Gilded Cage: A Russian Mafia Romance (Kovalyov Bratva Book 1) by Nicole Fox (free novel 24 .txt) 📗

harshly. “I would give anything to be thirteen again.”

“Because you didn’t have monsters then?” I surmise.

Cesar gives me a little wink. “Exactly.”

I move forward and reach for his hand. He doesn’t lean in to touch me as easily as he used to. Sometimes, it feels like he wants to put distance between us, as though my presence hurts him in some way.

It might sting if I didn’t know how much he loves me.

“You need to remove the mask sometimes, Cesar,” I tell him. “If you wear the mask all the time, the monsters in your head will only get bigger.”

He looks at me in amazement for a moment. Then he smiles softly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you understand more than I give you credit for. Goodnight, little bird.”

He leans in, kisses my forehead.

And then goes into his room before I can say goodnight in return.

59

Esme

I feel tears pooling at the corners of my eyes. Artem squeezes my hand.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I nod. “I was just… remembering,” I tell him. “Monsters.”

“What?” Artem asks, his dark eyes boring into mine.

“He told me once that he had monsters in his head,” I say softly. “And he tried to outrun them all the time. It was around the time Papa started sending Cesar away on missions. He was gone weeks at a time sometimes and when he returned…”

“He was different,” Artem finishes. It’s a statement, not a question.

“If he came home at all, he would hole up in his room and I wouldn’t see him for days. Other times, he would come here first, before coming home.”

Artem sighs deeply. “I’ve spent so long hating him,” he says.

“Why?” I ask.

I feel that sense of being ready to turn a corner when you know there’s something scary around the bend.

Whatever Artem says next will change everything.

He pulls away slightly so that he can look at me. His fingers inch up and he grazes them over my cheek.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says. “But I owe you the truth.”

I shudder, my eyes going wide.

But I can’t stop him, even though a part of me wants to.

I need to hear this.

“I want the truth,” I whisper.

“I was married once… a long time ago.”

I stare at him, blinking through my confusion. He was married?

He had never mentioned another woman before.

He had certainly never mentioned a wife.

“I don’t talk about her,” Artem says, as though he can see the question in my eyes. “I loved her. She was kind and strong. The type of person who saw beauty and goodness in everything, including me. Maybe that’s that drew me to her in the first place. She saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. It made me want to be the person she thought I was.”

His tone unsettles me. It’s weighed down with fatigue as though he’s speaking of distant feelings that he’s been burdened with for years.

My heart trembles a little all the same.

I do feel a twinge of jealousy, but I feel more sadness than anything else.

Artem’s face is stoic, nearly expressionless, but I think I know him well enough now to know that it hurts him to do this to relive this part of his past.

“But in this world, love is a liability,” Artem continues. “It’s a weakness that our enemies use against us. I thought Marisha was safe. We were in Moscow over the holidays. She wanted to see the town where I was born. It was meant to be a celebration of what was to come.”

I don’t answer. Don’t move. Don’t even dare to breathe.

“But my enemies found us,” he tells me. “They’d been tailing us for a long time and they targeted her when she was alone in the house.”

I shake my head like I can stop what’s coming.

I know what he’s about to tell me.

But I still can’t bear to hear it.

“No…”

“He killed her in our bed,” Artem rasps. “Strangled the life out of her first, and then he ripped her stomach open and left her there for me to find.”

“No,” I whisper again fiercely, unable to come to terms with the horrific image that’s forming in my head.

I shake my head and stand abruptly, as my head starts to connect the dots, the little crumb trail he has been laying for me this whole time.

“Artem… why… what does this have to do with my… my…”

A sob swallows the rest of my words as I stumble away from him. I had asked for this story.

I had known I would regret knowing, and still I had insisted. I’d brought this upon myself.

He’s as calm as the mountains that stare at us in the distance, but I can see the cacophony of emotion that stirs just under the surface.

“You asked me for the truth,” Artem says. “And I need you to know why I murdered your brother.”

“Artem, please…”

“I wanted revenge,” he continues. “I wanted revenge for my wife… and my unborn child.”

I freeze in place as the last gory detail of her murder coming into focus.

He ripped her stomach open.

I close my eyes. Two cold tears escape down my cheeks.

I want to run, I want to move, but I can’t. I’m rooted to the ground, my feet cemented in place, forcing me to confront the truth I want to flee from.

“None of it is fair,” Artem says coldly. “Your brother took my wife and child from me, and I took your brother from you. There are no villains or heroes, Esme. Just people in impossible situations.”

I open my eyes, blinking away my tears so I can see his face clearly. I see the lines of pain that put his features in high relief.

His dark beauty shines like a beacon in the moonlight.

“Artem, I’m so sorry,” I say, my voice breaking like one of the waves my brother loved so much.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Yes, I do,” I insist as more tears streak down my face. “I have to apologize because… I still love my brother. I can’t stop.”

He’s