Two of the guys were Welfenlegion from Wulf’s personal detail. She’d known them for years because Dieter had hired them when Wulfie had lived in Chicago. Dieter had pretty much raided Switzerland for ex-ARD-10 commandos when he’d set up Wulf’s private army, and he’d hired the rest of the world’s unemployed SEALs, Army Rangers, and special ops people when he’d started Rogue Security, plus stolen a few from their national militaries.
Luca Wyss, a Swiss Welfenlegion operator who seemed carved from caramel oak and honey, stood beside her.
Friedhelm Vonlanthen, also Welfenlegion, stood on her other side, his dark eyes restlessly roaming the room.
Rogue Security operators had arrived, too, and Dieter had tasked some of them with this bodyguard duty. Magnus Jenson, whose ice-blue eyes had followed Flicka around Monaco, and Aiden Grier, who might have been a Scotsman or a native Monegasque and thus a spy, considering the extraordinary ease with which he’d spoken Monaco’s dialect of Italian, stood behind her.
The back of her neck prickled.
Aaron Savoie, who had driven them around Paris and had the saddest eyes Flicka had ever seen, stood behind Dieter. His breath was so slow and easy that he might have been sleeping on his feet with his eyes open, while Flicka’s heart pounded in her chest at the thought that this meeting might go terribly wrong.
The door ahead of them from the hallway pushed open.
Flicka drew herself to sitting with very straight and regal posture, her butt barely touching the chair. She’d had training in perfect manners her whole life. In a world of faux celebutantes and banal social media influencers, she was a consummate princess.
The men around her tensed and stood straighter. Their hands dangled at their sides, twitching near their holsters on their hips.
Prince Pierre Grimaldi of Monaco and Quentin Sault strode in.
Four German police officers in black uniforms and smart hats walked in behind them, looking around at the palace’s sitting room. One held a sheaf of paperwork.
Quentin took one look at the strike force surrounding Flicka and stepped in front of Pierre, pushing him back. His hand snapped to his sidearm.
Flicka said, “Come in. They’re for my protection, not to kidnap you.”
Quentin said to her, “This wasn’t the bargain. There’s supposed to be one guy, each.”
The police had stepped back, their hands also hovering over their weapons.
Flicka said, “I haven’t taken you prisoner and tried to enslave you. As long as we talk and you leave peacefully, no one is in any danger. Besides, you have four police officers around you.”
Quentin shook his head. “Not on these terms. Your Highness, Pierre, out, now.”
Pierre strolled around Quentin, his hands nonchalantly shoved in his pockets. “Oh, Quentin. You’re such a worrywart. We’re just here to talk.”
His hand in his pants pocket twitched, not like he was adjusting his dick, but like he was clicking something.
Flicka said to Dieter, “He has something in his pocket.”
Dieter drew his handgun from the holster and moved his leg back, glaring over the sights at Quentin and Pierre. Dieter and Friedhelm Vonlanthen closed ranks in front of her, shielding her as they pointed their guns at Pierre, but she craned her neck to see between them.
The rest of the Welfenlegion and Rogue Security guys aimed their sidearms at Quentin and Pierre.
The police drew their guns and scattered to the furniture, aiming around the chairs.
Dieter shouted at Pierre, “Throw it on the floor, now!”
Pierre saw Flicka peeking through her guards, looked right at her, and smiled.
The distinctive throb of a hovering helicopter thrummed through the room.
The tall windows on their left exploded inward, spraying the room with shattered glass.
Flicka covered her head as cutting shards showered them.
Her bodyguards pounced on her, forming a tight shell around her.
“Get off!” She managed to look through shifting gaps in the arms and bodies surrounding her as they leaned over the chair where she sat.
Men in riot gear swung from ropes through the jagged glass and into the room.
The Welfenlegion and Rogues already had their weapons at the ready, while the invaders were hanging onto their ropes with both hands, even though their hands should have been free because they were wearing harnesses and rappelling gear.
