Page 61 of At Midnight

About the Money

Raphael Mirabaud

Sometimes, it isn’t.

Sometimes it is.

On the ride home, the car wound through the nearly empty streets of Geneva. It was after midnight, and they drove through the financial district toward the larger avenue that would take them around Lake Geneva to the Mirabaud estate.

The bright square of a streetlight ghosted through the car,illuminating Valerian’s pensive expression. He pressed his fingertips together in front of his chest and asked, “You incorporated your security company in Switzerland?”

Raphael knew what was coming. “The corporate tax rates are significantly better than in the U.S.”

“In which canton did you incorporate?” Cantons are the member-states of the Swiss Confederacy.

“Zug,” Raphael said.

“Of course.Zug has the lowest tax rates of all the cantons.”

“Yes.”

“Geneva Trust has a branch in Zug for that very reason.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“You must have had to deposit a significant sum in a Swiss bank to satisfy the requirements to incorporate here,” Valerian said.

“Yes.” Raphael looked out the car window at the dark city. Most of the buildings were black monoliths, looming in the night.

“Whichbank did you use?”

And there it was.

“Ladnier-Zern Trust,” he admitted.

Valerian touched his chest and grimaced as if in pain.

Sharp fire raced through Raphael, an urge from when he wore a hotter head.I couldn’t open an account at Geneva Trust, my father. You would have found me. You would have found a way to bring me back here, me and everyone I loved, and hold us all hostage to do yourdirty work or as a terrible gift for Piotr Ilyin. I’m still not sure I won’t find Alina’s and Flicka’s broken, bleeding bodies in your house, directly before one of these brutes puts a bullet in my head, except that Piotr Ilyin wants Rogue Security. Therefore, I will betray the men who trusted me so much that they left their jobs and their countries for Rogue Security. I have tried to prevent exactlythis scenario for years. It was why I left Flicka and broke both of us because I knew you would threaten her to get to me, and then you would kill us both.

Cool vapors trailed over Raphael’s skin.

Despite the paperwork that had lain on the supper table, he was no longer Dieter Schwarz, the honorable man built of alpine ice. Raphael hoped that Dieter Schwarz lay dead in an ice cave in the Alpssomewhere, because he would have been disgusted at what Raphael had become.

Raphael said, “It’s only thirty thousand Swiss francs, but we can certainly move the account if you think it’s worth it.”

“I do, indeed,” Valerian said.

Because it wasn’t just about the money.

Because it was about loyalty to the bank and the family.

Raphael had no loyalty to anyone except Flicka and Alina.