Simona Ahrnstedt
ALL IN Translated by Tara Chace
Trust is the most precious commodity of all. In the cutthroat world of Sweden’s financial elite, no one knows that better than corporate raider David Hammar. Ruthless. Notorious. Unstoppable. He’s out to hijack the ultimate prize, Investum. After years of planning, all the players are in place; he needs just one member of the aristocratic owning family on his side—Natalia De la Grip. Elegant, brilliant, driven to succeed in a man’s world, Natalia is curious about David’s unexpected invitation to lunch. Everyone knows that he is rich, dangerous, unethical; she soon discovers he is also deeply scarred. The attraction between these two is impossible, but the long Swedish nights unfold an affair that will bring to light shocking secrets, forever alter a family, and force both Natalia and David to confront their innermost fears and desires.
On-Sale June 28th, 2016
Wednesday, June 25 <OT>David Hammar peered out the domed window of the helicopter. They were a thousand feet over the Swedish countryside and could see about twenty-five miles. He adjusted the headset that let him speak to the other occupants in a normal conversational voice. “Over there,” he said, turning around to face Michel Chamoun, who was sitting in the backseat and also looking out the window. David pointed to the yellow Gyllgarn Castle as it came into view. The pilot, Tom Lexington, set the course. “How close do you want me to take you?” he asked, his eyes on the destination. “Not too close, Tom. Just so we can see it a little better.” David didn’t take his eyes off the castle. “I don’t want to attract any unnecessary attention.” Green meadows, glittering lakes, and thick woods spread out before and beneath them like an idyllic pastoral landscape painting. The castle itself was built on an islet in the middle of an unusually wide river. Lively water rushed past on both sides of the islet, forming a natural moat that had at one time provided genuine protection against enemies. Tom swung the helicopter in a wide arc. Horses and sheep grazed in the fields below them. An avenue lined with enormous oak trees, several hundred years old, led in from the country road. The welltended fruit trees and colorful plantings surrounding the beautiful castle were visible even from this height. It looks like a fucking paradise. “The realtor I talked to estimated the value of the building alone at over thirty million Swedish kronor,” David said. “That’s a lot of money,” Michel noted. “And that’s in addition to the forest and pastureland. And the waterways. There’s thousands of acres of land and water. That alone is worth over two hundred.” David
kept listing off the assets. “There’s game in the forest and countless smaller buildings that are part of the estate. And then there are the furnishings, of course, the fifteenth-century war trophies, the fancy silver and Russian porcelain, and an art collection that includes pieces from the last three hundred years. All the auction houses in the world will be fighting over them.” David turned around in his seat. Michel studied the yellow castle they were hovering over. “And it’s all owned by the company?” Michel asked incredulously. “Not by the family?” David nodded in confirmation. “It’s unbelievable that they chose to do that,” he agreed. “That’s what happens when people think they’re invincible.” “No one is invincible,” said Michel. “No.” Michel looked out the window. David waited as his friend’s dark eyes swept over the fields. “It’s a national gem,” Michel continued. “If we parcel this up and sell it all off, there’ll be a real outcry.” “Not if,” David said. “When.” Because they were going to do just that, he was sure of it. They would subdivide those fertile fields and sell them off to the highest bidders. People would complain, and no one would scream louder than the current owners. He smiled faintly at the thought of them and gave Michel a questioning look. “Have you seen enough?” Michel nodded, and David said, “Can you take us back to the city, Tom? We’re done here.” Tom nodded. The helicopter made an elegant turn and rose. They left the idyllic scene behind them and headed back to Stockholm. Highways, forests, and factories passed by beneath them. Fifteen minutes later they entered the capital city’s air-control zone, and Tom started talking to the control tower in Bromma. David half-listened to the conversation and the short, standardized phrases. “ . . . 1,500 feet, request full stop landing, three persons onboard.” “Approved, straight-in landing, runway three zero . . .”
