A Stranger In Moscow_A Russian Billionaire Romance Read online

  The third man was large himself, but he had a softness to him that Olivia could sense even through the black ensemble. This time, his gun sat on the ground next to him. She thought about how she might be able to kick him down and buy herself some time to get loose from the ropes, but then what? She was in the middle of a foreign country without a car and wouldn’t survive running with just her slippers in the snow for long.

  “Are you okay?” the man asked Olivia. Though the mask was very disguisable, Olivia could see his deep brown eyes through the mesh covering the top half of his face. Something about his voice filled her body with an odd warmth, a strange sensation in such a fearful moment. She didn’t feel scared looking into his face anymore, instead comforted. Olivia could tell that this man wasn’t there to hurt her. He loosened the ropes on her wrists and cut the ones that had been tied around her ankles.

  “You’re not going to kick me, right? You wouldn’t do something like that,” the man said. Olivia could tell he was smiling beneath the mask. She couldn’t kick him even if she thought that would be a smart idea. She quickly lost feeling in her feet after the rope had been tied so tightly around her ankles. She started to get her breathing under control and nodded her head to show that she was okay.

  The other two men walked into the dining area as well. “We got it,” the taller man claimed, holding up a small black box. “Let’s go.”

  “You weren’t supposed to hurt anybody,” the third man yelled at the other two. Olivia quickly realized who was in control here.

  “There wasn’t even supposed to be anyone here, though,” said the smallest man with the bigger gun.

  “And she doesn’t look hurt, does she?” the tall monster that tied Olivia up explained.

  “I’m sorry, this wasn’t supposed to happen to you,” the third man began speaking peacefully to Olivia. She could see under his tight black sweater that he was built strong and wasn’t someone she would be able to fight off, especially with his two lackeys close by.

  “Where’s your phone?” he asked. Olivia nodded towards the kitchen counter. He walked over, grabbed her phone, and dialed a number. He set it down in front of her on the floor and motioned for the other men to leave.

  “You’re safe now. No one is going to hurt you again.” Olivia believed him. They all went out the door, closing it behind them. Olivia heard the phone ringing, and someone finally picked up. She couldn’t hear what they said but immediately started yelling for help.

  “Please someone send help, I’ve just been robbed.” She cried into the phone, hands still tied behind her back.

  Waiting for the police to arrive while tied up in the quiet home felt like an eternity. She wondered if she had actually been killed by the burglars and was in some sort of purgatory. Before she had stepped out onto the porch, she put a kettle on for tea. It started whistling as soon as the men left, so she knew that they hadn’t been there for all that long. Olivia sat in that chair tied up for what felt like hours but was probably less than twenty minutes.

  She had tried to get out of the chair but ended up rubbing the skin on her wrists raw. The operator tried to talk to Olivia, but she spoke less Russian than they did English. She felt so terrified and alone once they had left not knowing if they were going to come back. Though he said she wouldn’t get hurt, how else was she supposed to feel tied up to a chair? She had taken off her makeup after dinner and changed into pajamas. She wasn’t even wearing a bra and one of her slippers had come off when the large man dragged her to the dining room chair. She could not have felt more vulnerable in her life.

  Chapter2

  Olivia heard voices outside the front door and realized that the Touhys had beat the authorities there.

  “Olivia? My god, what happened?” Margot said as she ran over.

  “Some guys came in. I already called for help. Or, they did for me. People are on their way.” Olivia cried as Margot tried to untie her.

  “Mom I got it, go hide in the bedroom in case they come back,” Vera said, untying Olivia. Joseph had pulled his phone out and was calling authorities again. He ran to the other doors, quickly locking them.

  “They’re not coming back, it’s okay,” Olivia explained to the family.

  “Did they hurt you?” Margot asked.

  “No, they just tied me up. They were only here for a few minutes. I saw them grab a black box, and they had bookbags,” Olivia started through tears, gasping for breath.

  “It’s okay, just breathe. You can tell it all to the police when they get here,” Vera explained.

  The quiet cabin quickly echoed with flashing lights and sirens as authorities arrived. It felt like it had all taken place over several hours, but later Olivia would realize it all happened within a half an hour after finishing the dishes.

  Several police rushed in, pointing guns at the family and shouting in Russian. The family held their hands up and Joseph was able to quickly explain to them in Russian what happened. Although he was an Italian boy from Chicago, he was fluent in several languages where he often conducted business.

  Olivia rubbed her wrists as she told her story to the police, having to have a translator repeat it all to them. She wasn’t able to give them good descriptions for their appearances and could only remember how tall they all were. She couldn’t get the feeling she had when she looked into the third man’s eyes out of her head, but she wasn’t quite sure how to tell the police what she had experienced.

  They were deep brown and swallowed Olivia, but not necessarily in a bad way. Though he had come in pointing guns at her, she didn’t feel scared or threatened by the third man. Maybe that’s because the first two had scared everything she had left out of her.

