Page 16 of Vienna Bargain

He paused at the door. “If you try and leave before the three weeks are up, I will use all my power to hunt you down.”

“I won’t. We’ve made a bargain.”

Alexander didn’t look back. Those last words had quavered, as if she were suppressing tears.

It’s all an act. You can’t trust her.

He’d keep repeating that until he believed it.

Moldova was an unlikely place for a palatial villa. The poorest country in Europe, its national identity was variable, thanks to hundreds of years of changing allegiance and leadership. The people of Moldova had been at times Cumanian, Ottoman, Bulgarian, Russian, Bessarabian, Ukranian, and Romanian.

Located in the Balkans, between modern day Ukraine and Romania, many of its historic buildings were gone, demolished by war or natural disaster. A landlocked agricultural producer, the country had struggled to export their goods until Wagner Global stepped in to facilitate a territory trade with Ukraine which gave Moldova access to a 600 meter stretch of the Danube.

The Port of Giurgiule?ti—managed by Wagner Global—allowed Moldovan goods to be loaded onto seagoing vessels rather than the small boats necessary to navigate the shallow Prut River, which formed one border of Moldova before flowing into Ukraine where it joined up with the Danube.

Beleu Lake was fifteen kilometers north of the port, and the construction of his sprawling, palatial villa—which replaced a smaller home that had been in his family for several generations—had been a strategic part of the negotiations around the opening and operation of the port. The villa, located in a rural and underdeveloped area, was his declaration of allegiance to Moldova. Only when the property had been nearly complete had he managed to fully assuage fears that Wagner Global was acting in bad faith.

Given the history of the region, Alexander could hardly blame them.

It had been a quick flight on a private plane from a small airport outside of Wien to an even smaller airport outside of Galati, Romania. From there they took a thirty-seven kilometer helicopter ride to the port.

The scenery below them was lovely and the helicopter ride could have been a relaxing experience if not for Alena’s icy silence and the tension radiating off his three-man personal security team.

Normally he wouldn’t have brought them for a trip like this, instead bringing an assistant and possibly his valet, depending on how long he planned to stay.

He’d been ambushed.

He hadn’t told Fischer about his plans to travel, so Eva must have reached out to RTW. The CEO himself—Zakaria Schroeder, a fellow Orchid Club member, though they never acknowledged one another when at the events, given their vanilla-world professional relationship—had shown up, a five-man bodyguard team in tow, and informed Alexander that he would be taking a security team.

Zakaria was within his contractually granted authority to go to the Wagner Global board if there was a clear and imminent threat which Alexander was willfully ignoring.

That asshole Zakaria had threatened to invoke that clause in their contract.

Alexander did not want the board to know about Alena, which meant he had to go along with what Zakaria wanted.

When Alexander did take this to them, the events would be sanitized and downplayed with a clean conclusion.

Zakaria wanted him to take a five-man team from the RTW advanced personal security division. Alexander had countered with an agreement for one security guard and his assistant. After a terse negotiation they’d settled on three security personnel, and he wouldn’t be taking an assistant—which he hadn’t planned on doing anyway.

What he planned for Alena was private.

Zakaria had followed Alexander when he stepped in to check on Alena. She’d looked tired, but no less poised than earlier.

Besides bathroom breaks, she’d spent half a night and most of a day zip-tied to the conference room chair. Half a dozen people had questioned her, but her answers remained identical to those she’d given Fischer in the dark hours of the night.

Zakaria had stared at Alena, a grim expression pinching his face, then he’d turned for the door without addressing her. As Zakaria walked out of the room, he’d stared Alexander down.

Zakaria recognized Alena from the club.

Fuck.

Given that he wasn’t a moron, Zakaria would put together that Alena had been at that club specifically to get to Alexander. The club was supposed to be safe, thanks to a rigorous vetting process. Now that security-obsessed Zakaria knew it wasn’t secure, there was going to be fallout.

The message Alexander had left Lillian had been brief and vague. He had a feeling Zakaria’s first call after walking out of Alexander’s building had been either to Lillian or the anonymous owner of the club.

Those thoughts and memories were what occupied Alexander’s mind instead of appreciating the scenery below the helicopter as it passed over rural Romania.

The helicopter started its descent, and Alexander sat back, ignoring the familiar but vexing way his stomach tried to climb out of his body through his mouth as they dropped.

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