Tom Lexington was a skillful pilot. He maneuvered the helicopter with calm movements and a watchful eye. In his day job he worked for a private firm which, among other things, managed the security for Hammar Capital. He and David had known each other for a long time, David counted him as one of his best friends and when David decided to inspect the castle from the air Tom had volunteered his piloting skills and his time. “I appreciate your flying us,” David said. Tom didn’t say anything, just nodded almost imperceptibly to acknowledge he’d heard. David turned to Michel. “We have plenty of time before the board meeting,” he said with a glance at his watch. “Malin called. Everything is ready,” he continued, referring to Malin Theselius, their communications director. Michel adjusted his big, muscular, suit-clad body in the backseat. The rings on his fingers sparkled as he scratched his shaved scalp. “They’re going to skin you alive,” he said as Stockholm passed a thousand feet below them. “You know that, right?” “Us,” David said. Michel smiled wryly. “Nah, you. You’re the cover boy and the evil venture capitalist. I’m just a poor Lebanese immigrant following orders.” Michel was the smartest man David knew and a senior partner in David’s firm, Hammar Capital. Soon they would entirely rewrite Sweden’s financial map. But Michel was right. David, the founder, who had a reputation for being hard and arrogant, was going to be hung out to dry in the financial press. And he was kind of looking forward to it. Michel yawned. “When this is over I’m going take a vacation and sleep for at least a week.” David turned to look back again, peering at the suburbs in the distance. He wasn’t tired, quite the contrary. He had been preparing for this fight for half his life, and he didn’t want a vacation. He wanted war. They had been planning this latest battle for almost a year. It was the biggest deal Hammar Capital had ever done, a hostile takeover of an enormous corporation, and the next few weeks would be critical. No one had ever done anything like this.
“What are you thinking?” David said into his headset. He knew Michel inside and out, knew his silence meant something, that Michel’s keen mind was working on some legal or financial detail. “Mostly that it’s going to be hard to keep this secret much longer. Someone must have started wondering about the movements on the stock market. It won’t be long before someone—a stockbroker maybe—starts leaking to the press.” “Yes,” David agreed, because things leaked all the time. “We’ll keep it under wraps as long as we can,” he said. They’d had this discussion many times. They’d polished their arguments, searched for holes in their logic, grown stronger and more cunning. “We’ll keep buying,” he said. “But just a little at a time, less than before. I’ll talk to my contacts.” “The price of the shares is starting to rise quickly now.” “I saw that,” David said. The curve of the share prices looked like a wave. “We’ll have to see how long it holds financially.” It was always a balancing act how fast you could proceed. The more aggressively a company’s shares were traded, the more the action drove the price up. If word got out that Hammar Capital was the one doing the buying—then the rate would bolt. So far they had been exceedingly cautious. They had bought through reliable dummy companies and only in small quantities, day in and day out. Small transactions that were no more than a ripple on the enormous surface of the stock market. But both he and Michel realized that they were nearing a critical threshold. “Of course, we knew we were going to be forced to go public with this sooner or later,” David said. “Malin has been working on the press release for weeks.” “It’s going to be insane,” Michel said. David smiled. “I know. All we can do is hope we can fly under the radar for a little while longer,” he said. Michel nodded. After all, this was what Hammar Capital did. Their team of analysts searched for companies that weren’t doing as well as they should be. David and Michel identified the problems—often incompetent leadership—and then vacuumed up shares in order to put together a majority holding. Then they went in, brutally, took over, broke the company into pieces and restructured, sold, and profited. They were better at this than almost anyone else—owning
and improving. Sometimes it went smoothly. People cooperated, and Hammar Capital was able to drive its agenda. Sometimes there was a fight. “I’d still like to get someone from the owning family on our side,” David said as southern Stockholm spread out beneath them. Having one or more of the big shareholders, some of the giant retirement fund managers, for example, on your side was critical for success in a hostile takeover this big. David and Michel had spent a lot of time convincing the managers, attended endless meetings, and run the numbers countless times. But winning over someone from the actual owning family had several advantages. In part, it would be an enormously prestigious symbolic win, especially with this firm, Investum, one of Sweden’s biggest and oldest companies. It would also automatically win over a number of other shareholders who would vote in favor of Hammar Capital if David and Michel could show that they had someone from the inner circle on their side. “It would make the process a lot easier,” he continued. “But who?” “There is one person who actually has gone her own way in that family,” said David as Bromma Airport came into view on the horizon. Michel was quiet for a bit. “You mean the daughter, right?” “Yes,” David said. “She’s an unknown but considered to be quite the talent. It’s possible that she’s dissatisfied with how the men are treating her.” Investum wasn’t just an old and traditional company. It was patriarchal in a way that would make the 1950s seem modern and enlightened. “Do you really believe you can win over anyone from that family?” Michel asked hesitantly. “You’re not exactly popular with them.” David almost laughed at the understatement. Investum was controlled by the De la Grip family, and the company did billions of kronor worth of business a day. Indirectly Investum, and thus the De la Grip family, controlled close to a tenth of Sweden’s GNP and owned the biggest bank in the country. Family members sat on the board of directors of close to every major Swedish company. The De la Grip family was upper-class, traditional, and wealthy. As close to royalty as you could get without actually being royal. And with significantly bluer blood than any member
