A Stranger In Moscow: A Russian Billionaire Romance (International Alphas Book 7)

by Lacey Legend

  This time, if they called her back, they would have known that she had really just been walking. It seemed as though every time she had a bad feeling about something, she could trust it. She had a bad feeling when she left that night that something would happen to Margot and they would need her, and she ended up being right.

  She was good at trusting her gut, and so far, it seemed like a reliable source. She was still around, wasn’t she? She had another bad feeling that night, but there wasn’t anything she could really think could go wrong that night. She would be within a ten-minute walk, quicker if she ran, and nothing too serious had even come from the other night.

  The worst punishment she received was the guilt in her own mind. She had been waiting in her room for about thirty minutes after everyone had gone to sleep. She heard some rustling around but figured it was just everyone getting into bed for the night. She decided it was a good time to head out.

  She hopped out of the window, finally catching herself before she fell. Even though she was in comfortable clothing, it was still the only time she hadn’t gotten covered in snow. Although she had a small figure, Olivia wasn’t the most athletic of girls. she spent a lot of times indoors as a kid, usually watching TV and fantasizing about a different life. She didn’t get much exercise, but she didn’t have much food either as a child, so things seemed to even out in her favor.

  Still, not having the best physical endurance or strength made things challenging, especially when she was a bit smaller. She thought about how big and strong Ruslan was and imagined him spending hours in the gym. He had serious skills, being able to break into a home without leaving a trace. She knew he would always be able to protect her and keep her safe. Having those big arms hold her at night were a plus, too.

  She walked down the road, taking her time with each step, hoping that she wouldn’t rush through a potential final moment. It was easy to get lost in a good moment with Ruslan. He made everything feel so easy, and good. There wasn’t a better way to describe it.

  After their moments together, she felt like they went by within seconds. It terrified her that it was already so long after the robbery and so close to her time to go home! She felt a strange feeling thinking about how quickly time could pass. Why did the good moments have to zoom by? Why were her days so long but her nights so short? She wished she could be with Ruslan all the time, so she didn’t have to worry about things like these.

  Although she was walking as slowly as possible, she was getting to their special spot faster than she had hoped. Before she knew it, she saw the bright red leaves on the mysterious tree. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Ruslan had flown the tree in from somewhere else as a grand gesture. He could do that if he wanted.

  This time, instead of seeing the blue car she normally did, she just saw a man standing against the tree. He certainly didn’t look like Ruslan, so Olivia grew a bit concerned. She figured he was probably just another cabin renter in the area.

  They were in a private community filled with rentals like the one where they were staying. It gave wealthier travelers a better option when staying in Moscow than having to get a hotel downtown. Staying in a house that was furnished was easier for travelers who might have normally been a bit intimidated by such a different culture than theirs. She had seen other people walking around during the day, but no one had been out this late at night.

  If it was anyone she didn’t know, she could just say she was going for a nighttime walk. They were probably doing the same and just wanted to stop under the tree for a break. It wasn’t easy walking in the snow. Her legs had to work harder to get her one step than they did when there wasn’t snow on the ground.

  Since she was pretty uncoordinated, it was also hard to keep her balance. Every once in a while, she’d hit an icy patch and slip, but not completely falling. It wasn’t as bad when she fell because she was so short that the distance from where she was standing to the position she’d fallen to wasn’t too far to cause any serious pain. She was more used to falling over than she’d like to admit. She had almost made it to the tree, but still couldn’t figure out who was standing against it.

  She kept going, wondering if someone had come in place of Ruslan to send a message. The two had shared their bodies with one another, but they had yet to even exchange phone numbers. Olivia didn’t mind. She liked doing things a bit more old-fashioned with Ruslan. No one had given her a note since middle school. They were things that she could keep forever and always remind her of Ruslan.

  She had slipped the notes in one of the drawers in her bedroom, going back to them every so often to remind her of what might be waiting at the end of the day. Imagining him finding time to get a piece of paper and scribble a note down, thrilled her more than if he had just pulled his phone out and sent her a text. Still, she thought about how it would be hard for him to get ahold of her if something happened, so she wondered if that man under the tree was just there to let her know that Ruslan couldn’t make it that night.

  As she got closer and closer, her stomach dropped. She couldn’t explain what, but something about the man leaning against the tree and the way he was standing made her feel strange. She didn’t know exactly what, but she just knew that it wasn’t right. He was standing in a strange way and hadn’t moved at all even though Olivia was getting closer and closer. She looked down and realized there were a few different footprints leading up to the tree. She started to feel scared and could feel the hairs raising on her arms. Something was unsettling, but she couldn’t turn around just yet. She had to figure out what exactly was going on.

  When she was just 20 feet away, she realized it was Joseph leaning against the tree. She could tell by his stature and balding head. Though he was losing his hair, that didn’t make him any less attractive. He could have played the role of any big Hollywood mobster and ladies would have fallen for him. He had a certain charm to the way he looked into someone’s eyes when talking to them.

  Olivia hadn’t felt sexual attraction towards Joseph herself, but that didn’t mean she didn’t find him utterly charming. That charm seemed to be gone, and Olivia could tell that something was seriously wrong with him. He looked peaceful, but that made Olivia feel sick.