Dieter yelled, “Hands up! Hands up!” and moved toward the Monegasque commandos.
The German police had their weapons clutched in front of themselves, too, and were yelling the same thing in three different languages.
Pierre yelled, “They’re with me! They’re mine!”
One police officer spun and held her gun outstretched at him. “You do not bring a foreign army to German soil and invade a German historical landmark! Hands up!”
Pierre raised his hands, his dark eyes wide.
Flicka pushed Luca Wyss off of herself despite his protesting, “Your Highness!” as she shoved. She yelled, “Weapons down! Everyone, right now! Lower your weapons!”
When Luca finally, grudgingly, shifted aside and let her stand up, she surveyed the silent situation from inside her fence of strong, male bodies.
More than twenty people were aiming weapons at each other in a crazy crossfire, their wild eyes gauging the intent of the person they were covering and the people with guns trained at them. Their chests rose and fell under their shirts or body armor as they sucked air and whooshed it out, adrenaline hyping them as they fought to assess whether they were about to die in a maelstrom of bullets. Their fingers squeezed the guns’ triggers, some half-pulled, almost to the breakpoint.
To her left, Dieter had his gun centered on Pierre’s face, his head tilted as he glared over the sights. The heavy muscles in his forearms bulged as he squeezed the grip.
Quentin Sault aimed his weapon straight at Dieter, his jaw clenched and his mouth set in a grim line.
The Welfenlegion aimed at the Monegasques, the Rogues aimed at the police, the police aimed at the invaders, and the Monegasques aimed at everybody.
If any one person shot another, everyone in that room was going to die.
“Okay,” Flicka said, keeping her voice low and calm, speaking in German, “Fingers off your triggers, and everybody except the police will lower their weapons when I say three.”
She repeated it in the Monegasque language and then counted to three in English, holding up her fingers as she counted.
Around her, the bodyguards and commandos gingerly lowered their weapons, flinching as they watched to make sure everyone else followed suit.
Dieter and Quentin both allowed their weapons to drift down, but they still stared at each other.
“Good,” Flicka said, watching everyone. “Now everyone puts their handguns in their holsters, and rifles will be slung by the straps over your backs, except the police.” She counted to three again.
The soldiers and mercenaries reluctantly secured their weapons.
“And now the police will holster their sidearms,” she said. “One, two, three.”
The police moved slowly, sliding their guns into their holsters while watching the heavily armed crowd.
Flicka exhaled and leaned over, bracing herself on her knees. “And it’s over.”
Pierre said, “This would never have happened if you hadn’t had a bunch of mercenaries around you.”
“Don’t gaslight me, Pierre. Your commandos invaded my home. Obviously, you planned it, all along. I knew you’d pull something like this. You were going to kidnap me again. Hell, you might have been trying to kill me again.”
“Kill you?” The rise in Pierre’s deep voice sounded genuinely dismayed. “Again? I’ve never tried to kill you.”
“At least twice,” Flicka said.
“Never.”
“When you had your hands around my throat and damn near choked me to death.”
“I’ve explained that.
I’ve apologized for that.”
Didn’t mean it didn’t happen. “And at Wulfram’s wedding in Paris, when a sniper shot at me, and your Secret Service left me high and dry.”
Pierre held his hands up and open. “I didn’t order that. I swear. I didn’t even know about it until afterward.”
Flicka stared at him, and she refrained from gasping. “Who ordered it?”
“My uncle, Rainier. I thought you knew this.”
“No. Why the hell would he try to kill me? I thought he liked that the Grimaldi had finally captured a Hannover princess.”
Pierre sighed and glanced out the windows. “I’m convinced that several of his bad decisions were precursors of the stroke, that he was having neurological symptoms months before the actual event.”
“He hated me because his brain was bleeding?”
“Not you. He always liked you, and he liked what you were.” Pierre said. “Me. He hated me. He was trying to disinherit me. Once he found out about Abigai and our children, he was absolutely convinced I was unsuitable and would ruin Monaco.”
