Page 54 of Vienna Bliss

Alexander turned to face her, dread filling him as she kept talking.

“He got one of the cuffs on and I panicked. I fought back but I was on my knees. No leverage. And, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m not actually a trained spy-slash-Interpol agent. I’m an art lover and insurance investigator.”

If she’d been trying for mirth, the words fell short. Instead they highlighted in his mind how helpless and scared she would have been.

“He undid his belt and—”

“Hospital. We’re, we’re… If he…then. We’re going to the hospital.” Alexander could feel himself shaking, hated that his words weren’t clear and precise the way he wanted them to be.

“He didn’t rape me. He hit me, with the belt. The whole length, and that hurt. I screamed then, tried to run—fuck the plan, is what I was thinking at that point—but he had me chained to the fireplace, and my knee gave out. When I was down, he gagged me with his scarf.”

The bits of gaudy silk he’d found on the kitchen floor.

“He did it just the way you did. Twice around my head. Tied in the back.”

Alexander held very, very still and a new, horrific idea started to form.

He was no better than Absolon.

“I started pointing at the collar, the pearls—I’m sorry, I cut through one when I was trying to cut off the scarf.”

Alexander didn’t say anything, and after a moment she kept going with her horrific story.

“I figured if he didn’t respect me, he’d respect your property. It worked. He said he wouldn’t touch me again, but that he wanted to know what it felt like. He kept saying that. ‘I just want to know what it feels like.’”

“What did he do to you?”

Alena raised her chin, and she looked every inch the battered, but not defeated, queen. Even barefoot, wearing what he now saw was one of his t-shirts, she was regal.

“He ordered me to bend over…and I did. He whipped me with his belt, made sure I knew that I couldn’t, or maybe shouldn’t, tell you, because you wouldn’t care, since you were selling me soon anyway.

“And then I came up here, took a long bath, and fell asleep.” Alena’s shoulders slumped, as if now that the story was done she no longer had to hold herself so erect.

Alexander’s horrific idea solidified into a realization.

The belt. Gagging her like that…Absolon had imitated him. Done the things he’d done.

Chaining her…Alexander hadn’t done that while Absolon watched, but he’d done it, more than once. And he’d beat her until she was bruised, until she couldn’t sit. Back in Moldova.

He was no better than Absolon.

“I will call my physician to come and… Or if you’d prefer a female doctor…”

“Alexander don’t, please.” Her words were tinged with frustration. “Don’t do this.”

“If you would rather make your own arrangements—”

“I know what you’re doing. What you’re thinking. Stop.”

“Alena, the facts are—”

“Are what? Tell me the facts.” Her eyes were bright with anger.

Alexander’s breath heaved and he was fighting the urge to grab the nearest breakable and hurl it against the wall.

“You’re just like him?” Alena spat. “That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? All the things he did to me you’ve done to me, and more.” She stalked towards him, her words silky, and he was vividly reminded of the way she’d been in the dining room in Moldova when she’d proposed the plan that had led them to this point.

“You’ve done much more. Given me much more pain. And when you use your belt on me, it’s on bare flesh, not over the clothes the way he did it.”