Gilded Cage: A Russian Mafia Romance (Kovalyov Bratva Book 1) by Nicole Fox (best books for 20 year olds .txt) 📕

voice. There’s someone else out there with him, too.

I open the door and peek outside. It’s still too dark in the predawn hours to see anyone, so I step out into the narrow landing and walk down a little to the closed door of the room adjacent to this one.

I think about knocking and walking in, but I don’t know who he’s with and I don’t want to interrupt.

I’m about to go back to the bedroom and wait for him to finish his conversation—when I catch my name.

“…Esme…”

I freeze.

It’s wrong to eavesdrop. Artem is the don now, and practically the first hour on his watch was marred with a vicious ambush. I’m sure he’s busy as hell.

But I can’t help myself.

I inch closer, unable to turn away now. I press my ear to the door and realize that the voices are coming through clearly.

“…we’re trying to find out…”

I pick up the distinct Irish accent and I realize that Artem’s in there with his blonde friend, the one who’d offered me his elbow at the funeral.

Cillian, I recall with a ping.

“… motherfuckers thought we’d be vulnerable at the funeral… We’re going to hit back… fucking hard. How many men did you pick up?”

“There were no survivors,” Cillian replies. “There was one we caught alive, just barely. He drowned in his own blood before we could get anything out of him.”

I cringe at the gory details. But the two men are as calm as if they’re just discussing the weather.

“Were they marked in any way?” Artem asks. “Any identifiers? Tattoos?”

“I checked every body and weapon myself,” Cillian says. “There was nothing, which was obviously deliberate. Whoever mounted the attack didn’t want it to be traced back.”

“We have many enemies. The question is, is it an old enemy or a new one?”

There is a beat of silence. I can imagine Artem’s stoic face, his dark eyes scouring the unseen possibilities, vowing to get revenge.

It’s not in his nature to let things pass. And even I have to agree—this brazen assault demands some kind of response.

But the implications terrify me.

I would’ve thought I’d be used to this. I’d glimpsed some of what Papa had done to enemies over the years. What he’d done to his own men, even.

The memory of Miguel bound and beaten on that chair swims behind my eyes. I’ll never forget the horror, the pain in his eyes.

Papa had never been afraid to hurt people when it suited him.

But it didn’t bother me the way this does. This feels… realer, somehow. Maybe it’s because I know how much tenderness Artem is capable of.

He has a soul, somewhere deep down inside.

The men who attacked won’t care about that. They’ll kill him in cold blood if they can.

They’ll kill me, too.

I’m Artem’s wife. That makes me a target.

And it does the same to the baby in my womb.

I plug back into the conversation when I hear Cillian speak.

“How is she?”

“She’s okay, I think,” Artem replies. “Better now. She’s got fight in her.”

“Yeah, it certainly seems so,” Cillian agrees. “We can move her to another safehouse. This one isn’t secure enough.”

“She’s sleeping now. I don’t want to disturb her. She’s been through enough.” Artem sounds exhausted.

“Mhmm.”

“What?” Artem’s tone is impatient, but Cillian chuckles.

“Nothing. Just making observations.”

“If you have something to say, fucker, say it to my face.”

I smile. I haven’t really seen him interact with anyone this way. There’s a familiarity, a brotherly bond that’s evident between the two of them even though I can’t see either one.

“I’m just saying, you seem very protective of her,” Cillian points out.

“She’s my wife.”

The words make my heart flutter like a lovestruck fifteen-year old. They’re possessive, and they ring with sincerity.

With truth. With feeling.

The men shuffle around. For a few seconds, I can’t hear a thing.

“What?” Artem asks suddenly. “What’s that look on your face?”

“I was just wondering whether or not you’ve told her yet.”

A long, drawn-out silence makes me nervous again.

Told me what?

“No,” Artem sighs.

The denial sounds hollow and ugly. My nerves ratchet up a notch.

“I’m not gonna tell you what to do—”

“Then don’t,” Artem barks, before he breathes deeply. “Shit, I’m sorry, Cillian. I… I know I need to tell her. But…”

“You don’t want to hurt her.”

“She’s been through enough,” Artem says again. “This will break her. She loved him.”

She loved him.

My mind races through the possibilities.

What the hell is he talking about?

I already know he’s the one who killed my father. He told me himself the night he burned my world to ash.

Which means…

“She needs to know if you’re trying to build something real with her,” Cillian says softly.

“I know she does,” Artem says after a small pause. “But if I tell her, it’ll destroy any chance we have together. There’s no coming back from that.”

My body goes cold. A part of me wants to turn around and run back to my room. Pretend I’d never heard that. Pretend that my mind isn’t already leaping to the one inevitable conclusion that remains.

But as my hand flutters over my belly, I know that I have to put my unborn child first. And that means finding out the truth about its father.

About the sins of his past.

About the blood on his hands.

“It may,” Cillian concedes. “But if she finds out before you tell her, it definitely will.”

“Fuck.” Artem’s voice is low but there’s no mistaking the frustration in it. “How do I even start?”

“Explain the circumstances to her.”

Artem lets out a low laugh that’s completely devoid of any humor. “Trust me, the circumstances won’t fucking matter. I killed her brother. That’s all she’s going to remember.”

I almost gasp.

The sound punctures my throat but I manage to hold it in long enough to push myself away from the door.

I killed her brother.

Artem killed Cesar.

Artem. Killed. Cesar.

My husband murdered the only other person who ever really loved me.

Pain branches through my body like a lightning bolt and I cringe against it.

But it’s not just a figment of my imagination.

It’s real pain.

I grab the banister of the staircase and