by Lila Dubois
“And what is your point, Alexander?” Her words cracked out, echoing off the water. When she blinked, a tear fell. “That I’m a sick and twisted masochist? Yes, fine, I admit that.”
“My point is you don’t really love me, or trust me.”
“Fuck you for trying to tell me how I feel.”
“I fucked you, Alena. Not just physically. Mentally. I broke you and now—”
“Yesterday you insisted I broke you.”
“—you think you feel something for me, but it’s not real. Some part of you is still thinking of me as your Dom. As your Master.”
Alena slapped him. He saw it coming but didn’t try to stop it. His cheek stung, and the sound bounced off the water, echoing back at him like a laugh.
“There’s your proof that everything you just said is bullshit,” Alena snarled.
He sighed and rolled his head on his shoulders as if that would ease the weight of the resignation he felt.
“Alena…why haven’t you asked me to unlock the collar?”
She recoiled as if he’d hit her. She reached up and pressed one hand against the leather…protectively?
Alexander reached into his pocket.
“Alexander,” she countered, “why haven’t you removed it?”
He took the key from his pocket and tossed it down onto the blanket.
Then he turned and walked away without answering her question. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the answer. He did.
He hadn’t taken off the collar because he liked seeing it on her. The crude leather was unbecoming. She needed something intricate and beautiful, befitting a captured queen.
He hadn’t taken off the collar because what he’d realized in Vienna was true. He was in love with her. Even when he’d been so angry he feared what he would do to her, he’d known that some part of him still loved her, despite the betrayal.
The truth had only made him love her more. After all, what sort of mad, fearless, wonderful woman would concoct this sort of plan? He’d been able to repress the truth of his love for her when there had been a possibility she was a spy or terrorist. Now the tables had turned, and though she’d used him and stolen from him, she was on the side of the angels. She was the good guy, and he was the monster who kidnapped her, isolated her, beaten her, and finally had sex with her, even after promising them both he wouldn’t.
Given time and space, Alena would snap out of it. Her feelings were a byproduct of BDSM and her status as his captive—a submissive with Stockholm syndrome.
Once she left here, she would no longer love him.
But Alexander feared that he would love her until the day he died.
Chapter 4
“Mr. Wagner, I’d like to explain on behalf of Interpol, what’s going on here. There are some details I won’t be able to share, but it is our hope that you will come to understand how we came to be in this situation.” Rolf’s words were both firm and conciliatory. Quite a feat.
Alena sat back in her chair. “I already told him everything.”
“You have no authority—”
“One more time, you’re not my boss.”
Rolf’s jaw clenched.
It probably wasn’t smart to pick a fight with the Interpol agent right now, but Alena was the walking wounded. Alexander had ripped her heart out down by the lake. She treated that particular wound with several glasses of white wine, which she’d also used to wash down enough Tylenol that she was able to sit at the dining room table several chairs down from Alexander and across from Rolf without wincing.
Alexander, her quiet man who was not hers, had yet to speak.
Rolf’s voice deepened a bit. “Watch your tongue.”
For a moment her breath caught. That was pure Dom tone and word choice.
That asshole. He was trying to top her to shut her up and make her fall in line.
Clearly he’d noticed that the collar was gone.
She thrown it, the lock, and the key into the lake.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Alexander straighten in his seat. He’d heard it too.
Tell him to back off. Tell him that he can’t talk to me like that because I’m yours.
After a moment of tense silence, Alexander cleared his throat but relaxed back into his chair. “Thank you, Agent Pendersen. I would like to hear what you have to say.”
Under the table, Alena balled her hand into a fist, digging her nails into her palm.
Rolf stared down at her for another moment, then turned his attention to Alexander. Alena wanted to tell him to go fuck himself and that she wasn’t staying quiet because he told her to watch her tone. She chose to stay quiet because she was afraid that if she tried to say anything, her broken heart might cause her voice to waver.
Rolf’s accounting of what had happened contained a lot of “we received information that” and “according to our sources.” Every time he used one of those phrases when referring to something where she had given him the information or was the source, Alena took another sip of wine. Interpol meetings made great drinking games.
In the end Rolf didn’t say anything that she hadn’t already told Alexander. The facts remained the same.
Absolon was probably moving stolen goods and giving them to people who were selling them to fund terrorism.
Interpol needed to know how big the operation was and hadn’t wanted to risk Wagner Global locking down and proverbially circling the wagons.
Alena had been brought on as a consultant on the case—because she was the reason they actually had an active case instead of just a file full of useless paper. Rolf didn’t put it like that.
He ended the briefing by saying that Alena had made the decision regarding how to approach him without clearance from Interpol.
“I’m going to call bullshit on that,” Alena declared, pointing the finger at Rolf.
“We would never have authorized—”
“You’re really going to claim you didn’t know? I described to the tech people the layout of his house and asked what I would need to do in order to get the information off the servers. They’re the ones who made the HPA. Fuck, they even disguised it as an eye shadow palette. And gave me the James Bond hairdryer.”