of the House of Bernadotte, Sweden’s royal family. It would be unlikely for David Hammar, the upstart, to get anyone from the innermost circle—known for their loyalty—to change sides and join him, an infamous venture capitalist and corporate raider. But he’d done it before, convinced a few family members to join forces with him. That often meant leaving a trail of broken family ties behind him, which he usually regretted, but in this case it would be a welcome bonus. “I’m going to try,” he said. “That’s damn near insane,” said Michel. It wasn’t the first time in the last year he’d uttered those words. David nodded briefly. “I already called to set up a lunch meeting with her.” “Of course you did,” said Michel as the helicopter started its descent for landing. The flight had taken less than thirty minutes. “And what did she say?” David thought about the cool voice he’d gotten on the line, not an assistant’s but that of Natalia De la Grip herself. She had sounded surprised but hadn’t said very much, just thanked him for the invitation, and then had her assistant confirm the lunch appointment by e-mail. “She said she was looking forward to our meeting.” “She did?” David laughed, tersely and joylessly. Her voice had been distinctive in that patrician way that almost inevitably triggered his disdain for the upper classes. Natalia De la Grip was one of about a hundred women in Sweden who had been born with the title of countess, the elite of the elite. He hardly had the words to express how little he thought of that kind of person. “No,” he said. “She didn’t say that.” But then he hadn’t expected her to, either.
As the first foreign-language romance ever to be translated and published in America, the bestselling Swedish novel ALL IN by Simona Ahrnstedt is a refreshing twist on universal themes of love, power, revenge and family loyalty. With over 90,000 copies already sold overseas, ALL IN is a major event in the publishing industry and the beginning of a big new trend in translated works.
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Simona Ahrnstedt is a bestselling author, licensed psychologist and cognitive behavioral therapist. Her novels are published in 16 countries including her native Sweden, where she has been credited as the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first major romance author. As her novels have swept bestseller lists in Sweden and throughout Europe, she has become an international spokesperson for books by women, for women, and about women. Born in Prague, she lives with her family outside of Stockholm, Sweden.
Learn more about Simona: http://simonaahrnstedt.se/home/
The Beauty of the End
Debbie Howells
“I was fourteen when I fell in love with a goddess…” So begins the testimony of Noah Calaway, an ex-lawyer with a sideline in armchair criminal psychology. Now living an aimless life in an inherited cottage in the English countryside, Noah is haunted by the memory of the beguiling young woman who left him at the altar sixteen years earlier. Then one day he receives a troubling phone call. April, the woman he once loved, lies in a coma, the victim of an apparent overdose—and the lead suspect in the brutal murder of her stepfather. Deep in his bones, Noah believes that April is innocent. Then again, he also believed they would spend the rest of their lives together.
While Noah searches for evidence that will clear April’s name, a teenager named Ella begins to sift through the secrets of her own painful family history. The same age as April was when Noah first met her, Ella harbors a revelation that could be the key to solving the murder. As the two stories converge, there are shocking consequences when at last, the truth emerges. Or so everyone believes… Set in a borderland where the past casts its shadow on the present, with a timeshifting narrative that will mesmerize and surprise, The Beauty of the End is both a masterpiece of suspense and a powerful rumination on lost love.
On-Sale July 26th, 2016
“I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?”
John Lennon
*
I want to live forever. . . . We were standing on top of Reynard’s Hill, where the ring of trees seemed to reach up, their branches tangling with the sky; where you could breathe, April said, as though air alone was not enough for her. The steep climb took my breath away, but as we reached the top and looked down, for a split second I saw what she saw, the entire world seeming to stretch from beneath our feet. “Look how beautiful it is. . . .” At her side, I hadn’t noticed the tinge of sadness in her voice. I was mesmerized, as much by her presence as the towns below, so insignificantly small from where we were, the dark lines scored into the patchwork landscape linking them. She’d taken a step forward to where the ground dropped precipitously away, her long, red hair damp from the mist, her eyes gone to that place I could never follow. As she stretched out her arms, for a moment I imagined she could fly. I remember lunging forward to stop her, my clumsy movement sending a shower of stones tumbling over the edge, almost carrying me with them. Rather than me rescuing her, it was she who pulled me back, holding on until the ground stopped moving. It was one of many times I tried to save her. But by the time I did, it was too late.
May 2016
You think you know what it is to live. About those moments seized, battles fought, love yearned for. But you don’t. Not really, until it’s slipping away from you. When your body no longer listens to you, but becomes a trap, inside which you can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t reach out. No one can hear you. Not even the one person who could help you...
