way under his steely Hannover facade, which would be imperceptible to just about everyone else. His wife Rae would probably notice something was amiss.

  However, the PR department had commandeered Flicka’s phone, and the palace was evidently intercepting her phone calls. The lack of a call from Wulfie was ample evidence that the palace wasn’t allowing her to take phone calls.

  She wanted to call him. She wanted to hear his deep voice and slightly Swiss-German accent telling her it would be all right and that he would come and get her.

  Pierre’s threat from months before—that he had a spy in Wulfie’s private security force and would order them to hurt or kill Wulf, Rae, or the baby—haunted her.

  It might not be true.

  She couldn’t risk that it was.

  So, she didn’t call her Wulfie, though she missed him so very much.

  But she was holding a phone.

  She had communication freedom for a little while, right up until they figured out she had it.

  Who next?

  Her next call was to the person she thought would be most likely and able to help her, if he could. Maxence Grimaldi was Pierre’s younger brother and the second in line for Monaco’s throne. He should have some clout around the Prince’s Palace. Surely he could help her get the hell out.

  The voice mailbox picked up the call, stating that his inbox was full and could not accept any more messages.

  A text to him returned to the phone, tagged as undeliverable.

  He had probably gone back to the far reaches of Africa, where her calls couldn’t reach him.

  She checked Max’s meager social media by logging in through Pierre’s apps, where she saw that Max’s private accounts had only a few friends, mostly men wearing Roman collars or people whose jobs were described as “International Aid Worker” or “Humanitarian Relief.” Max hadn’t posted or interacted with anyone for months.

  So, Max was out.

  Flicka sucked in a deep breath and dialed the phone number for Christine Grimaldi, her old friend from school and music and Pierre’s cousin, which meant Christine was fourth in line for the throne. Flicka readied herself to whisper-shout, “Christine-baby!” when Christine answered the call, but she had to do it quietly because someone might overhear and take the phone away from her.

  Christine’s voicemail picked up, stating that her inbox was full and was not accepting more messages. A text to her was also undeliverable.

  Dang it, didn’t any of these Grimaldi ever forward their phones when they left Europe? Christine was a violinist with the Monaco Philharmonic, and Flicka did remember hearing that they were performing in Canada that night. Surely, the Monaco Phil would be playing at the Prince’s Winter Ball in a few days, which would be held whether or not Prince Rainer IV was dead by then. The Prince’s Winter Ball was an important social event, attended by billionaires and heads of state who were heavily invested in Monaco. Christine would have to be back for that. As a noble herself, and indeed fourth in line for the throne, Lady Christine Grimaldi would be expected to attend.

  Who else?

  Desperate times called for desperate measures.

  She dialed, and the phone rang, but Christine’s older brother Alexandre Grimaldi didn’t pick up, either.

  That was probably for the best.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like Alex. She did. They’d been close friends as children at Le Rosey together. They’d spent a lot of time in cars together, being driven to music lessons.

  But as Alexandre had become older and more damaged, he began to scare her. He scared everyone.

  Flicka had been the closest thing to a witness, the first time he’d killed someone. She’d had to testify that she’d seen him covered with blood and trying to commit suicide by snow.

  Flicka stared at the phone and then tried several of her other friends: Georgie Johnson (who had not changed her name when she’d married Alexandre Grimaldi), Josephine Alexandrovna, and Kira of Prussia were all out of the country or somehow unavailable.

  Flicka called a local restaurant to check whether Pierre’s phone was working at all, but the restaurant picked up their damn phone.

  She considered ordering a triple order of chocolate mousse for delivery but did not. Mariah would find out somehow and assign her a thousand squats or something at their next pre-dawn workout.

  Flicka methodically deleted all traces that she had used the phone, wiping away texts and call records to everyone. She used a towel to rub her fingerprints off the screen and case.

  Later that day, she would sneak it back into Pierre’s office, so it would look as if she’d never had access to it. Bodyguards were much easier to slip past if they think you’re not planning anything.

  After Alina’s nap, Flicka informed palace security and housekeeping that she wished to be moved to the Princess Grace suite, a lovely set of rooms that overlooked the swimming pool. Its most important feature was that it had two bedrooms, so Alina could have her own room and feel secure enough to, hopefully, sleep in her own bed instead of in Flicka’s.

  The child kicked like a ninja in her sleep. She’d never even heard of children doing that. Children were supposed to sleep like angels in repose, right?

  The deep bruise on Flicka’s ribs suggested otherwise.

  Walkabout

  Flicka von Hannover

  Damn it, I was supposed to be good at this.

  Flicka held Alina’s hands and strolled the corridors of the Prince’s Palace in Monaco. Much of the building had been renovated since the medieval days when it had been built, and the hallways were as modern as any English or German castle that had been brought up to code.

