Page 18 of Vienna Bliss

“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?”