Wulf drove the Tesla, that silent silver spaceship, to The Devilhouse. The noontime sun showered heat on the city.
Rae rode shotgun and wished that she was holding an actual shotgun instead of her stupid purse. Whether the drug smugglers or Wulf’s stalkers were after them, she wanted something to shoot back with. The vulnerability ate at her.
Wulf’s security SUVs flanked the car as they drove on the highway toward The Devilhouse.
They changed entourages in a gas station parking lot. The kid pumping gas into a souped-up Mustang watched the black SUVs dance around each other with his mouth hanging open.
Rae held her purse to her chest, pretending she wasn’t shaking. She had been churning everything in her mind for hours, until it was all mixed up and mashed and she couldn’t make sense out of any of it.
Her stomach jittered. “We need to talk,” she said.
Wulf said, “Let us arrive at The Devilhouse. I’ll secure one of the play rooms.”
They hadn’t been able to talk about anything after she had seen Wulf’s home office because a make-up artist had arrived right afterward and a photographer came a half-hour later to take Rae’s passport photos.
Rae had been astonished at the fuss, but Mrs. Keller had waved it all off while she bustled around, sticking tags on the ferns so they wouldn’t be packed. “Two phone calls,” she said. “We are pleased to see you again.”
“Oh, thank you. I’m glad to see y’all again, too.” She rested her hand on a huge crate, eight feet long and almost as tall as she was. Between the rough-hewn slats, carved, gilded wood was just visible among the Styrofoam wedges, like the edge of an enormous, ornate picture frame, but Rae hadn’t seen any huge art works in Wulf’s house. Maybe they had been in storage.
“Mr. von Hannover is pleased that you are here.”
Rae’s hands felt fluttery. “You can tell that?”
“Of course, I can. Last night, did he sleep?”
Rae blinked at that out-of-left-field question. “Um, not much. Not that I know of.”
“Oh, my.”
“He slept a couple hours in the car the day before. Maybe two and a half.”
“That’s good.” Ms. Keller peeled off a sticker, and it stuck to her fingers and folded over, ruining it.
Rae said, “He was saving my life, but he killed two men yesterday.”
Ms. Keller raised one well-manicured eyebrow. “Oh?”
“With a rifle.”
“Oh, Lord.” She glanced at the sunlight pouring in the long line of windows and over the pool outside. “Some kind of project, I’ll task him with.”
She didn’t think Wulf was the type to glue colored macaroni to paper or crochet afghans. “Like, art?”
“Anything with hammering nails or carrying bricks. When I said that we should lay a garden, he to the home store went and all those bricks back there, he bought. Then all those garden beds, he built.” She gestured out the window.
Beyond the pool, brick structures enclosed what Rae recognized were the incredible salad greens. Peas climbed a trellis. She hadn’t noticed them the last time she had been to his house because it had been dark out there. “I didn’t know he built those.”
“At his school in Helvetica, they went on trips in the summers to Africa, Eastern Europe, Pacific Islands. The schools, houses, the students built them all. Herr von Hannover could build a house from the ground. Then Herr went as chaperone with his sister, when to those places, she went on her trips, for the two years between school and his conscription.”
A sister? “Oh?”
“Those trips, they changed him. He was better for them. The work healed him more than any of those doctors, and I think watching over his sister did, too.” She finished tagging the huge, stone urns with ferns. “Now, I need to oversee the packing of the china. You are going to Paris?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“You should go. Paris is a beautiful city.” Ms. Keller lowered her voice and whispered near Rae’s ear. “You should let him show you Paris, at least. He’s a good man, despite everything.”
Ms. Keller had bustled away to pack, her pumps clicking on the marble floor.
Despite everything.
Rae watched the strip malls fly by outside the Tesla, clutching her purse to her chest, hanging on to her wits and her temper.
If she knew what everything was, maybe she could make an informed choice.
The problem was, if they went to The Devilhouse and locked themselves in play room, he would pull his usual stunt and she’d end up agreeing to anything, probably by shouting Oh, God, yes!
Dang him.
Rae turned away from the strip malls streaking by outside the Tesla. “Wulf, we should talk now.”
Wulf blew out a great chuff of air and fiddled with something on the steering column. “I am driving. I want to give you my full attention. We’ll arrive in five minutes.”
The driving thing was a pretty good point.
But she wasn’t going to let him sex her up until she couldn’t think straight either.
Not that she could ever think straight around him.
“All right.” She settled back in the seat and watched large cars full of families coming home from Sunday morning church.
Wulf seemed different to her, knowing that all that money was behind him, that he could do anything and that nothing could touch him.
When he had been just The Dom, he had seemed mysterious but not ominous.
She wished that he was just The Blond Hottie from the party again. She wished she could slam him up against a wall and screw him, back when she thought he was just a gorgeous guy, back when she thought that she was just a having one last wild night before she was sent home to her dull, boring, dusty hometown.
Even going home wasn’t an option any more.
The black SUV followed them like a storm cloud, more menacing than an actual threat because it suggested that other dangers were always around but unseen.
“When was the last time someone tried to hurt you?” she asked.
Wulf flexed his long fingers on the steering wheel. “Two years ago. Amateur attempt. Friedhelm saw him reach for a handgun in his coat. Dieter and Hans had him on the ground before I turned around. All my people are very good at their jobs. I trust them.”
“Where?”
Wulf cleared his throat. “Berlin.”