  She wasn’t sure what they had taken, and only told the police she remembered seeing them leave with a black box. Margot told authorities that some of her jewelry had been taken, and Joseph had cash that was missing as well. Vera had some purses and jewelry that had gone missing, but Olivia didn’t have anything that valuable that was taken.

  When she had told authorities about seeing them leave with a black box, they acted confused. No one in the family had reported the box missing from their possessions, so authorities stated that it was probably just something that they had brought along.

  Police were still taking photographs and statements when Olivia started to put herself back together. The kettle had been whistling the entire time she sat waiting for the police and she was just now able to take it off the burner. She thought of the night that she was supposed to have had and how it had been stolen from her just like the rest of the family’s possessions. Her body was sore, and her brain was exhausted.

  She looked down and realized she was only wearing one slipper. She saw the other one laying by the front door and walked over to get it. Before she could grab it, an officer walked up and grabbed it with his hand covered in a white glove, placing the slipper carefully in an evidence bag. She took off the other slipper and handed it to him as well. If she couldn’t have them both it didn’t really make a difference to have only one.

  Several hours after the robbery, the police finally left. She told her story to at least three different officers, none of them very sympathetic to what she had been through. The family had also told all of their stories as well, even though they didn’t have much to say. They took photographs of her wrists and torso, snapping pictures of the bruises on her back from the gun that had been jabbed into her spine.

  They insisted she go to the hospital to get checked out further, however, as a nurse she knew she was fine. The last thing she wanted to do was leave the cabin once again to get poked and prodded by more strangers. Olivia felt like a walking corpse, never wanting her bed more in her life. She was still working, however, and needed to make sure that Margot got in bed okay. As a nurse, she was always on the clock. She walked up the stairs to their bedroom to see if Margot needed help showering or getting ready for bed. It wasn’t easy for her to move around anymore, so Olivia would often help
with these things.

  Before knocking on the door, she leaned in to hear what the couple was talking to each other about. She knew she shouldn’t listen, but she wanted to see if they had any idea who those men were and why they were there.

  “What if Vera had been here alone?” Margot said nervously.

  “She wasn’t. And Olivia is fine,” Joseph replied.

  “Whoever killed Peter is coming for you next, Joey. You have to do something. I don’t want Vera to lose both of her parents.” Margot cried.

  “We don’t have to worry about that Margot, I promise. It’s probably just some kids that knew we were going to be out tonight. You’re always wearing that expensive jewelry when we go out. It could have been a bartender, a server… It could have been anyone who wanted to make a couple thousand in jewelry in a quick heist. It happens all the time, Margot,” Joseph reassured her.

  “But how did they know where we were? Someone’s watching us, Joey. I don’t feel right here anymore. I want to go home. Joey, I just, I can’t take this.” Margot started sobbing.

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to my girls. I can promise you that. You’re safe here.” Joseph was always good at making people feel better. It didn’t take him long to talk down a panicked person, using his deep voice to soothe their anxieties. His charismatic and comforting personality allowed him to build a multi-billion-dollar global steel industry.

  Fresh out of college, Joseph started Touhy Inc. using just the money he earned cleaning tables in college. At first, he just traded metals, but eventually met Peter Isaac, a scientist who specialized in producing steel. With the skills of his scientific friend, the business started to grow. In the nineties, they decided to take their million-dollar business to Russia, where the economy was good for an already successful steel manufacturer.

  There, they met Ruslan Morozov, an investor who helped the net worth of the company grow even more rapidly. Before they knew it, they managed to grow the small business into an international one, becoming one of the largest steel manufacturers in the world. They were certainly a powerful trio but getting to that level of wealth wasn’t always moral, and legal.

  Olivia knew that the Touhy family might conduct shady business in the background and listening to conversations like this only confirmed that. During her first week on the job, Joseph handed her a wad of cash and told her to have a bad memory when it came to who came in and out of the household. He always had cash on him and one time when Olivia was cleaning up their bedroom, she found a gun with the serial number scratched off.

  Her father was a drug dealer growing up, so she wasn’t unfamiliar with criminal behavior. She learned from a young age that it was best to just stay quiet and pretend you didn’t see anything. This mentality helped her survive as a single woman in Chicago and landed her a great job as their family nurse, getting paid way more than she ever would in a hospital or doctor’s office. Unfortunately, it wasn’t always easy, or safe, working for the Touhys.

  She had experienced some home invasions before, only usually from authorities with a warrant, looking for anything they could that might incriminate Joseph Touhy. Not anyone can become a billionaire. He definitely had some secrets in his closet, but Olivia could only imagine just what they all were.

  The idea of who she was working with thrilled her a bit. She didn’t have that exciting of a life outside of being a nurse, so she enjoyed being a quiet addition to this extravagant family. Horrors like the one she had just endured reminded her, however, that she might not always be safe.

  Just last month, Peter Isaac was found murdered in his apartment. Well, at least it wasn’t reported that he was murdered as it was staged to look like a suicide, and authorities believed that, but Olivia and everyone else knew that it wasn’t the case. He didn’t have any family of his own, so the blame fell to Joseph. Olivia knew he wasn’t the most moral guy in the world, but she didn’t think he was capable of murdering his longtime friend.

