When Wulfram had been raising Flicka, he’d made sure that she knew she had a special life and thatothers had a far harder time than she did, but there’s nothing like living like a refugee for even a few hours to awaken a person. Raphael hadn’t understood how rich his family was until he’d lived in government homes for the few weeks before he’d enlisted in the Swiss army.
He said, “It would be even worse if we had Alina here,” and ate another grape.
Flicka shook her head, the moonlight shimmeringon her pale curls while she ran the knife through the bread loaf. “I can’t imagine running like this with a baby. What if they cried when you were trying to hide? How would you take care of them while you were driving orwalkinghundreds of miles? When we were running through Monaco, I thought about how one of us would have had to carry Alina, if she’d been with us. Diapers and food would be crazy,and little babies need formula or nursing. But I wouldn’t leave her behind. I can’t evenconceiveof leaving a child behind. And if I had to get her out to save her life, I would find a way, even if it meant breaking into people’s houses and stealing food for her. I would have done anything and everything.”
Raphael watched this woman, the love of his life, as she came to terms with the terribleworld. “You’ve already done a lot to help people.”
She handed him the sandwich in the dark and started washing the knife again. “Here, eat this. I can’t have you fainting from hunger while we’re trying to escape.”
Raphael didn’t think he’d ever fainted from hunger, not even during a hostage rescue with ARD-10 when he had sprinted through a fetid jungle for two solid days, no breaks, no sleep,no sitting down, on nothing but one canteen of water.
He ate a bite of the sandwich anyway. The cheese was phenomenal, creamy and dense, but they were in France. Of course, the cheese was good.
Flicka said, “Having Wulfie take custody of Alina was a stroke of genius, by the way.”
He looked down into the darkness near his feet. “Yeah.”
Her voice was gentle when she asked, “What did he say toyou?”
Nothing he wanted to tell Flicka. “A lot.”
She filled some glasses with water, and they sat at the little kitchen table in the dark to finish eating. Her soft leg pressed against his as they sat side-by-side on a wooden bench. “Like what?”
Rescuing Flicka had taken all his attention for the past fifteen hours, but now thinking about what Wulfram had said felt like a knife in his chestall over again. “He found out that I’m Raphael Mirabaud, not Dieter Schwarz, and he said what I deserved to hear.”
Chewing sounds in the dark, then swallowing. She asked, “That rough, huh?”
The kitchen and the night seemed darker around them. “I can’t count how many times I’ve lied to him. My first words to him were a lie when I told him my name was Dieter Schwarz.”
“Wulf doesn’t handle dissemblingwell,” she said.
“No, he doesn’t.” Raphael had seen Wulfram withdraw, his eyes turning flat, over yet another betrayal in his life.
“It’s because, all his life, people have been lying and conniving to get close to him. They want what his wealth can do for them, not to be his friend. He’s been burned a few times.”
“Yeah, I was there when it happened.” When Rae Stone had come into Wulf’s life,Raphael had prayed that she wasn’t another gold digger because he wasn’t sure Wulf could handle yet another one.
Raphael hadn’t thought he could deal with Wulfram tearing himself apart over another fake girlfriend, either. He’d been sort of dating the women who had worked for him in an odd, no-strings way, and it had seemed to Raphael like an artificial and sterile arrangement.
Raphael shouldn’tjudge, though. He’d married a woman in a shotgun wedding and lived in a loveless, sexless, marginally co-parenting relationship for a year and a half before Gretchen had stolen his business’s money and run off with one of his friends.
“I know you were there for him when he needed you,” Flicka said.
“It wasn’t enough.”
“You weren’t after his money or power. You never lied to him to get somethingout of him, only to protect yourself from criminals coming after you. There’s a difference.”
“I lied when I told him I would protect you.”
“But you have protected me, all my life.” In the dark, her fingers tickled up his arm and found the cord of scar tissue across his biceps where the bullet had creased him at her wedding to Pierre. She traced the seam in his skin, and then her hand moved aroundand under his shirt in back, where she found another scar on his ribs where a knife-wielding assassin had stabbed him when he’d fought the guy away from Flicka. “You’ve always protected me.”
Her cool hand resting on his back soothed him. He said, “I screwed up this time.”
“I’m sitting here in a farmhouse in rural France with you, and I’m not imprisoned in Monaco by my delusional, two-timingex-husband, who might rape me or beat me upagainif he hears bad news. I’m pretty sure that makes this operation a success.”
His failure ate jagged holes in him. “You should have never been taken to Monaco. I should have protected you better.”
Her fingers squeezed his arm. “You were up against your family, a Russian crime syndicate, and an entire country—albeit a very small country—and youwere without any back-up to speak of. I think you did a great job.”
