Page 100 of Happily Ever After

Catching Up #2

Flicka von Hannover

OMG.

The emails.

“Shit,” Dieter said, staring at a phone in his hand.

Flicka looked up from the computer she’d borrowed from her father. “What?”

Dieter scowled at his phone, and his lip rose in a snarl.

Flicka hadn’t gone on social media to watch the hubbub she’d created with that livestream that morning. Fielding overdue emailshad taken the entire morning and continued past lunch. No one had allowed her access to a computer or even regular use of a phone formonthswhen they’d been in hiding in Las Vegas and then held captive in Geneva and Monaco. Things had happened that she couldn’t even fathom. Plus, hundreds of routine emails had to be deleted.

And, of course, thousands of missives from worried friends stuffedher inbox, asking what that livestream was about, where she was after the Winter Ball, why the Hell she hadn’t called anyone if she were actually in Monaco, why she hadn’t replied at all to anyone or posted on social media, where she went after Las Vegas, why all those soldiers had been after her, why she hadn’t replied, where was she, and why had she been so quiet lately?

Scrolling down throughthe older and older emails was like rolling back the days, walking backward from captivity and anticipated sexual slavery in Monaco to being held hostage in Geneva to the kidnapping at the Las Vegas courthouse to her disappearance after Wulfram’s wedding in Montreux.

It felt like rewinding years instead of just a few months.

Reading through the emails, a few stuck out. The heartfelt pleadingsfrom Rae Stone, Christine Grimaldi, and Georgie Johnson—begging her to call them, to make contact somehow—required immediate replies, apologies, and promises of visits and meals.

And now, Dieter had seen something on his rig that he didn’t like.

She asked again, “Dieter? What is it?”

“The German police are here. They’ve contacted theWelfenlegionsecurity contact, and now they’re directly outside.”

“We just won’t let them in.”

Dieter shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”

“Sure, it is. What are they going to do, storm the castle?”

His scowl deepened. “They have a warrant for your arrest.”

Panic flashed through her.“What!Leaving Pierre isn’t a crime.”

“Accomplice to attempted murder. Evidently, they have a bunch of other fill-in-the-blank arrest warrants for anyone else who was therethat night for attempted murder and accomplice.”

“We won’t tell them who else was there.”

“There were surveillance cameras, and they have hard copy shots from the footage. They will be matching faces.

“But you wererescuingme!”

“And maybe a judge will take that into consideration, and maybe they won’t. The security business has drawbacks.”

“We just won’t let them in, then. We’ll take youand anyone else out of here via a helicopter to Switzerland, and then fly you somewhere they can’t get you.”

“Pretty much anywhere I’d choose to live has an extradition treaty with Germany, and Rogue Security needs me as an operator. We have to face this.”

“Damn Pierre for doing this.”

“I’ll call Rogue Security’s lawyers.”

“And I’ll call mine.” As she was picking up her phone, a new emailat the top of her long, long inbox caught her eye, fromPierre Monaco.“Shit.”