Bankers Should Not Kidnap People
Flicka von Hannover
He sounded hopeless.
I have never heard him sound like that.
Raphael was sitting on the other side of the bed, his head in his hands, while Flicka shimmied into his gym tee shirt she was still sleeping in.
He said, “I will be away Friday night. I’ll be home Saturday evening.”
“Where are you going?” Flicka asked,because that is a thing you ask when someone announces they are going somewhere.
“I shouldn’t tell you,” he said.
She crawled across the bed and hung on his broad shoulders. “Oh, come on. I don’t think there are any microphones in here.”
He shrugged. “You never know.”
She crawled around him and tugged his chin up to make him look into her eyes. “You’re doing something illegal, aren’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m keeping you safe.”
“I hate that they’re doing this to you.”
“I’m impressed that Anaïs and my sisters showed up.” He pointed upward to the mics that may or may not have been embedded in the ceiling.
After the women had left, Sophie hadn’t come downstairs. She’d taken her supper in her bedroom. Flicka had a bad feeling she was getting the silent treatment.
Flicka said,“Yeah, that was amazing. And so unexpected. But I hate that they’re making you do illegal things. What if you, just, don’t?”
“I’m not willing to take that risk.” He dragged her across the bedspread and folded her into his arms.
She cuddled closer to his warm chest, listening to his heartbeat underneath his hard muscles.
He said, “What if they grabbed you and put a gun to your head? Then, Iwould do whatever they wanted. What if they did the same to Alina? Then, I would do it. Whatever they did, I would cave and do whatever they wanted. Why put you and Alina through that?”
“Bankers should not kidnap people,” Flicka said.
“It’s not a kidnapping. You are not being held for ransom.”
“Well, I sure as hell can’t leave.”
“You are being held hostage.”
“That’s a technicality.”
Hislips moved against her temple. “True.”
“I can’t believe they’re doing this. Holding someone hostage is crazy.”
“They need me, probably.”
“But you ran away. It’s been well over a decade. They’ve managed to survive and go on without you all this time. No one has said that Geneva Trust was hurting at all, and the Mirabaud girls were making their societal debuts at costly cotillions. Trust me,the Shooting Star is not a budget enterprise. Why would they come looking for you?”
Raphael mused, “I don’t know exactly.”
“Was it money? Did you steal a bunch of money from the bank or something? As soon as I get my accounts back from Pierre, I can pay it off. It depends on how much it was, because Wulfie won’t let me transfer more than some amount he decided on. But I can get him to see reason.Heck, he’d probably pay it off for you.”