Rolf frowned, then flipped open the manila folder he had on the table.
“Oh, you didn’t know…” Alena laughed lightly.
“I warned you to—” Rolf said.
“Stop.” Alexander’s voice cut like a knife.
Alena’s heart, her stupid, stupid heart, fluttered. Alexander probably just hadn’t wanted to waste time listening to her and Rolf bitch at each other.
But her heart wanted to believe that he’d stepped in because he didn’t want someone talking to her like that, especially another Dom.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe you’re still partially in submissive mode and you just can’t see it for what it is.
“I believe there would have been better ways to approach me,” Alexander said. “Though I understand your concern. That any attempts to do so might have alerted Absolon.”
Rolf selected a piece of paper out of the file, then closed the folder.
“Now that we’ve reviewed the situation as it stands, I need to advise you of next steps.”
“I will need to consult with my Board of Directors.”
“Understandable, but I am here to formally request your assistance with our investigation, Mr. Wagner.”
“I am willing to turn over any records that pertain to the case. You will need to get a detailed list of transaction and shipment types to my people.”
Rolf cleared his throat. “There is some concern there.”
“Why?” Alexander asked.
“There is the possibility it is not just your curator.”
This was news to Alena and she sat forward. “Based on what?”
Rolf ignored her. Jerk.
“We will need legally obtained copies of shipments Absolon authorized, but given Ms. Moreau’s efforts, we have already analyzed and identified
a pattern.”
“So the transfer did work,” Alena said cheerfully. Both men twitched. Good.
“Yes. And there are suspect transactions beyond those that Absolon authorized directly. Transaction with paperwork and records so clean that they would never raise suspicion.”
“Like the one the customs agent just happened to open during a spot check.” Alena tapped her nails on the tabletop, thinking though the possibilities.
“Yes.”
“Were they all hand carry?” Alexander asked.
“Again, yes.”
“Who is in charge of your hand carry program?” Alena asked Alexander.
“Ms. Moreau, we will handle the investigation.”
“You were doing such a good job of it before I walked in to the Paris office.”
“Agent de Gaul has already made it clear your assistance was invaluable.”
Alexander grunted. “I just realized that’s why you weren’t scared of being turned over to the authorities in Vienna. Interpol would have gotten you out.”
“But Serbia isn’t in the EU yet,” Alena said. “Plus I assume Serbian prison would be somewhat awful.”
“However…” Rolf pretended they hadn’t spoken. “The fact remains that because you were caught, Ms. Moreau, and Mr. Wagner reacted appropriately to your violation, Absolon and whomever else he’s working with might already be on alert.”
Almost as one, she and Alexander turned to Rolf.
“What?” they asked in unison.
“The presence of RTW security in your home did not go unnoticed by your household staff,” Rolf said.
“And how do you know that?” Alexander demanded.
Alena sat back in her chair and tuned them out so she could think.
She’d been so caught up in the emotions—both hers and Alexander’s—stemming from the betrayal that she hadn’t bothered to stop and think about what a spectacle they had been. She’d spent an entire day being questioned in the Wagner Global offices, and though his household staff’s offices were on the other side of the building, they would have noticed what was going on.
An innocent person would be merely curious, or perhaps intrigued.
A guilty person would wonder if whatever was happening was related to their crimes.
She tuned back in as Alexander accused Rolf and Interpol of bugging his house, spying on him, and generally violating Alexander’s privacy.
“Who has Absolon been calling?” Alena asked, breaking into their pointless conversation. Neither man was going to budge. “I assume you have his phone bugged?”
“We have that under control.” Rolf swiveled to her. “And that part of the investigation has nothing to do with you, Ms. Moreau.”
He was right, it didn’t, but she couldn’t help but feel some sense of ownership. She objected on many levels to what Absolon was doing. Art theft was both rather sexy—who didn’t love a good art heist story?— and horrific. Outside of books and movies, when art was stolen it usually went hand in hand with horrific acts. The looting of the museum in Baghdad happened because of the American invasion and subsequent war. European Jews lost priceless collections of art to the Nazis in World War II. The British had, for centuries, taken art and antiquities from the peoples they conquered. There were some who referred to the British Museum as the biggest collection of pirated loot in the world.
That wasn’t the kind of art theft she dealt with usually. She worked for companies who were hired by people for whom art was an investment. Some uber wealthy individuals never even saw the pieces they purchased. The title of ownership changed but the piece itself remained locked up in a secure vault. The art she recovered was usually as much a monetary asset as an artistic one. The few times she’d worked for Interpol or the FBI White Collar division before, it had been about taking down either groups of art thieves in one memorable instance, or helping the authorities build insurance fraud cases against the art’s owner.
This level of gravitas was new to her. Absolon was using the sale of the art to fund terrorism—extremist Christian groups in Eastern Europe who were following the path of ISIS and other Islamic terrorist groups, just using a different religion to justify their horrific acts.