“If the sniper was shooting at you, he was a lousy shot. Your uncle should hire better assassins.”
“The shot was supposed to wing you, not kill you. When the Secret Service took off and left you there—which Rainier also ordered, not me—he thought you would divorce me. It all comes down to divorce and the Church, yet again.”
“It sure as hell does, Pierre. Now get out, and take your military that can’t even properly assault a two-hundred-year-old party castle with you.”
“We need to talk,” Pierre told her.
Flicka shook her head. “No, we don’t.”
“Flicka, I beg you—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“The police still have arrest warrants.”
Flicka raised her head and spoke to the officer nearest to her. “He’s blackmailing me with those warrants. He said he’ll withdraw them if I do what he wants.”
The officer scratched her head and said to Pierre, “Mr. Grimaldi, if you’ve made these accusations in bad faith, there are consequences.”
“I’m the sovereign head of a country—” he started.
Flicka said, “The Council of Nobles hasn’t confirmed you yet. There is no current Prince of Monaco.”
“—and Monaco has the right to ask any EU country for law-enforcement help, no matter what you think of the request.”
The police officer pressed her lips together. “Yes, but we might not get to your request for a while. Paperwork piles up, you know. It might take months.”
Pierre said to the police, “I demand that you arrest all these men,” he gestured at the Welfenlegion and Rogue Security personnel around Flicka, “for kidnapping Her Highness Flicka von Hannover. Charges are pending against them in Monaco.”
“Jesus Christ, Pierre.” Flicka straightened and spoke to the police. “I wasn’t kidnapped that night. Pierre had kidnapped me. He was keeping me from leaving the Prince’s Palace in Monaco. These people rescued me. I went with them willingly to escape.”
The door opened at the back of the room, past Pierre and Quentin Sault.
Everyone turned, hands hovering near guns once again.
Dieter stepped in front of her again, his arm shoving her behind him.
Flicka stumbled but regained her footing. She leaned her forehead on Dieter’s broad back, breathing in his warm scent of cinnamon and clean musk for just a moment.
Her father, Phillipp von Hannover, marched into the room. “I demand to know the meaning of this! What the hell is happening in my castle!”
“Oh, Jesus, as if this couldn’t get any worse,” Flicka groaned. She stepped around Dieter, who settled a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Father, please. Do us all a favor and wait outside.”
Phillipp shouted, “I have every right to know what is going on in my castle!”
Her father had emphasized the words my castle twice now. Flicka would have to warn Wulfram that their father was attempting to squat in Schloss Marienburg. “Father, please. We’ve only just averted a massacre in here. Everyone will leave in a few minutes. We’re done talking.”
Pierre told Phillipp, “I’m here to take Flicka home.”
“Over my dead body, you rat bastard,” Phillipp snarled.
Pierre’s eyes widened in honest shock. “What did you call me?”
Flicka waved to divert their attention. “Pierre, it’s time for you to leave. It’s time for everyone to leave.”
Dieter’s hand was warm on her shoulder, though she knew it was also there so he could shove her behind himself if anything went sideways.
“Flicka,” Pierre said, glancing back at her father with a disturbed look on his face, “I need to talk to you. If we talk, no matter what the outcome, I will leave you alone. I promise. I will withdraw all the arrest warrants, including the one for you.”
“What the hell did I do?”
“Attempted murder of several of my Secret Service agents.” His tight smile was smug.
“I didn’t shoot anyone.”
“Accomplices to a crime can be charged.”
She turned to the police officer. “You see, he’s using trumped-up charges to control me.”
The police officer’s jaw bulged where she was grinding her teeth. “Mr. Grimaldi, you will not be allowed to manipulate the German legal system.”
“Flicka.” Pierre held out one hand, imploring her. “Let’s just talk, alone, in quiet, without all these people meddling. All this arguing is from other people barging in on what could be a quiet, calm talk.”
She couldn’t keep herself from rolling her eyes.