  Alina’s baby fingers were soft as she toddled along beside Flicka’s leg, stuffing a cookie into her mouth with her other hand.

  The child ate a lot of cookies, but Flicka figured that Alina was a tad young to be watching her carbs and they could break that cookie habit sometime when they weren’t in mortal danger.

  Men wearing black suits—suit jackets that were boxy under the arms and cut longer on the sides—followed them. Every now and then, Flicka could hear one of them mutter into a radio.

  She swung Alina up to her hip and walked faster through the palace
. Alina dropped cookie crumbs down Flicka’s shirt that lodged in her bra.

  As a teenager, she’d stayed here during school and college vacations with her friend Christine Grimaldi, who was Pierre’s first cousin. These corridors were familiar to her, in that way where she should be able to find her way out if she just remembered hard enough. Compared to Kensington Palace or Schloss Marienburg, the Prince’s Palace of Monaco wasn’t even that big.

  Every time she turned a corner, the white hallways looked wrong. The staff stared at her suspiciously as she trotted, carrying Alina.

  Ahead, the hallway brightened as if sunlight was finding its way in down there.

  She must be close to an exit.

  If she could get out of the palace, she could lose herself in the crowds that thronged the headlands of Monaco. She could run across Monaco if she needed to in twenty minutes or so, even carrying Alina.

  Just as she neared what must be a door or nearly a doorway to the outside, one of the Secret Service agents took her elbow. “Your Highness, if you would follow me back to your suite, please.”

  “No, I just wanted to go this way,” she said, pointing toward the sunlight and freedom.

  “You aren’t supposed to stray into this area of the palace,” he said. “It’s for your own protection. You must have gotten lost.”

  Funeral

  Flicka von Hannover

  Monaco wept.

  Flicka walked down the Rue Colonel Bellando de Castro street in the cool Mediterranean sunshine, wearing a long-sleeved black coat over her matching dress. The breeze picked at the long, black veil she wore over her hair, blowing the gossamer fabric against Pierre’s arm as he walked beside her. He wore a black morning coat and vest over dark gray pants and no honors, no sashes or medals, just one signet ring on his right hand.

  Ahead of them, eight priests wearing violet vestments over their black robes acted as pallbearers and carried the casket bearing Prince Rainier IV on their shoulders. The red and white flag of Monaco fluttered over the casket, though it was sturdily pinned to the enameled box.

  As they left the Prince’s Palace, they passed the statue of Pierre’s ancestor François Grimaldi, dressed as a monk and wielding a long knife, a reminder that the Grimaldi took the fortress by treachery and not in noble conquest.

  On the rooftop of the Prince’s Palace, uniformed army soldiers were bolting new weapons to the fortress’s walls.

  As it was just before noon, the sun was directly overhead. Its harsh rays shone down, heating her scalp through the veil she wore over her hair. The tall, antique buildings crowding the avenue threw no shadows. Flicka looked up from where they walked on the street winding through the bottom of the canyon of buildings.

  People crowded the balconies and curbs. All six thousand Monegasque citizens had walked through the tiny streets of Monaco and climbed the headlands to the medieval city of Monaco Ville for the funeral.

  Their wails filled the air, lamentations and choked sobs.

  Flowers—bouquets and memorial wreaths and flowers cut from gardens—lined the sidewalks and street, an overwhelming display of grief. Their sickly-sweet scent overpowered even the scent of the Mediterranean Sea, crashing against the cliff face far below where she walked.

  Pierre’s cousins of several degrees and dozens of royalty from all over the world walked behind Flicka and Pierre as they plodded through the streets of the old city of Monaco Ville. Many royals had already been in and around Monaco, soaking up the sun and anticipating the Prince’s Winter Ball to be held in a few days. Rainier IV’s death had been at a convenient time for them, and so his funeral was well-attended. Everyone traveled with an all-black ensemble, anyway, just in case.

  The route from the Prince’s Palace to the Cathedral of Monaco—the church also known as the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-Immaculée and the Saint Nicholas Cathedral—would only take about five minutes to walk, even at this somber pace. Red brick sidewalks bordered the black asphalt, one of the few streets where cars could normally drive in the Old City. Beyond the grove of trees that bordered the sidewalk, a stone wall saved wanderers from plunging hundreds of feet down the sheer cliff face to the sapphire Mediterranean Sea and yacht slips below.

  On the side streets, the crowd behind the barricades sobbed as the funeral procession passed, and it seemed to Flicka that all of Monaco screamed with pain the whole time they walked with Rainer’s casket, a constant, unwavering cry of loss for what felt like hours. Prince Rainier IV had been very popular, increasing everything about his country: its status, its services to its citizens, its wealth base, and through land reclamation projects, its very size. Monaco Ville mourned for the elderly prince who had led them into the twenty-first century so well.

