Page 45 of Happily Ever After

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“Flicka called you Raphael.”

“I couldn’t tellanybody.”

“Alina’s last name isMirabaud.”

“I didn’t know the Ilyin Bratva was involved in human trafficking when I started running guns and drugs. I was a stupid kid. I was fifteen when I started small jobs for them.”

“All the Russian crime syndicates are involved in the foulest of crimes,” Wulfram said. “I went to school with some of their nextgeneration. Dima and Tatiana Butorin knew exactly what their parents were doing while they were planning to take over the business someday, even in high school.”

Raphael said,“I didn’t know.I contacted the police when the Ilyins showed us what they were doing with the girls, what they wanted us to fund. That day broke me. Itshatteredme. I became someone different that night. I went directlyto the police station to turn government informant. I wore hidden recording equipment and copied computer records. I did everything so the police could take them down.”

“You were one of them,” Wulfram said, “and all this time, you never told me.”

“I never told anyone,” Raphael said, holding Alina to his shoulder as she chewed his shirt a little. “The government gave me a new identity after theArchangel raids, the name Dieter Schwarz. The social services people wanted me to talk to a counselor, but I just wanted to enlist in the military and never think about the bank or the Ilyins again.”

“Your marriage certificate and divorce papers were in the file. You didn’t use the Schwarz name to marry Gretchen. I could have sworn that the priest called you Dieter.”

“He did. I asked him to,but my legal name was on the marriage license and Alina’s birth certificate. I was worried that I might die and Alina might need a kidney or bone marrow or something. She has cousins, quite a lot of cousins, but she might have needed to know who they were. I kept having these dreams, that I was dead and she was alone and didn’t know who she was. Afterward, everything felt wrong. Neither of the namesfelt right.”

Wulfram’s tone was, if anything, lighter, when he asked, “Which name did you use to marry my sister?”

Icy regret blew through Raphael. “I had to marry her right away. It was a ruse to make Pierre stay away from her.”

“It was just a ruse, then. You don’t love her. It was all a sham, just like your first marriage.”

“It wasn’t like that at all.”

“She loves you. I could see it inher eyes. She will be heartbroken when she finds out it was just ‘a ruse’ for you.”

“She’s everything to me, Wulfram. I’ve loved her for years.”

“How many years, exactly?” Wulfram asked, his blue eyes turning colder. “Just how young was she when you first took advantage of her?”

“It wasn’t like that. She wasn’t a child.”

“You were an adult. Even if she threw herself at you in some childish,virginal explorations, you should have said no. How old was she?”

“She was twenty,” Raphael admitted.

“And you were?”

“Thirty-one. Well, thirty.”

His voice didn’t rise. “Why is that?”

“I was still seventeen when I enlisted. I’m six months younger than I’ve been saying I am.”

“Six months doesn’t matter. You werea decadeolder than she was. She was a child, Dieter. She wasmychild, and Itrusted you to protect her and not to hurt her.”

“I should have told you. I should have asked your permission before I dated her or married her.”

Wulfram shook his head, perhaps even angrier. “I don’t own my sister or her body. These aren’t feudal times. If I had that kind of control over her, I would have locked her in a dungeon rather than let her marry that rat bastard Pierre Grimaldi. Iknew he was an asshole, though we were friends.” His voice lowered. “We used to be friends.” He looked at Dieter again, his blue eyes still bright with anger. “But you,I trusted you.I knew there was something about your past you were hiding all the way back in the barracks, but I didn’t pry. We were twenty years old, and I thought I knew you. I thought that if it was important, you would tellme. If you didn’t tell me, it must not be important. I thought we were brothers in arms and fellow soldiers and friends,real friends,so I trusted you like no other with my life and hers.”

Raphael said, “I did my job. I put my body and life on the line for you. I took care of you both. I took more than one bullet and knife blade meant for you and Flicka.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”