Page 20 of Vienna Bliss

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.”

Alena pushed to her feet, bile rising in her throat. Last night, once she walked into his arms, had been peaceful and lovely. This morning, sitting across from Alexander having breakfast had been perfect. She’d felt happy. In love.

Then Alexander had made it clear that the feeling was one-sided.

That because she was submissive he didn’t trust her to know her own feelings.

And now he and Rolf were both looking at her, talking about her, as if she were disposable.

She’d ceased being useful to them, and so they no longer cared about her.

Alena’s chair toppled over as she pushed back from the table. Her ears were ringing and her throat was tight with tears, but she kept her head up as she walked out of the room.

When she hit the larger hallway, she started running. The damnable maze of the villa tripped her up once, but she managed to find her way back to the gallery room, back to Alexander’s office.

She was sobbing in truth by the time she yanked on the book that opened the hidden door, and nearly fell as she took the spiraled staircase too fast.

The door to the safe room was standing open, the way they’d left it yesterday.

It had been only yesterday?

Alena shoved the door closed, and then with a shaking finger she keyed in the code that locked the door.

Locking herself in the safe room. In his BDSM dungeon.

Alena stumbled to the corner, pressed her back against the wall, and then slid to the floor, hissing in pain as her abused ass met cold concrete.

But it didn’t matter.

She didn’t matter.

All this time, she’d pretended she was playing a game, that she was the one moving the pieces, trying to trick and outsmart her opponent.

But she was one of the pieces on the board, and not an important one. Not a knight, or the queen.

She was a pawn.

Disposable.

Chapter 5

“Find her,” Alexander demanded.

Finn slanted a glance at the trio of Interpol agents who were standing beside him. “We’ve all searched the house. She’s not here.”

Rolf walked up, more agents behind him. After last night’s aborted raid, all the Interpol agents had been given rooms—the first time the villa had ever been filled to anything near capacity.

Many of the agents had left this morning, but a handful, who’d flown in from Western Europe with Rolf, were still here. They’d joined the three men from RTW in the search of the villa.

Alena had walked out of the room twenty minutes ago. They hadn’t started looking for her until ten minutes had elapsed since her departure.

Alexander had assumed she’d come back. She wasn’t the kind of person to run from someone, or something.

“She hasn’t left, at least not in a vehicle,” Finn continued.

“If she wants to sulk in privacy, we should let her. Mr. Wagner, if we could sit down and construct the details of what we’d like you to tell your household staff, either directly or if you have a reliable method of indirect communication—”