  Never mind that Flicka suspected Rainier had tried to have her killed at her wedding to Pierre. When that shot rang out across Paris, when Dieter had shoved her to the ground and shielded her with his own body, when the bullet had punched into his flesh instead of hers, someone had ordered it.

  It made no sense to her that Rainier would do such a thing. On paper, Flicka was the perfect princess for Monaco. Rainier must have supported the match or else Pierre wouldn’t have pursued her so diligently for over a year, and then they had been engaged for another year to plan the wedding. She didn’t understand, and now she might never know for sure.

  The funeral procession walked slowly through the bright, screaming streets of Monaco.

  There was one notable absence in the parade of black-clad people trailing the flag-draped coffin: Prince Maxence Grimaldi, second in line for the throne after his older brother Pierre. The palace admins had fluttered around for days—calling, emailing, texting, PMing, DMing, and telegraphing, but no one had managed to contact him. Someone had suggested a carrier pigeon, but no one knew how to send one. None of them were sure that Max even knew Rainier had died, let alone when the funeral was.

  Flicka was surprised to see Pierre’s cousin and third in line for the throne, Alexandre Grimaldi, was in attendance. His blond hair was bound at the nape of his neck in a ponytail, and in that black, conservative suit, he looked less like a rock star than she had ever seen him.

  His wife and one of Flicka’s oldest friends, Georgiana Johnson, walked with him. Georgie was thinner than Flicka remembered, and Georgie kept watching Flicka, trying to catch her eye. Georgie even tried to dart through the crowd toward her at one point, but one of Pierre’s Secret Service men discreetly stepped between the two of them and ushered Georgie back to her place in the cortege.

  On Alexandre’s other side walked his sister Christine Grimaldi, wearing a high-necked black dress and veil. Red rimmed her eyes, and the Secret Service thwarted her attempts to push through their line to Flicka, too.

  Alina had stayed in their suite at the palace with nannies who were doubtlessly plying her with cookies to come out from under the bed in her new bedroom. Flicka had lain flat on the floor before she left, holding Alina’s small hand where she was cowering under the bed, and explained that she had to go and would be back. She’d told Alina to come out if she could, but to hold on, to endure, because Flicka would come back to her.

  Flicka endured the funeral procession and prayed for Raphael to rescue her.

  She believed Raphael still lived. She clung to that belief.

  The procession passed Monaco’s small courthouse where weeks ago, Flicka’s divorce from Pierre had been declared invalid, trapping her in this sham of a marriage. At the sharp corner, two staircases curved and met at a small balcony above.

  Across the intersection from the courthouse lay the Cathedral of Monaco, where Pierre’s grandfather, Rainier the Third, had married the American movie star, Grace Kelly.

  In the crypt within the church, Pierre’s aunt had already lain in her grave for twenty years, waiting for her husband to finally join her.

  Wide, white steps curved around the cathedral’s entrance. Flicka delicately climbed the stairs to enter the church for the funeral.

  Pierr
e’s security men stood on the steps, watching the procession and the crowd behind the barricades on the side streets.

  One of the Secret Service agents was watching Flicka instead of surveying the crowd.

  She glanced at the man, and her eyes caught his.

  His eyes were ice blue, and his hair was dark. Most people in Monaco were at least somewhat tanned by the Mediterranean sun, but this man’s skin was Scandinavian-pale.

  His name was Magnus Jensen, she remembered, and he was the man who had asked no questions while he had driven her and Dieter from a hidden parking lot in Geneva to the train station.

  Magnus looked away, and Flicka allowed her eyes to scan across the crowd as if she hadn’t recognized him.

  Raphael, or Dieter, her Lieblingwächter, had told her that even if he were dead, he would save her, and he would send Magnus Jensen to do it.

  And Magnus Jensen was there.

  Her black high-heeled pump caught on the stone step of the cathedral, and she stumbled.

  Pierre caught her arm, steadying her.

  Flicka held her head high and walked into the cathedral.

  The tears in her eyes were perfectly natural at a funeral, and later, the world’s media thought it wonderful and so human that she had expressed her grief at the passing of Prince Rainier IV with tears.

  Flicka dipped and genuflected as they entered the front row of ornate armchairs, each upholstered in gray velvet, walking sideways between the seats and the kneelers before them. Pierre did the same. Secret Service agents filled the row on both sides and the whole row of seats behind them, too. Quentin Sault stood in the row behind them, three people over from Flicka. No one sat yet.

  In the third row, behind the black-suited men, Georgie Johnson craned her neck and bobbed her head like she was standing on her toes. Her husband, Alexandre Grimaldi, stood beside her, his dark eyes focused on Flicka like he was trying to send a message with laser beams from his eyes.