Page 80 of Once Upon A Time

Every damn day.

And yet, still, when both security teams broke formation for just a few seconds in the crowded hotel lobby and they couldn’t push their way through, I darted sideways through a cluster of talking people and around a corner.

I’m good at that. I can get away from anyone.

I’ve practiced my whole life.

After I gave them the slip, I met with the catering coordinator for more than three damn minutes to ascertain that suitable shrimp had been delivered that morning, that we had secured an alternate source of the problematic black truffles for the pheasant main course, and that the roses were indeed one-quarter opened.

Hallelujah.This reception might come off this evening as planned after all.

After that, I rounded up the cosmetics team by throwing out a mass text. We met in an alcove of the lobby to confirm the schedule for the bridesmaids’ and Rae’s hair, primary makeup application, and touch-ups. They had everything down pat and extra pots of all the necessary cosmetics. They had become a well-oiled machine.

Brilliant.

At three o’clock, four hours from now, Wulf’s wedding would begin, and it would be perfect.

By the sheer force of my willpower, I will make this wedding a spectacular success, even I have to bribe, threaten, or blackmail everyone in Montreux to do it. Wulfram deserves a perfect day.

He will remember every detail for the rest of his life.

Four more hours.

And then I will bend everyone to my will if that’s what needs to be done, and it will be perfect.

But, for those few moments of freedom, I walked along a sidewalk in Montreux that passed in front of the grand hotel that Wulfram’s security team had commandeered for the wedding, ambling toward the concert halls that filled for the jazz and classical festivals here in the summer and fall.

Across the road, a park velveted in summer green stretched toward Lake Geneva, and the scent of mown grass crested the two buzzing lanes of traffic in the street. Shops lined the ground-level of the hotel—a jazz cafe, a coffee place, a boutique—all with their snapdragon-yellow shades retracted for the morning. In the afternoon, these shops and the hotel looked like a yellow tent, sheltered from the summer sun.

Farther down the avenue, a church spire poked into the sky, and some of the concert venues threw glass glares into the street.

More traffic blew by, ruffling my trousers and hair.

Maybe I would stay for the classical music festival. It was supposed to be soon, right? A college friend Ling was supposed to play a piano concerto. I would love to see her again. And Christine Grimaldi, my old friend from school, said that she might play in a violin concerto with someone, too.

Maybe next year, when all the weddings had settled down, maybe I could go back to performing, too. No matter what Pierre thinks, I won’t give up music. His family had forced Grace Kelly to give up her career, but that was a long time ago.

But this year, maybe I can just watch the recitals.

The sun lifted away from the eastern horizon, and the fiery clouds thinned. The sky turned the deep blue of my older brother’s eyes, a good portent. Surely, if anyone deserved a perfect wedding day, he did.

A black Volkswagen Touareg slid to a stop in the street beside the sidewalk.

I was just looking up at it, unconcerned because cars stop in front of hotels all the time.

Someone shoved my back.

Kidnapped #2

Dieter Schwarz

My nightmare.

Dieter didn’t have a spare moment to feel sorry for himself.

His team from Rogue Security had arrived a few days before to establish the perimeter and sweep the rooms.

With the arrival of Wulf’sWelfenlegionteam, his management load had doubled.