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

the woman—I’m trying to break her.

Though, sometimes, there’s a fine line between the two.

“Hungry?” I ask.

“Ravenous.”

I smile and raise a hand. Almost instantly, two waiters in crisp suits appear with our first course. They set down two steaming bowls of lobster bisque in front of each of us and a basket of freshly baked focaccia.

“Lobster bisque with cognac marshmallow and a brandy reduction,” one of the servers informs us.

Then the other one picks up the bottle of champagne and prepares to pour it in the waiting glasses.

Suddenly, I raise my hand to stop him. I don’t know why, but I have a strong urge to avoid alcohol.

That’s odd. I’ve drank almost every day since Marisha died.

But just like that, something in me has shifted.

“None for me,” I tell the waiter. “Esme?”

She flinches when I say her name. But then she glances at the waiter and shakes her head. “None for me, either.”

The waiter dips his head toward her and backs away, leaving us to the fragrant soup.

“Afraid it will loosen your tongue?” I ask.

She eyes me. “I don’t know what drug you stuck in my neck earlier,” she says. “I don’t want to mix it with anything.”

“Just a mild sedative. You can drink if you want to.”

“Your ‘mild sedative’ messed me up bad. I’m gonna pass on the bubbly, thanks very much.”

I shrug. If she doesn’t want to drink, I’m not going to push her.

I watch as Esme dips forward and breathes in the bisque as though she can’t stop herself any longer.

It’s probably been a while since she’s eaten. She must be starving.

Without waiting for permission, she plucks a spoon from the table and takes a sip of the soup.

I suppress a smile. Her tongue runs across her bottom lip and then her eyes rise to mine.

“Are you going to stare at me all night?” she asks. More like demands, really.

“Maybe.”

She rolls her eyes again and returns to the soup, pointedly ignoring me.

A few minutes later and her bowl is dry.

She reaches for a piece of the bread and sits back in her chair, gazing out at the open sky, still avoiding my eyes.

“Do you really live here?” she asks after a moment.

“As opposed to…?”

“You stole me from my house. Maybe you stole this house from someone else.”

I chuckle. “Yes, I really live here.”

“Hmph.” She looks around, chewing sloppily on her bread as if she knows that the rude table manners will piss me off. She’s right about that, but I let it pass.

I know she knows better. She’s just trying my patience.

I won’t let her get to me that easily.

“If I ask you a question, do you promise to be honest with me?” she asks suddenly.

“I suppose I can agree to that,” I say. “On one condition. One rule: no talking about the past.”

She frowns. “The past is kind of relevant.”

“Usually, when people say they have one condition, it’s not up for negotiation.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Fine. But will you promise to be honest with me?”

“I’ll try.”

She nods. One lock of dark hair falls over her face and she brushes it back absentmindedly. “What is it about this life that’s so great?”

Of all the questions I expected from her, that wasn’t it.

I stare at her for a moment, gathering my thoughts.

What’s her angle here? What’s her play? What’s the subtext?

But her expression remains quietly curious.

Maybe there is no underlying question. She genuinely wants to know.

I consider it for a moment. In the end, I decide to answer truthfully.

“Power.”

“Power,” she repeats. “Over what?”

“Over anything I want,” I answer. “Over everything. That’s what makes it power.”

“So you just like being in charge?”

I hesitate. They are simple questions, so why am I struggling with the answers?

“I never had a choice.”

Her eyes go wide for a moment. She looks like she’s about to smile but then she turns her head to the side and her dark hair falls over her face like a curtain.

I dislike not being able to see her, but I wait patiently until she turns to me again.

“We all have choices,” she retorts.

I shake my head. “Not me.”

Something in her face shifts. Softens.

“Yeah,” she says in a near-whisper, “me neither.”

Another moment of silence passes. Esme’s gaze is soft, unfocused. When she speaks again, she does so without looking at me.

“If you did have a choice, what kind of life would you pick?”

Before I can answer, the waiters appear again and remove our empty bowls.

I’ve only taken a few bites of my soup but I wave for him to take it away, with my eyes staying trained on Esme.

The second course is crab ravioli dressed in a brown butter sauce. It smells amazing, but Esme looks at me pointedly. She’s still waiting for my answer.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” she asks, “or you don’t want to tell me?”

“I was born to this life. Groomed for it,” I tell her. “It’s all I’ve ever known. It’s all I ever will know.”

Her face looks strangely sad. Pained, almost. I almost don’t catch her next words.

“He used to talk like that, too.”

I frown. “Who?”

She lifts her eyes and shakes her head. The sadness and pain I saw vanishes at once. Fire returns to her face.

“No one,” she says. “Never mind. Out of curiosity, exactly which band of criminal assholes do you belong to?”

I steeple my fingers. “You tell me.”

She screws up her eyebrows in concentration. “Definitely Russian,” she replies carefully, “based on the accents I heard from you and some of your men. I’m just not sure which Russian mafia family… There are a few in L.A., right?”

“There were a few in LA,” I correct her, with some satisfaction. “But not anymore.”

She thinks for a moment, then snaps her fingers. “The Kovalyov Bratva.”

“Bravo.” I applaud mockingly for her.

She puts her fork down as though she’s just lost her appetite. I notice her body kind of tense, like she is curling into herself.

“You’ve heard of us, then?” I ask.

“I know the name. Not the details. I’ve spent my whole life avoiding the details, actually.”

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