  Still, she didn’t know much about what went on in Joseph’s work life and only listened for hints here and there, fantasizing about the thrill of the business during her long days helping out the family. The murder was eventually declared a suicide with such little evidence, but of course, rumors swirled around this high-profile case. Joseph brought his family to Russia to meet with Ruslan and figure out what to do now that their scientific brain behind the business was gone.

  Of course, Olivia only knew all of this from what she read. She had a very quiet relationship with the family and never discussed business. She couldn’t help but get curious about what they were up to, able to find information from online news sources after they had all gone to bed. No one ever talked about the nurse of the family. Olivia didn’t mind this but also sometimes envied the spotlight that would fall onto Vera, the gorgeous heiress to a billion-dollar business.

  She could hear Margot’s footsteps downstairs and snapped back into reality. She knocked on the door. “Mrs. Touhy, would you like help getting ready for bed?” she called from the other side of the door.

  The bedroom door swung open and Margot stood there disheveled. “I’m okay for now sweetie, you’ve already done enough. I’m so sorry for what you went through today.”

  “It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” Olivia responded. She knew what she signed up for when hired by a wealthy family surrounded by scandalous rumors. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’ll be fine. You try and get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning,” Margot said sweetly.

  “Goodnight,” Olivia said, leaving. Margot shut the door.

  Olivia barely slept that night. She tossed and turned, thinking of the robbery over and over again. She thought about how she was too clueless to realize that the front door was open for a reason. She walked blindly back into that house. What else would she have done? Ran through the snow in her slippers? She thought about how they pointed a gun right in her back. Her body was still sore from the ropes being so tight around her wrists. Her arms and shoulders ached from being so tense during the ordeal.

  She always pictured what she might do in a high time of stress like the one she endured. She would often enter a room and think right away how she would escape if she had to. She had taken self-defense courses in the past and knew how to shoot a gun. She was mugged once in Chicago and managed to fight off the guy, keeping her belongings and ending up with only a few bruises.

  Despite all of this, she was still frozen with fear during the entire ordeal. It was probably better that way. The items that the robbers took weren’t worth her life or fighting them off. She got hurt, but nothing more than some scrapes and bruises. She still felt disappointed in herself that she didn’t do much fighting back.

  She played the scenario in her brain over and over again, thinking about what she could have done differently. There wasn’t any point to this. It was done and over and no one got seriously hurt. She kept telling herself all this throughout the night, unable to really fall asleep. Her body took over during the night of the robbery but wouldn’t now as she tried to fall asleep.

  Every time she would finally drift off, she’d jolt awake after dreaming about walking in the front door again. Would she ever be able to walk in the front of the cabin without feeling terrified? There was one thing about the night that still drove her absolutely crazy. What was in that black box?

  The three men all had their own bookbag, and there was no way she knew what was inside any of those bags. Still, the way they held the black box and discussed it made her really think that it didn’t belong to them. They came to that cabin to get the black box.

  But they had also taken other things. It seemed like a standard robbery. She still couldn’t make sense of the ordeal. She decided it was time to get out of bed and start preparing breakfast. She needed to do something to get her mind off it, if that was even a possibility. She’d always have the image of those three men looking at her tied up in a chair. She wouldn’t be able to shake the strang
e feeling she got when she looked into the eyes of the leader. They were so deep and dark, but not chilling like the others. What was it about that man?

  When Olivia walked into the kitchen, she saw Joseph sitting at the table already with a cup of coffee.

  “Good morning. Did you sleep all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it was fine,” she replied. She knew Joseph really wouldn’t care one way or the other that she had tossed and turned all night. “You?”

  Joseph shrugged his shoulders and sipped his coffee. He had a tablet open in front of him, browsing news articles. Olivia poured herself a cup of coffee and got some pans out to make breakfast. Joseph was a powerful man and could have any woman he wanted. Olivia could feel him staring at her back when she was turned around, but he never made a move. She had worked for other men like him in the past and they would often try something with Olivia. Little comments here and there or being too touchy-feely was a common trait among men like Joseph, but still, he had never made a move on Olivia.

  She was certainly a desirable woman. She had a very petite figure but with the breasts and curves of a grown woman. Her skin was creamy dark like a cappuccino, and the only blemishes she had on her entire body were a few beauty marks dotted across her face.

  Her lips were plump and perfectly round, and her wide eyes could swallow a person like the glow of a moon. She kept her hair short, a look not every girl could pull off, but it seemed to really suit Olivia. Despite her level of attraction, Joseph still treated her with the utmost respect. What kind of man would he be if he were to be unfaithful to his dying wife?

  Although Olivia was approaching 30, she could still pass as a teenager if wearing the right outfit. She had never purchased alcohol or ordered a drink without someone asking for her ID. She fit right in with Vera and her group of friends, all young college-aged girls. She actually felt closer to Margot, who was in her early 40s.