Page 71 of In A Faraway Land

The Mousetrap

Dieter Schwarz

To catch the conscience of a king.

Or a spy.

Dieter leaned forward, typing a text into his phone as the ride-share car turned the corner and rocked him sideways.

Surely Flicka and Alina would be all right. Babysitting wasn’t as bad as she was making it out to be. He parented Alina all the time. She was an easy toddler.

He’d been tryingto leave the townhouse because Wulf, Theo, and Noah had made it clear they had a half-hour window to stage this odd Mousetrap play that they had cooked up.

The plan was to accuse one of theWelfenlegionof being a mole planted by Grimaldi and Monaco.

There was, of course, no mole. A mole was a spy who had always been an enemy and had sneaked into the organization.

There was, probably, a traitorwho had been bribed well after he had been hired. If Flicka contacted Wulf for help, Pierre had said that he would order the traitor to kill Wulf and Rae, and thus their unborn child.

For that charade, Noah would attack. Theo would be the wingman.

During the confrontation, Dieter would watch for the wrong reaction in the other guys.

He didn’t like it. He needed to be in the damn room with thoseguys to accurately evaluate their responses.

Besides, Dieter hadn’t noticed that his own damn wife, Gretchen, had been cheating on him and planning to run off with another guy while she stole millions from his business. Evidently, Dieter couldn’t see jack shit. He did not know why Theo and Wulf thought that he, of all people, could magically detect a traitor in their midst over a damn computermonitor.

And then there was the matter of motivation.

If Dieter did manage to smoke out the traitor, Flicka might be able to stay at Wulf’s house after her divorce was filed. Dieter would be able to return to Rogue Security and lead his quiet life with Alina and her babysitters.

He drew a deep breath while the driver sped the car down the freeway that led out of Las Vegas, toward red bouldersand the golden desert under the wide, cloudless sky.

So, if this went right, he could essentially lose Flicka.

Now why would he want to do that?

But for her sake, he had to do his best. She would be safer with Wulfram and an intactWelfenlegionaround her. Rogue Security could provide additional services, so he could probably see her.

But he wouldn’t be able to touch her.

And he wouldn’tbe able to sleep next to her.

But she would be safer.

Well, she would have more security layers, but Pierre would know that she was in Wulfram’s house. He would have her exact location.

So, would that really be safer?

Besides, Flicka was enjoying her job as a bartender. Every time he looked over at her while she was working, she was grinning or talking to someone and gesturing with earnestenthusiasm at the liquor shelves behind her. She came home giddy with people-love.

The only time he’d seen Flicka that happy was when she’d pulled off a particularly good charity benefit.

Actually, she was even happier after one of those, but bartending was a close second. And she bartended every day. She could only stage a few enormous charity events per year.

He had to note, she had onlybeen working at the Silver Horseshoe for a few weeks, and she was running the place. Plus, it was thriving. Even from his poker table, he could detect the increased energy among all the staff and the patrons, and the crowd had thickened in the bar and the gaming area.

Seeing her smile made him happy.