Free BWWM: The Billionaire's Marriage of Convenience (BWWM Russian Alpha Male Romance) (Interracial BBW Billionaire Pregnancy Short Stories) by Serena Vale

ruined headboard of their bed drew his attention.
    A bullet hole had formed there.
    Suddenly the world changed as if it had been dipped in some kind of thick syrup, everything suddenly moving slowly.  Lada’s expression changed instantly, first full of love and anticipation before becoming blank.  He barely had time to realize that Lada was dead before her lifeless body collapsed on top of his.  The warm spray of her blood across his face was enough to offset the warmth he had been craving – yearning for – all day.  A chill came over him that had nothing to do with the coldness now seeping into the warm sanctuary that had been his bedroom.
    Anger overcame shock as he heard a faint sound escape her lips, the sound of a final breath, unwillingly given.  His eyes shot to the source of the shattered glass, the window at Lada’s back bore a large hole, the kind he recognized as that which could only have been made by a large caliber bullet as it penetrated through unarmored glass.  Without needing to measure he knew that the hole in Lada’s chest was the same level as where his head would have been had she not pushed him back upon the pillows.
    Terror seized his heart as he quickly and instinctively rolled off the bed and crashing to the floor, cradling his wife’s body in his arms protectively.  The motion, he knew, would spoil the line of sight of any shooter from any range outside.  His mind reeled with thoughts about what had happened or why only to be replaced with thoughts of the woman in his arms that he loved.
    “Lada?  Lada?!!” he cried, shaking her body and trying to coax a reaction from her.  His voice echoed in the room, in the night, and beyond.  But he received no response.

Chapter 6
    Regina felt a tear roll down her face as she listened to Alexi tell his story and she was suddenly thankful that she had not had her voice recorder with her.  The story, simple as it was, was powerful.  And without needing to ponder the matter greatly she knew that this was something that was meant to remain private.  She had no more right to replay a story like this for her own amusement any more than she had the right to piss on someone else’s grave.
    “My god…” she whispered, almost to her coulibiac which had turned cold from being untouched for nearly an hour while she had listened to her client.  “Alexi… I don’t know what to say.”
    Alexi regarded the bottle of vodka from their dinner table.  At some point he had gathered it up and it now sat before him on the table half-empty. Though he had drunk deeply from it, he showed no signs of being inebriated. 
    “It was a… difficult night.”  He paused, his eyes looking as though they had been lost in past memories, both warmed and stung by them.  “We had discussed perhaps having children earlier that week…”  His voice trailed off as a tear began to form in his eyes.
    She nodded, pretending that she had not noticed.  “So what happened?  I’m sure you must have launched an investigation.”
    He wiped the tear from under his eye and continued.  “The police investigated, of course, but the killer was never found.  But an investigation turned up something interesting.”
    “What was it?”
    “The bullet that killed Lada was fired from a weapon that they could not identify.  They found the bullet casing on the roof of a building nearly a block away.  The impact of the hammer on the bullet casing left a distinctive mark… one that I had seen before.”
    The truth occurred to her without the need for heavy thinking and she gave it a voice.  “It belonged to one of your military contracts.”
    “From a new rifle, though there were several different models of it in production, they all utilized the same hammer mechanism that left an easily identifiable mark.  The difficulty was that the rifles in production that used this technology belonged to six different companies.  But without the actual weapon – and because there was