The memory is bittersweet, splinter sharp. A transitory flash of long, red hair damp from the mist; bone-chilling cold; the starkness of trees in winter. My heart quickening, as it always did. A girl I knew once, when the world was different, who filled my every waking thought, my dreams.
Nor can you know, we’re like stars. At their brightest, most vibrant, before they die; a trail fading until the naked eye can’t see it; the brilliant crescendo of a life that builds to silence.
Just as quickly it fades, a memory I’ve buried since I arrived here, years ago, when my Aunt Delilah died and left me her cottage. I’m questioning what’s triggered it, glancing up from my desk just as the old black phone rings, past and present overlapping for a moment. It continues to ring, and though I’d rather not, I have to answer it. Sliding my chair back, I get up and walk over to the windowsill. Feel behind the heaviness of the curtain to where it sits untouched. Unaware of the hope that flickers, like the flecks of dust stirred, caught in the dull glow of my reading light.
“Hello?” “Hello? Noah? Is that you?” I pause, startled, as fifteen years fall away. The clipped, precise tone is instantly recognizable, making my skin prickle, as I’m jolted back to the present, because the phone isn’t part of the memory that’s consumed me. “Hello. Yes.” There’s another brief silence, before he speaks again, clearer this time. “It’s Will.” I watch the moth that’s taken refuge, camouflaged perfectly against the stone of the inglenook, as the fire I lit earlier sparks into life. My cottage has thick, stone walls that hold fast to the chill of winter. He adds, “Thank Christ. I thought I’d got the wrong number.”
Take the forest that’s three-dimensional in the black depths of a still lake, each branch defined, every subtle shade perfectly mirrored, the sun looking out at you, so that if you stare for long enough, you forget. It’s just a picture; hides the cold darkness that can close over you, that’s silent.
Will and I were friends—once, a long time ago. But too much has happened, things that belong in the past. As this, and much more, flashes through my head, common sense kicks in because I owe Will nothing. I’m about to put the phone down, when he says two words that alter everything.
“It’s April.” Even now, my heart skips a beat at the sound of her name.
A moment, a few words, the single thought they provoke, can be devastating. Shatter what you’ve painstakingly constructed. Reveal who you really are.
“What about her?” I keep my voice neutral, my eyes fixing on the fireplace, on the moth’s wings, twitching unevenly. “There was an accident.” He follows it up with, “She’s in hospital. It’s not looking good.” He speaks fast, impatient, his voice level, unemotional. I wonder if calling me is an inconvenience. And I’m sorry, of course I am. April and I were close, but it was a long time ago. Accidents happen every day. It’s sad, but I’ve no idea why he’s calling me.
There’s only so long you can do this. Fake the pretense, dance to the piper’s discordant tune. Hide an agonizing, unbearable truth that’s been silent too long, that’s hammering on the door, screaming, to be heard, for someone to listen.
“I’m not sure what happened, exactly. Look…” He hesitates. “I only called you because it’ll be all over the papers. A guy was murdered—in Musgrove, of all places. Knifed to death in his car, parked behind the pub. The North Star—can you believe
that?” He pauses again. “The thing is… Well, it looks as though she may have killed him.” I’m struggling to take in what he’s saying, because the North Star was once our local hangout. There’s a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Then I dismiss the possibility outright, because some knowledge is instinctive and I know this, with a certainty that’s blinding, absolute. Will’s wrong. I watch the moth launch itself into flight, its wings beating a slow, undulating trail that circles the room twice, before battering itself at the closed window. “That’s impossible. She couldn’t have.”
Only no one comes, because no one knows, that you’re bound and gagged, invisibly chained to a monster. There is no escape. There never can be, because wherever you go, he finds you. Won’t let go of you.
“The police think there’s evidence.” But as I know, it isn’t always that simple. “They could have missed something.”
And what about hope? That eternal optimism of the human mind, as vital as blood and lungs and your beating heart, which carries you through suffering and heartbreak? Because when hope goes, you have nothing.
My jaw tightens. “When did it happen?” “Last night. Late, after the pub…”
“Exactly,” I flash back. “It’s far too soon. They need to carry out forensic tests. They can’t possibly know.” I pause. “How did you find out?” “They were seen together in the pub. The police found a woman’s glove in his car, along with the murder weapon—and her phone. They traced it to her address, but by the time they got there, she’d taken an overdose.” His voice is low. “They called an ambulance; then they called me. They must have found my number on her phone. Anyway, she’s in the Princess Royal, near Tonbridge.” “Why’s she there?” I ask stupidly. “It’s where she lives. Of course—I’m forgetting. You wouldn’t know.”
