Gilded Tears: A Russian Mafia Romance (Kovalyov Bratva Book 2) by Nicole Fox (novels to read for beginners txt) 📗

to get this over with quickly. As I hide away my gun, I feel a stab of uncertainty.

When Esme finds out, she’s going to be devastated.

But embracing this life is the only way to protect her and Phoenix.

Once Budimir knows I’m alive, he’ll come for me.

I have to get him first.

I already know he hasn’t stopped searching for Esme. Maxim uncovered one of his plots to find her. But he’s got his men searching in the wrong place.

He thinks she’s gone back to Mexico. He’s assumed—incorrectly, of course—that she’s found refuge with one of her father’s former allies.

It’s a good thing he doesn’t know Esme like I do.

I set my jaw with determination and get out of the car.

I’ve always known who I was. This has nothing to do with my father. It doesn’t even have anything to do with Cillian.

This is about me.

I am what my father made me.

And there is no life for me outside of the Bratva.

I make my way around the narrow fence that leads to the back of the house. The garden is small and unkempt. Weeds have overrun the grassy area and the brick walkway has been uprooted.

I step over and move to one of the windows. I scan the area, thankful that the other houses give me coverage. There’s only one window facing me, but the blinds have been drawn.

It’s not a guarantee I won’t be noticed, but I’m far enough away that my features should be obscured.

Then I hear movement. I duck sideways behind the door.

I glance through the window, and see the man I assume is Anton Yahontov. He’s of medium build and height, nothing particularly notable. I can see large, ugly tattoos peeking out from his sleeveless muscle tee.

I roll my eyes, then return to the front of the house. I keep my gun in hand and knock casually.

A few seconds later, I hear him coming. Like an idiot, he doesn’t ask who’s at the door before he opens it.

But he sure as fuck knows who I am when he sees me.

He goes deathly pale, his unnaturally red cheeks going even redder beneath his grisly beard.

“Make one move and I’ll blow your intestines right out,” I growl, keeping the gun pointed directly at him.

He nods slowly.

“Good man. Now, let’s step inside so none of the neighbors will be disturbed.”

He backs into the house. I follow and slam the door shut behind me. A quick scan reveals he’s unarmed and unprepared.

Fucking fool.

“Sorry to drop by unannounced,” I say politely. “Just had a couple of quick questions for you.”

“You’re supposed to be dead,” he rasps.

He looks more awed than anything else at the moment.

“I know,” I agree. “And I’m keen to stay dead. At least in my uncle’s eyes.”

“I had no choice,” he tells me, even though I have no idea what the fuck he’s talking about. “I had to swear fealty to him or risk my wife, my daughter.”

I pause for a moment, studying his expression. He’s not lying to me. That’s what my intuition is telling me.

Still, trusting him would be a mistake too.

“Isn’t that convenient?”

“I swear to you,” he pleads. “That’s how he convinced so many to back his claim to the Bratva. He had files on their families, their parents, siblings, their wives, their kids.”

“You expect me to believe that?” I snap. It’s all a front, though. I just want him to keep talking. To give me more information. There’s no telling what will be useful in the end.

“Half the men that follow Budimir follow him because they want to,” Anton admits. “Probably more than half, in fact. But there’s still a large number that were forced into the whole shit. It’s a fucking mess.”

I stay quiet. Sometimes, silence is the best interrogator.

“Oblonsky,” he goes on, as though desperate to make me understand. “You know the man? He served your father for twenty-three years.”

“Alexander Oblonsky?” I ask.

I know the name, though my interactions with the man have been few and far between. He was a part of Stanislav’s security team for decades.

Anton nods fervently. “He had a wife,” he tells me. “A son and a pregnant daughter. When Oblonsky opposed your uncle’s claim to the Bratva, Budimir had his family brought in.”

I tighten my grip on the gun. I have a nasty feeling that I’m not going to like what Anton says next.

He swallows and continues. “We stood there and watched as he killed Oblonsky’s wife first. Then his son. And lastly, the daughter. She… she was at least seven months into her pregnancy…”

He shudders a little, as though the memory is a poison he was trying to shake off.

It doesn’t take a genius to know why it affected him so much.

He’s substituting the victim’s faces with his own loved ones.

“And Oblonsky?” I prod.

“He had to be held back, restrained. Budimir wanted him to see what his defiance cost,” Anton replies. “Make an example out of him, you know? The man was screaming, Kill me now, you bastard! But Budimir wanted to keep him alive. So that he could live with the pain of knowing that he had caused the death of his family.”

I clench my jaw so hard I’m afraid my teeth my shatter. That son of a bitch. That murderous, traitorous son of a bitch.

Anton shakes his head, still engrossed in the memory. “Oblonsky had a knife on him.”

“He tried to kill Budimir?”

“No,” Anton sighs. “No, not Budimir. He killed himself. Slit his own fucking throat before anyone could stop him. Budimir was furious.”

Of course. Of course he was. Sick, sadistic motherfucker.

He loved the suffering. Reveled in it. Hadn’t he left me to bleed out in the woods on my own?

Hadn’t he dragged Cillian away to finish the job on my best friend?

Budimir Kovalyov doesn’t like quick, clean deaths.

When the time comes, I’ll make sure he’s repaid in kind.

I focus back on Anton, who’s staring at me with wide eyes.

He is scared of death, like any reasonable man. But he’s more scared of Budimir. Of the