At a luxury estate in the rolling hills of Tuscany, Italy, Natalia Chernysheva claims she woke in agony, her body bruised and memory fractured after a night she could not fully recall.

It was November 2020, and she says she had been staying with her then-boyfriend, wealthy tech mogul Serg Bell, at the Renieri di Montalcino estate, a sprawling property surrounded by dense forest and miles from any public road, with only his assistant for company.

Disoriented and searching for answers, she says she turned to the villa's surveillance system.

'When I woke up the next day with pain in my body, I remember something very, very bad happened… but I just couldn't remember,' she told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview.

'So that's when I checked the cameras.'

What she saw, she claimed, was horrifying. An emotional Chernysheva said: 'Those pictures… I could see them in my head. But when I saw it captured on the cameras… my hands were shaking.'

The footage allegedly showed Bell grabbing her by the neck and strangling her before stepping back and adopting a martial arts stance. He then moved in again, striking and kicking her as she lay on the floor until she lost consciousness. The Daily Mail has not viewed the footage.

The alleged incident, detailed in a lawsuit filed by Chernysheva against Bell in Florida, was just one of many savage beatings she claims she endured during their six-year relationship.

After the alleged attack, it is claimed in the lawsuit that Bell calmly bent down to tie his shoelaces before walking away, leaving his assistant, who allegedly did not intervene, to lift her onto a couch.

'That showed me how cruel Serg actually is,' Chernysheva told the Daily Mail.

In the suit, Chernysheva, 42, alleges Bell, 54, exerted near-total control over her life – monitoring her spending, restricting her movements and isolating her from friends and family while making her financially dependent on him.

The document claims he enforced that control with violence, with the abuse spanning the globe – from Paris to Palm Beach, Singapore and Abu Dhabi.

'[Bell] made me believe I couldn't leave because there was nothing beyond him; life is him. He put that in my mind from the beginning.'

The lawsuit describes how she finally decided to break free from the relationship after an alleged attack in 2022 on the day she told Bell she was pregnant after In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), which she claims led to a miscarriage days later.

'It seems so simple [to leave], but it's not,' Chernysheva told the Daily Mail. 'In reality, it's the most impossible thing when you are in so deep and trapped with someone.’ 

Bell, born in the Soviet Union and now a Singapore citizen, founded several companies including Swiss cybersecurity firm Acronis, once valued at $4 billion. He stepped down as CEO in 2021 and is no longer associated with the company.

When approached for comment by the Daily Mail, Bell – formerly known as Serguei Beloussov – said the allegations were 'fake' and described the lawsuit as a 'pure and baseless attack.'

In a subsequent statement, the law firm representing Bell said: 'We are committed to a vigorous legal defense and will pursue this matter through the appropriate legal channels.

'This is where our full focus and resources will remain and not in the court of public opinion.'

Chernysheva and Bell first became romantically involved in 2012 after meeting through a mutual friend.

But it was short-lived, according to Chernysheva, owing to Bell’s constant travel and newborn child from a previous relationship.

They reconnected in 2016 when Bell pursued her intensely with grand gestures, luxury trips and constant flattery.

At the time, Chernysheva was looking for a stable partner to start a family with.

The suit describes how Bell pressured her to leave her job so she could travel with him. He said he was a fierce businessman and claimed that ‘strong people need strong support,' according to the suit.

Chernysheva was initially reluctant to leave her director-level job in retail but eventually agreed when he positioned it as a more ‘stable’ move, the filing says.

That is when the dynamic shifted and the alleged abuse started, according to the lawsuit.

She claims in her suit that he treated her salary like an allowance – monitoring her spending, confiscating her cards and threatening to cut her off.

She also alleges he isolated her from friends and family, leaving her with no life outside the relationship.

That dependency, she said, made it harder to leave as the abuse escalated, according to the suit.

She claims Bell would shove and shake her in the middle of the night if she attempted to cuddle into him, even jumping on her while she slept before it intensified into punching and strangulation.

His 'uncontrollable rage' became a constant, the lawsuit says.

Chernysheva claims some attacks happened in front of others – including business associates, employees and Bell's parents at their Palm Beach home – but no one intervened.

According to her lawsuit, he would wake her up in the middle of the night and force her to perform oral sex on him, refusing to let her sleep until she complied.

She alleges the abuse unfolded across multiple countries and that Bell would break down doors when she tried to hide, push her down stairwells and smash her phones to stop her calling for help.

She claims she began secretly recording his outbursts and gathering evidence.

'Being abused can break your reality,' she told the Daily Mail. 'You know the things are happening but [Bell] convinced me that it didn't or that it was my fault… So I started to make recordings for myself to make sure this was really happening to me.'

On one occasion during a trip to Abu Dhabi in November 2018, the lawsuit claims Bell smashed her jaw and beat her.

She claims she confronted him in an audio recording where she said: 'You just broke my jaw,' to which Bell responded sarcastically: ‘Well, fine, wonderful.’

In another alleged recording from November 2017, she claims Bell grabbed her by the throat and threatened: 'Once I kill you, I'll bury you.'

Other audio allegedly captured him saying: 'You want me to rip your lungs out? Out of your head, you f***ing bch. Stinking freak. You f****d everything up.'

When she confronted him with the recordings, she told the Daily Mail he showed no remorse.

'He would either deny it, call me crazy, or threaten to harm himself to make me go silent,' she said. 'There was never remorse. Never an apology.'

For the final two years of the relationship, she claims Bell 'weaponized' her desire to start a family, coercing her into IVF.

She alleges in her suit that he belittled her over fertility struggles and said he 'would not respect her' until she became pregnant.

She believed having a child would stop the abuse.

On April 2, 2022, she told Bell and his family she was pregnant. The lawsuit alleges hours of violence followed, with Bell grabbing, shoving and chasing her from room to room.

She says she pleaded with him to stop as she experienced severe abdominal pain, but he refused to get help, according to the lawsuit.

By the next morning, the pain had suddenly stopped and she feared she had lost the pregnancy.

Three days later, she claims she miscarried. She said his reaction was what caused her to finally break free from the relationship.

'It was my last hope that something would change in our relationship,' she told the Daily Mail.

'When he demonstrated to me that he doesn't care about how I feel, what I'm going through, and that his level of cruelty will never change towards me – pregnant or not – I knew that was it.'

After she left, she claims in the suit that Bell continued to threaten her and her family, cut her off financially and changed the locks.

It took more than a year for her to feel any sense of normalcy.

She says she now suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and has been left permanently disfigured emotionally and physically, she claims.

'I am ready now,' she said. 'I have my voice back. I have my courage back. And I want other people to see exactly who Serguei Beloussov is,' she told the Daily Mail.

She is seeking damages for what the lawsuit describes as profound physical, emotional and economic harm. The case, filed in December 2025, is ongoing.