Suddenly your whole life is like a car crash, no brakes, gaining momentum, piling up behind you. Your mistakes, missed opportunities, all the time you’ve wasted, a twisted, rusting heap of scrap metal that can’t be salvaged. Overwhelming you. Crushing you.
Even now, even though once he loved her, too, I hate that Will knows all this, how dispassionately he speaks, the condescension he barely conceals. That all these years later, he’s still in touch with her, when I’m not. “She’s hardly going to want to see me.” He hesitates. “She’s not exactly up to seeing anyone. She hasn’t come round, mate. She’s on life support. God only knows what she took.”
The mate is automatic, a throwback to our friendship—and out of place. But as I listen, I’m shocked, trying to absorb what he’s saying, unable to picture April as someone who isn’t vital and beautiful and brilliantly alive. “The police are looking for witnesses. People who were in the pub, security cameras… If she’s guilty, it won’t be hard to prove,” he says. “If she is,” I say pointedly. “It’s almost a foregone conclusion.” I used to think he was confident, not arrogant, but he really is so fucking arrogant. “Will. You know as well as I do she wouldn’t hurt anyone. She couldn’t.”
You can play the part for so long. Wear the mask, say what people expect you to say. Fight for as long as there is air in your lungs. Fly if you have wings. But you can never be free from someone who won’t let you go.
He makes a sound, a staccato laugh shot with cynicism. “When you haven’t seen her for all these years, how can you possibly say that?” He’s a bastard, Will. Uses his surgeon’s precision to dig the knife in, but he’s forgetting, I knew her soul. I stay calm. “The same way you know who you can trust.” He knows exactly what I’m saying. An uneasy silence falls between us. “Fair enough.” Will sounds dismissive. “I thought you should know, that’s all.” “Fine. Hey, before you go, who was the guy?”
Will hesitates again. As he tells me, I watch the moth spiral into the flames.
It’s surreal. My flashback, seconds before Will’s call, telling me that April is suspected of murder. There’s a tidal drift of willow seed across the fields as I step outside, but then it’s a warm spring after the wettest winter in a decade. Pollen levels are high, willow seed prolific. As I drive the half mile to the run-down garage that stocks a few basic groceries, I’m strangely removed from myself, the countryside I know so well suddenly unfamiliar under the onward, imperceptible flow of the willow seed, to the soundtrack of Will’s words replaying in my head. I’m waiting for my brain to slot them into place, only it doesn’t. Instead I’m trying to work out why, after years of silence between us, after everything, Will should be concerned that I know. None of it makes sense—unless there’s something he isn’t telling me. I found that out about Will, too late. The half-truths; the lies by omission that were no less lies for being unspoken, set in a past that I can’t change, that’s woven into the essence of who I’ve become—like April is. And whether I want him there or not, so is Will. That evening, I’m still thinking, trying to decide what, if anything, I should do, aware of old scars that were long forgotten, newly inflamed by Will’s call; by the thought of April, unconscious in a hospital bed, like the memory of an amputated limb. I’m wondering if anyone’s with her. Even though I knew her well, I never met her family. By the time we were together, it was as though she’d moved on, shedding
them like a skin. There’d been a brother she didn’t speak to. Her mother had died shortly after April left home; she’d never mentioned her father. Not that I can help her. I’m in Devon, April’s in Kent. Anyway, if Will’s in her life, he’ll have everything covered, which should fill me with relief—only Will made no attempt to disguise it. I heard it in his voice. He thinks she’s guilty. I stare through the window into the darkness, my feeble excuses reflecting back at me--how far away I live; that I left my London law firm four years ago; that, apart from the occasional day’s work for Jed Luxton’s small local practice, I’m ill prepared to defend a murder suspect; that my one suit is pushed to the back of my wardrobe and I’m not even sure it still fits-- as a fleeting image comes to me of April driven to an extreme of desperation I can only guess at, plunging a knife into a faceless someone. An image so inconceivable that just as quickly it’s gone. For so long I’d believed she was my future. My sun, my stars, my April Moon, I told her once, carried away by the moment, by being alive, by the depth of my feelings for her. Believing love was enough. That we were meant to be together. Never expecting it to change.
Debbie Howells is the author of THE BONES OF YOU, her debut thriller which sold internationally for six-figures in several countries. While in the past she has been a flying instructor, the owner of a flower shop, and a student of psychology, she currently writes full-time. Debbie lives in West Sussex with her family.
www.DebbieHowells.com