“I’ll tell my men to leave the castle and the grounds, if you do the same.”
“Yours, first,” she said. “You do know that my guards are only for my safety.”
Pierre nodded to the commandos who still stood by the windows, their rifles slung over their backs with straps. “Men, out of the castle and off the grounds. Have the vehicles rendezvous in Hildesheim,” the nearest town, about ten miles away, “and wait for Quentin and myself there.”
Behind Pierre, Quentin Sault nodded sharply at the Monegasque soldiers.
The men arranged themselves in lines and filed past Pierre and her father, glancing at the situation and the gilded crown moulding of the sitting room as they left.
Flicka said, “All right, Friedhelm, Luca, you guys can leave, too.”
Dieter said, “I don’t think that’s advisable.”
Flicka pivoted under his arm to face him. “You’ll stay. You and Quentin will stay. Pierre and I will have this conversation so that he will leave me alone, so you and I can live our lives in peace.”
Dieter’s thumb caressed the side of her neck. “Durchlauchtig, you need more protection.”
She turned her head to look at her ex-husband, standing over by the door, rocking back on his heels like this was just a damn game to him. “This is how we want it, right, Pierre? Just the two of us, with one person each for back-up, and we’ll talk. I knew you’d try something, so I had to defend myself, but let’s do this the right way: quietly, like adults.”
Pierre nodded. “Like adults.”
Without looking away from her, Dieter turned his chin to speak to the Welfenlegion and Rogues. “Exit the room but remain outside. Standard communication channels.”
Her bodyguards filed out, leaving just Flicka, Pierre, Quentin and Dieter, and the police officers.
Flicka said, “Pierre, don’t you have something to say to the police?”
Pierre said to the officers, “Monaco officially withdraws the arrest warrants for Flicka von Hannover and all accomplices. This is now a private matter.”
The police officer said to him, “This is using law enforcement in bad faith. We will lodge a complaint.”
“You do that,” he told her.
The police officer turned and asked Flicka, “Do you feel unsafe? Would you like us to escort you to another p
lace or a shelter?”
“No, thank you,” Flicka said, smiling at the woman. She had a private army, after all. She probably didn’t need a women’s shelter, but she was glad it existed.
The police officer cocked her head and looked at Flicka. “I’ve been a police officer for twenty years and I thought I’d seen every kind of domestic abuse on the planet, but this guy is a new level. Don’t go back to him. He will kill you in the end. They always do. It doesn’t matter if you’re a princess or a waitress, they always do.”
A chill settled over Flicka’s back.
The police officers left the room, slowly, the last one watching Flicka as she exited.
Only one person left to go.
Flicka said to Phillipp von Hannover, “Father, please wait outside. I’ll speak with you afterward.”
Her father walked over and occupied one of the silver chairs beside the coffee table. “This is my castle, and I’ll stay wherever I damn well want to.”
There was no use arguing with him. Flicka had learned this.
They might as well begin. “Pierre, say what you came here to tell me.”
He drew a deep breath and touched his chest. “Flicka, I love you—”
She didn’t even have to listen for the growl coming from Dieter, who stood behind her. The anger rising in him charged the hairs on the back of her neck.
“—and I am begging you to come home with me.” Pierre continued. “I’ll give up Abigai. I’ll never see her or contact her again. I’ll be faithful. I will never touch another woman or man as long as I live. I’ll be a perfect, model husband and father to our children. I am begging you to come home and be my wife and my princess.”
Flicka didn’t want to be Pierre’s princess.
She was already Dieter’s Durchlauchtig, and he’d never betrayed her.
She said, “No, Pierre. No. I’m not returning to Monaco. I have divorced you. The divorce is final.” She reached backward with her hand and found Dieter’s strong, warm hand right there, just as she knew he would be waiting to touch her and support her. “Our relationship is over, Pierre.”
“But I need you.” Pierre took one step toward her, glanced above her head, and didn’t come any closer.
Happily Ever After (Runaway Princess: Flicka, Book 5) Page 23
