Wulf von Hannover
Wulf snapped the gun straight up toward the ceiling before the maid could drop the coffee pot and cups. “I’m sorry, miss.”
His father said, “Liesel, please bring that over.”
Please?
Wulf whipped his head around to look at his father.
He was smiling at the housemaid, gathering the skin at the corners of his mouth into slight folds. “Don’t be frightened. Wulfram is a bit paranoid, but he’s harmless.”
Wulf’s left eyebrow twitched, trying to rise, but he kept his demeanor smooth.
The woman, who was perhaps in her early forties, set the tray on the coffee table between the two chairs. A faint blush crept up to her cheekbones, and she stole a glance at Wulf as she bent over.
She was very familiar to him, somehow. Wulf hadn’t been to Schloss Marienburg, the residence, more than a handful of times in the last two decades. He did not remember seeing her when he and Rae had visited to retrieve supplies for Flicka’s wedding a few months before. For his own wedding, Flicka had gone to Hannover to raid the proverbial cupboards for the diamonds.
Yet, Liesel looked amazingly familiar. Her cheekbones, and the line of her mouth, especially.
Wulf returned to sitting, though he held the handgun and rested it on his knee, pointing off toward the back of the suite.
He thought that Liesel must be perhaps ten years older than himself, so she couldn’t have been in service when he was a small child, when he had lived there. She must have been hired after he had left at the age of five to go to boarding school.
When he had been nine, and recuperating from the attack, perhaps?
No. He didn’t remember her, and he had spent most of his time in hospital, anyway, until he had gone back to boarding school.
When his mother had fallen sick, when he had been fifteen and had come back to Schloss Marienburg for her last month, before he and Flicka had gone back to school?
He scanned through his memories, trying to age her backward, but no, he didn’t remember her.
After Wulf’s mother had died, his father had packed off six-year-old Flicka to Le Rosey as planned, only one day later, and Flicka had driven the dormitory mothers devil-fox wild by sneaking into the teenage boys’ dorm to be with Wulf, her only living relative who had seemed to care about her. Wulf had gotten permission to take a house and raise Flicka himself, off-campus. He hadn’t gone back to Schloss Marienburg after that. Wulf had set up his own household, hiring a driver and a few staff, and stealing his household manager from his father, Frau Rosamunde Keller—
Wulf looked more closely at Liesel.
Many of the von Hannovers’ staff had been with the noble family for generations, serving them and taking care of the household and properties. One family, the Schraders, had had family members working with the horses for five generations.
The Kellers had been in service in the household for several generations.
And perhaps one additional generation.
Those strong cheekbones, the firm line of her lips, Wulf was nearly sure that he was looking at Rosamunde Keller’s daughter, who must have been around twenty-five when Wulf had stolen Georg and Rosamunde Keller to work for him in Switzerland.
Liesel stood, trailing her fingers across the silver tray, a sensual move.
She was looking back at Wulf’s father, who smiled up at her with a dark sparkle in his blue eyes. “Thank you, Liesel.”
He tasted her name in his mouth like his tongue stroked the L’s.
The blush in Liesel’s cheekbones brightened. Her hand hung in the air for a moment, near where Phillipp’s hand clutched the armrest of his chair.
Phillipp turned his palm up, casually, and he brushed her fingertips as he reached for the coffeepot. His blue eyes didn’t crease with his smile.
His coldness was appalling.
Liesel floated out of the room, closing the door behind herself.
Wulf turned back to his father, running a thousand conversations in his head through to their logical conclusions.
After a beat, he asked, “Are you fucking one of your staff?”
“Don’t be vulgar.” Phillipp stirred sugar into this coffee.
“Are you?” Wulf asked again, his voice taking on a sharp edge.
Phillipp set his spoon on the tray. “When I want a woman, I drink at the yacht club until one approaches me, one that’s younger, good-looking, and of our class.”
“Do you care about her?”
He looked at Wulf over his coffee cup, and his lip lifted. “She’s a servant. She serves her purpose.”
His father was a monster.
Wulf braced his hands on his knees. “My security men will replace yours immediately. You’re restricted to these rooms for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow, you’ll be driven back to Kaiserhaus. Do not expect to receive visitors or leave the house for a month.”
“I have a race in two weeks,” Phillipp said.
“You’ll stay in that house. No one will pack for you. No one will drive you to the airport or rent you a plane. Your car will not be shipped.”
“I’ll fire them all and replace them with my own people.”
“You can’t fire them, and you can’t hire new staff. Your accounts are now under my control. Your staff are all in my employ,” he looked at the door, “even Liesel.”
That was yet another problem that he would handle delicately.
He strode out of the suite, finding Friedhelm, Matthias, and three men from Dieter’s team in the hallway, waiting for him. He reinserted his earpiece in his ear and tapped it on.
“Stay here,” he told Matthias and one of Dieter’s men, and then he updated the rest of the team over the bluetooth of the new assignments. He finished by telling Matthias, “If anyone comes out of that suite, restrain them. If they resist, use whatever force is necessary. Friedhelm, you’re with me.”
Wulf strode away from the door down the hallway. Friedhelm and the other men followed.
In his ear, Dieter asked, “Did you just tell Matthias to kill your father?”
“I’m sure it won’t come to that,” Wulf muttered.
“I’m on my way back,” Dieter said. “Screw being best man. I’ve had dibs on taking out your father for years.”
“You’re not getting out of standing up with me that easily. Meet me at the church.”
“Your sister is already orchestrating the revised transportation maneuver,” he said. “She would make a brilliant general, pushing tin tanks around a map of Europe.”
Wulf entered the elevator. Friedhelm and the others entered after him and stood at parade rest between Wulf and the doors. He said, “Our family tried that once. It didn’t go so well.”
His ancestor had chosen the wrong side in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and lost the kingdom.
Dieter said, “She’s having everything sent over from the hotel. We’ll make it on time, but Durchlaucht, Flicka tells me that you need to go straight to the church.”
Wulf said, “I will assure Rae that I am well but delayed, and I shall arrive at the church soon.”
Through the earpiece, his sister’s voice rose and accelerated.
Dieter said, “I’ll bring your clothes. Get to the church or I’ll send the rest of my men after you. We’ve come too far.”
“Where’s Rae?” Wulf asked.
“Still at the hotel. They’re readying her to travel to the church.”
His heart stilled. “Who is with her?”
“Her security, as we planned.”
“Frau Keller?” Wulf asked. He stared at his old military boots, wearing with age, and the elevator carpeting.
“Yes, of course.”
“Romain and your men will take Rae to the church immediately. Have them stand up right now, put her in the car, and take her. Leave Julian with Frau Keller at the hotel.”
“Is this an emergency?” Dieter asked.
Scenarios scrolled through Wulf’s mind, each more devastating than the last. “Yes.”
The word left a foul taste in his mouth.
Dieter said, “On it.”
Through the earpiece, Wulf heard his sister’s voice rise in a ribbon of lecturing and a click as the phone cut off.
Wulf took his earpiece out of his ear.
The elevator doors opened.
Friedhelm walked out ahead of him. “The hotel?”
“Yes,” Wulf said. “The hotel.”