Page 32 of Happily Ever After

“The bawbags added machine gun nests and spotlights to the top o’ the palace as if they think helicopters will swoop in and attack them in the dead o’ the night. No one would be daft enough to engage in a full-frontal attack against a bloody fortress. It’ll be a cold day in Hell before the Rogues’d do something so spectacularly doaty.”

Oh.

The palace had gotten wind of Raphael’s first stupidplan, the one he’d discussed aboard von Hannover’s plane.

Dammit.

First, this essentially confirmed that Monaco had bought or blackmailed one of theWelfenlegion,and now a spy resided in the ranks that would relay any plans to Pierre or Quentin Sault. Previously, this turncoat possibly might have threatened Wulf von Hannover or his family if Flicka tried to escape or was liberated, but theyhad been with Raphael on the plane.

Raphael’s only solace was that he had narrowed down who the spy was, and thus Rae and the baby Victoria Augusta were now safe.

As soon as Raphael dumped Wulfram von Hannover’s ass back on the plane and shuttled him back to the Southwestern US, he’d be safe, too.

Raphael could fish out the spy and take care of them. He was damned confident of that.

A listof suspects on that plane wove through Raphael’s head, each one more trusted than the last. Luca Wyss, Friedhelm Vonlanthen, and Julien Bodilsen had flown with them. Raphael would have bet every last cent he had that those guys were trustworthy.

He didn’t like Friedhelm’s nervous sweat, maybe indicative of divided loyalties.

Luca Wyss had been as devil-may-care as always, but maybe he’d beentoo damned pessimistic about the outcome of the operation, maybe because he was a little too familiar with the palace’s fortifications.

Julien Bodilsen had seemed too interested in other divisions of Rogue Security that would be part of the operation, like he might have been gathering information.

And there had been fifteen or so other guys on that plane, all of whom were now suspects.

So,what had turned one of them, bribery or blackmail?

Judas had been bribed to betray Jesus with thirty pieces of silver.

During the Revolutionary War, the American general Benedict Arnold had been promised twenty thousand American dollars by the British, which is somewhere around three million bucks in modern cash, to betray his country.

Anyone could be bought with enough money, it was said.

How much money would it take to betray your friends, your country, and every ideal you’d ever been taught?

Three million?

Three billion?

Could a prince pay you enough money to do that?

How about if a Russian bratva threatened your child? What would you do, then?

A small part of Raphael’s mind snarled that Dieter Schwarz couldn’t have been bought at any price. Dieter Schwarz was as pure asalpine ice, a crystal-clear, shining paragon of men, but Raphael Mirabaud had killed him.

It didn’t matter, really, who had paid the traitor in theWelfenlegionor how much money it had been.

The only thing that mattered was figuring out who the traitor was and how to keep them from handing over any more information to the enemy.

The reckoning could wait.

Raphael’s primary problem was thatthere had been too many suspects on that plane. He couldn’t leave them all out of the operation to rescue Flicka, whatever that would be. There just hadn’t been time to think up twenty asinine and yet mutually exclusive plans.

Raphael asked Aiden, “Any other new defenses going up?”

“Nope, not that I saw from my wanderings about the castle or the gossiping of the laddies. Parts of the Prince’sPalace remind me of Edinburgh Castle, eh?”

“They’re both medieval, but I’ve never attacked Edinburgh Castle,” Raphael grumbled.