  “Hey, what are you doing, I thought you were in bed?” she asked, walking closer. She had heard some rustling upstairs and in the living area, but nothing more than what she assumed to be Vera going to the bathroom or Joseph getting a glass of water before bed. Running into him there might be a little strange, but at least he could see that she was alone and not doing anything suspicious.

  What did he and Vera really think she was doing the night before when she had actually been at Ruslan’s? Surely, they didn’t suspect anything other than that she was just a little bit strange, right? Olivia quickly discovered that Joseph wasn’t going to feel anything at all during their run-in.

  When she realized what he was actually doing there, she fell to her knees. She didn’t realize she had fallen until the cold snow started to soak through her leggings. She wanted to cry but felt so shocked that she forgot how to. It was the first time in almost two decades that she had seen something that struck her so deep into her core.

  She felt like a little kid again, not sure how to react. She remembered being a little girl and getting a funny feeling when she saw her mom after she had overdosed, lying dead on the bed. It looked like her mom and felt like her mom, but the real girl she had known was gone. This man looked like Joseph. It was Joseph, but not really anymore.

  Joseph had a cut across his throat, spilling blood down the front of him. He had been propped up against the tree to look like he had been standing. He was only wearing pajama pants, a T-shirt, and a bathrobe. The blood spilled down over his shirt and stained the snow beneath him.

  Olivia looked up at the red leaves and felt sick. She didn’t want to be surrounded by that color anymore. Joseph looked the most at peace that Olivia had ever seen. She wasn’t used to his face being so expressionless and his bod
y so loose. He was a top-heavy guy, so it was strange that he had been able to stay leaned up against the tree. Whoever had done this knew what they were doing.

  Olivia was horrified. She didn’t know how long she had been standing, rather, kneeling in the snow. She didn’t feel cold anymore. She didn’t feel anything. Olivia had a strange grasp of death and dead people from her job. Things weren’t processing right in her brain at the moment. Her brain started to flash different memories of Joseph.

  She remembered the first time she met him, so charmed by his speaking abilities and impressed by his demeanor. She remembered the last time she saw him alive, helping his wife up the stairs. She thought of Margot. Where was Margot? Her stomach felt like it was going to fall out of her body. She knew she had to fix this.

  “Joseph, what, what—” Olivia started breathing heavily, feeling her throat close up as she tried to make sense of what exactly was going on. She used all the energy she had in her body to lift herself to a standing position. It was so cold outside that her knees were already starting to freeze. Her fingers were numb from stopping her body from falling all the way into the snow.

  The fluffy white ice was all over Olivia in different spots, but it didn’t hurt her anymore. It just felt like a strange cold sensation all over her body. You could have told her she was standing there for thirty minutes or thirty seconds and she would have believed you either way.

  She walked a little closer to make sure that he was actually dead. Olivia had seen some worse cases in the ER of deep lacerations, neck included, in which people survived. She worked in an ER in Chicago and had seen some of the craziest things possible. One man had cut his entire hand off and doctors were still able to sew it back on, giving him full use of the hand once it healed.

  Someone had been shot in the head twice, but still made it out of the hospital in full health a month later. Though he certainly didn’t look alive, Joseph could still have his trachea intact, allowing him the potential to keep breathing. Olivia knew she had to get him help right away.

  She pressed her fingers against his neck and wrist, feeling no pulse. Her fingers were numb, and she couldn’t trust her thoughts, but she knew that he was dead. She could see that the cut was deep and that he probably didn’t suffer too much before he had bled out. There was only one clean swipe across his neck. She was no detective, but whoever did this was skilled. It was execution style, not a fight of passion. Joseph had no idea what was coming to him when he was murdered and didn’t even get the chance to fight back.

  He was dead, but still warm, meaning someone had just done this. She could figure that out herself, having just seen Joseph go to bed not too long ago. How had no one heard him? Did he not cry out before he felt his throat slice open?

  She looked in his hand. Inside was the crumpled note that Ruslan had given to her earlier that night. She didn’t even realize it was missing. She had looked at it in the bathroom of the theater but not again since. Come to think of it, she didn’t slip it in the drawer yet, so someone could have taken it anywhere from the ball to the cabin. Perhaps it wasn’t the same exact note either, but one that Ruslan had given to Joseph as well.

  “Olivia?” She turned around to see Ruslan standing there, holding a knife. She assumed it was the knife from the black box. Everything hit her at once like a bus. If someone killed Peter and Joseph, who would it be? Someone that wanted to see them both gone, right? She immediately felt betrayed, confused as to how Ruslan could do something so horrifying.

  “What did you do?” Olivia screamed. She felt disgusted. Had he been using her the entire time? Was she next? Ruslan didn’t seem like someone who would ever hurt Olivia, but she had been fooled too many times in her life to let her guard down too much. She didn’t want to believe that Ruslan was capable of something so horrible, but she had to remind herself that he was standing by Joseph’s dead body holding a knife. She knew she had to get out of there as fast as possible.