Life was a game. Her job was a game. But if she helped take down terrorists, she would be so much more.
Alena blinked as that thought surfaced, and she wondered how long she’d been harboring that quiet thought—that she wanted, needed, to be part of something with real meaning. To do real good in the world, not just play a game of hide and seek with art. A game in which the stakes were money, and for the most part, money that those who played could afford to lose.
“Alena,” Alexander asked.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts and looked at him. “If I’d been in Paris in 1939, I would have traveled with the art.”
“What?” Rolf demanded.
But Alexander…he looked as if he understood. He inclined his head.
“I would have taken the paintings off the walls and crated them up. I would have loaded them into the back of a car and stayed with them, knowing that if the Nazis caught me it would have meant my death.”
Alexander stared at her, intense and quiet.
“I wouldn’t risk someone else’s life. If they put a gun to the head of another person, I’d hand them over. But just my own life…” She shrugged.
Rolf cleared his throat. “Ms. Moreau.”
“It’s not just about the money.” She ignored Rolf. “I mean I had none for a long time so for a while it was about the money, about the safety money brings.”
“I understand,” Alexander said.
But she didn’t think he did. She wasn’t sure she fully understood either. There was something she was trying to say but the thoughts and accompanying feelings were a tangle inside her. Each time she thought she could unravel it to say what she was feeling, the knot only drew tighter.
“Interpol needs you two to return to Vienna and begin a public relationship.”
Alena, who’d been staring at Alexander, trying to unravel what she felt for him—love, anger, a desperate need for him to understand her, even when right now she felt like she didn’t understand herself—froze.
Slowly, she swiveled to face Rolf. “Come again?”
“We need Absolon to believe everything is fine. The best way to do that is to make it clear that what happened between you was a domestic issue.”
“A domestic issue…that resulted in a full-court press by his security company?” Alena motioned to Alexander. “Who would believe that?”
“You need to make him believe it. A lover’s quarrel that caused an alarm to go off—”
“Would not need the CEO of RTW security to show up.”
“I’m aware Zakaria was there.”
Alexander narrowed his eyes. “How is it that you are a member of the Orchid Club?”
Rolf stiffened. “You’re questioning me?”
“The monthly dues are half of what you make in a year,” Alexander said coldly.
Alena should have known he would have already had someone look into Rolf. He could have easily done it while she was showering last night.
Rolf didn’t look embarrassed or ashamed. He was every inch the confident alpha male, sure of his place in the world, even when facing another alpha male with greater resources.
“How do you think the Orchid Club is able to operate without any fear of interference by the authorities?”
Alena couldn’t help it, she laughed. “You’re their dirty cop? Feeding them information and protecting them?”
Rolf’s gaze snapped to her and he opened his mouth.
Good. Let’s fight again.
She needed the emotional outlet.
“I will not pretend to be in a relationship with her.”
Alexander’s words were cold, a slap in the face. Alena felt the blood rush from her face. She sat back, turning to look out the window and praying she wouldn’t cry.
Out by
the lake, Alexander had made it clear he didn’t trust her to know her own feelings.
It hadn’t occurred to her that he actually felt nothing for her.
Perhaps the intimacy between them, based first on her lie, then on his rage, had ceased to exist, at least for him, once he understood her motivations.
But last night…this morning. The way he’d held her. Surely that had to mean something.
Or maybe he was right, and it was all a result of her having been completely under his control, even if it was only for a few days.
“Mr. Wagner, we are not in a position to move forward with the operation. If Absolon alerts those he is working with, we will lose the chance to dismantle the network. All Interpol would be able to do is arrest him and a few others for theft and transportation of stolen goods.”
Alexander was quiet for a moment. “Wagner Global will support your efforts to apprehend all parties…within reason.”
Within reason.
Meaning even pretending to be in a relationship with her was unreasonable.
She hated feeling like this. Loathed it to the point that her muscles trembled with the need to get up and walk out of the room. She knew what it was to be unwanted—her biological father hadn’t wanted her, and that had left some deep scars on her psyche. Knowing they were there didn’t stop it from hurting if that particular wound was poked at so much that it started to bleed anew.
“If you have suggestions, please let me know.” Rolf spread his hands. “If you’d like, we can arrest Ms. Moreau on charges of burglary, though we would prefer those charges be in no way related to either art and antiques or information theft, as either might cause Absolon to alert the people he is working with.”
“Excuse me?” Alena demanded. “You will not arrest me.”
“We will if that’s what it takes.”
“Interpol guaranteed me protection—”
“Within certain limits.” Rolf looked almost pleased.
Panic was making her pulse flutter and her stomach clench. “I would like to speak with Agent de Gaul.”
“I can arrange that, but I assure you that if your arrest is the only way we can ensure the terrorists don’t go into hiding before we have gathered the needed intelligence, then Agent de Gaul will agree it is the best solution.”