Page 6 of Vienna Bargain

He didn’t reply.

If she could just talk to Alexander…

She closed her eyes and dropped her chin to her chest, her tangled hair falling forward, hopefully shielding her face and hiding her expression.

She would probably never see Alexander again. They’d searched her and found her passport belt. That meant they now had her legal name. That wasn't much, because she had almost no digital “footprint” as people in the business would have said.

If they dug enough, they’d find out who her father was, but if they pulled that thread, they risked alerting the Secret Service. U.S. senators had tight security, and were routinely monitored for data breaches and any potential threat.

Still, her status as bastard daughter of a senator wasn’t going to get them the answers they really wanted.

Following the money wouldn’t work either, since she had Cayman and Swiss accounts. She and Alexander used some of the same banks. Her travel history wouldn't be hard to find—they had her passport after all—but everything else she did was hidden by design. She’d gotten where she was thanks to in-person, word-of-mouth recommendations.

“Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.”

She snorted in amusement at her own thoughts, but quickly sobered. By now, Alexander was talking to the authorities. The question was, which authorities?

Austria had, in the mid-2000s, combined their two police forces—the urban Polizei and rural Gendarmerie—plus other investigative and security services, into the BPOL, or Bundespolizei—the Federal Police.

Though based in Austria, Wagner Global operated import and export shipping services all over Eastern Europe, along the Danube, the Black Sea, and in the past twenty years or so, expanded into the Mediterranean and North Africa.

Given that she’d been stealing data from a company with such expansive reach, this would get kicked up the food chain. From the Austrian federal police to one of their military intelligence organizations, probably the BVT, which was their counterterrorism group, and from there, to Interpol.

Once that happened she would be—

The knock at the door made her lift her head.

The guard reached back without taking his eyes off her and opened the door a crack. Someone spoke in German, so low that she couldn’t hear what was said, and the guard replied, “Jawohl.”

Alena straightened her shoulders, shaking her hair back—the bun had finally fallen apart when they’d been binding her to the chair—and prepared herself to be questioned.

Rather than release her, the security team wheeled the chair she was strapped to back into the conference room.

If he’d expected her to look cowed, he was a fool. Though at this point, his status as fucking idiot was well established.

Alena was calm and composed. She gave the impression that the security guards were her servants, and the rolling conference chair the litter in which she was carried through the crowd.

Alexander’s hand curled into a fist as he fought twin impulses to stroke her cheek while asking her if she was alright and slap the small, amused smile off her face.

When he’d gone upstairs to change, all he’d been able to see was her. On her knees in the living room. Running her hands along books in his library. On the guest bed, astride him, riding him.

She’d tainted his home, and that had brought the cold anger forward.

Fischer looked at the guard in the corner, who hit record on the small camera set up on the conference table.

“Frau Moreau, Bitte beantworten Sie die Fragen.”

Ms Moreau, answer the questions.

Alena—Magdalena—screwed her face up. “I’m so sorry, Mr…?”

Fischer didn’t offer his name. Alena’s mouth quirked and she inclined her head in a brief nod as if she were acknowledging a touch in a fencing match.

“My German isn’t good. I’ll do my best, but…” She shrugged.

Why wasn’t she scared?

He wanted her scared. He wanted her to feel something as hostile and bleak as the anger coursing through him.

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