  “No, I didn’t, Olivia, wait,” he begged, but it was too late.

  She was already sprinting back to the cabin, phone in her hand calling for help.

  Chapter13

  Olivia had plenty of encounters with the police in her life. When she was a little girl, they would come into her home all of the time to look for drugs. She got taken away from her mother and father once as a child after she was found in conditions that weren’t so great. It was both of her parents’ first offense, however, so they were able to get her back right away. Although that wasn’t the first time the police had ever come, that was Olivia’s first real memory encountering police officers. They had been so nice to her and made her feel better in a time when she was scared.

  The first time she ever had a bad experience with a cop was when she was a teenager. They had come to search the house for drugs and didn’t realize Olivia was just their suspect’s teenage daughter. She didn’t realize the police were the ones breaking in and thought she might be under attack. She fought back at first, but they beat her to the ground and kept her handcuffed. She was let go after it was all over, but she would never look at the police the same.

  She thought that past was behind her until she met the Touhy family. In the two years that she worked for them, the police had shown up to search their Chicago mansion twice. There were always suspicions of illegal things taking place in the steel company, but never any proof. When they would get an anonymous tip, likely from an angry ex-employee, they would search the Touhy residence.

  The officers were always nice to her there, knowing that she was just a cooperative staff member and not someone they had to worry about. Still, she felt uncomfortable around the police officers thinking back to her teenage years when they treated her like the worst inmate in Cook County Jail. She had hoped to never have to see the police again each time she had an encounter with them, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

  She never suspected that she would have two run-ins with the Russian police on one vacation to Moscow. They were so much more frightening than the police back home. This was mostly because she didn’t know what they were saying and was scared that they would misunderstand something, or her statement might get lost in translation, resulting in them wanting to come after Olivia.

  Being a black woman made things a bit more difficult when it came to feeling comfortable around the police. Her white friends and classmates could walk down the street without fear, but Olivia always wondered if the cops thought she was suspicious just because her skin was darker than others.

  She managed to make it back to the cabin in time to call for help before Ruslan came back. She had walked so slowly from the cabin to the tree. If she got there faster, might Joseph had been alive still? Would she have been able to stop Ruslan from killing Joseph? She also wondered why he would have invited both of them there just to kill Joseph and get caught by Olivia. None of this made sense and she didn’t know who or what to believe. The only thing she knew was true was that she had wished that none of it ever happened. She imagined how her night was supposed to be, wrapped in Ruslan’s arms, feeling him inside her like she had the few times before.

  He hadn’t tried to follow her. She thought that maybe he would kill her next. He didn’t look like he was threatening her in any way, but she saw a large man with a knife and didn’t want to stick around. He shouted for her to stay as she ran away, but he didn’t follow her. It would not have looked good for him to chase after this woman while holding a knife, after all.

  She looked back at him a few times and just saw him standing there, looking as confused as she was. Part of her wanted to turn back around and listen to what he had to say, but her instincts were pushing her forward and fast through the snow. She didn’t slip once, a rare occurrence for her.

  Olivia was confused, terrified, and heartbroken. In a time that caused so much pain, it was always best to turn to a loved one. There was no one there to comfort Olivia. She would have wanted to lean into Ruslan’s strong chest and feel his heartbeat again
st her ear. That was her favorite spot. She didn’t mind that he was so much taller than her and actually liked that fact.

  It gave her the perfect position to hear the pounding of his heartbeat. When they were dancing, if she squeezed him closer, his heart would beat faster. When she held him after making love, his heart would beat slower. She wanted to hear that pounding now but knew that would be impossible.

  She also couldn’t rely on Margot or Vera to mourn. These two ladies had been her closest friends in recent months, though Vera was turning sour pretty quickly. Still, how could they help Olivia mourn the loss of her employer when they were struggling with losing a father and husband? Those pains were incomparable.

  She thought about her own father, thinking of Vera’s loss. She thought about how she didn’t know whether he was even still alive in prison or not. They probably would have called her if he died, right? She didn’t know any different. Losing Joseph was one of the hardest losses she had to deal with in a while, but still not as bad as having to lose Ruslan, or at least, who she thought Ruslan was.

  She had begged Ruslan to spare Joseph’s life so recently, but instead, she discovered him moments after he had murdered his partner. Was that all just a façade? Had Ruslan been an evil billionaire this whole time just waiting for the right moment to strike? Was he just using Olivia for sex?

  He probably feared what she might be able to say as a witness, so instead of killing her, he decided to keep her around as a play object. She felt disgusted and humiliated. She thought this man might actually love her, but instead, she assumed he was just trying to keep her quiet.

  Was it Ruslan that had killed Peter as well? She wondered if she would have to fear for her own life now. She knew she could outrun anyone if she had to, but fighting a large man like Ruslan, or worse, Nikolai, would be no easy feat. She feared what might happen if she stayed in Russia any longer. Luckily, they had an officer patrolling the area in case Ruslan or someone worse came to take out the rest of the family. Margot would be passing soon, meaning Vera would inherit her father’s fortune. Peter didn’t have any kids, so would Ruslan kill Vera, too?