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

grabbing her arm and forcing her to face me. “Esme, I will protect you. You and the baby. You just have to trust me.”

I see the doubt in her eyes then. I want to pretend like it doesn’t cut to the fucking core of me, but it does, and I’m just gonna have to deal with that.

I hear my father’s voice in my ear, the Russian rasp that’s already growing hazy in memory.

Trust takes decades to build and moments to shatter.

“We have to leave,” I repeat for the thousandth time.

“I have to wait for Tamara,” Esme says, shaking my hand off. “I need to say goodbye first. She risked everything to take me in and—”

Tamara.

I had watched Esme’s cousin leave the apartment with her head turned down towards her phone.

“Actually, it’s been over an hour,” Esme says, frowning. “She should have been back here by now.”

My body stiffens with alarm as I grab my shirt and pull it on.

“Where did she go?” I ask.

“She said she was gonna get us some real food,” Esme replies. “She was a little distracted, though.”

“Distracted?”

Esme frowns. I can see her trying to catch up with my train of thought. “Um, well… there’s a new guy in her life. She was just preoccupied with him, I guess.”

“Did you hear her speaking to him?”

“On the phone,” she says. “A couple of times.”

“What did she say to him?”

“I… what does it matter?” Esme asks. “She wasn’t lying to me.”

“What did she say to him, Esme?”

She flinches a little. “I… I didn’t actually hear what they were talking about. She wasn’t talking too loud.”

“Fuck,” I groan, kicking myself for being a fucking idiot. “Fuck!”

“Artem, what’s wrong?”

I grab her hand and pull her towards the door. “We have to get the fuck out of here right fucking now. We’ve been here too damn long.”

“Artem!” Esme cries. There’s fresh panic in her tone. “What are you talking about? Tamara has nothing to do with any of this. She’s my cousin. She helped me.”

I move quickly into the kitchen, with Esme following behind me, and pull out the sharpest knife I can find. I hand it to Esme, who takes it with wide-eyed disbelief.

“You don’t know my uncle, Esme. He can make people do anything he wants,” I tell her.

I know I’m frightening her, but she needs to be frightened now.

Our lives might depend on it.

“Come on. We’ve been here too long already.”

I grab her free hand and pull her towards the door.

That’s when I hear it—thundering footsteps.

Heavy, angry footsteps.

The kind made by dangerous men with violent intentions.

Esme hears it, too. She freezes in place, her skin flushing with adrenaline and fear.

I have just enough time to push her behind me before the door blasts open.

51

Esme

Artem shoves me behind him just as the door blasts apart.

Bratva soldiers pour into the apartment with guns raised, barking orders in Russian that I don’t understand.

“Esme!” Artem roars. “Stay down.”

The Russian continues, loud and grating. I hear a scream that sounds distinctly female but I have no idea where it’s coming from.

Had I just screamed? Was that me?

I find cover behind the white sofa and peer from around it. I can’t see Artem, but I can see two of the Bratva soldiers crowding the doorway.

They’re dressed in all black, with masks covering their faces, revealing only their eyes.

I don’t even know if Artem has a gun on him. Does he have any weapons on him at all? He’d passed me a knife in the kitchen, but—

I look down only to realize that I’m still clutching the knife in my hand. My palms are sweaty and the hilt feels lose in my grip. My own heartbeat pounds in my ears, drowning out everything else.

Breathe, Esme. Just breathe. Don’t leave Artem out there alone.

Two of the masked Bratva soldiers stride towards Artem at the same time. It strikes me as strange that no one has used a firearm yet, but in the next second, I realize why.

This is bad guy versus bad guy.

No one wants to bring the police down on this situation.

The moment a gun goes off, the people in the neighboring apartments will be dialing 911.

Artem’s eyes are trained on his assailants as they charge at him. He doesn’t move until the last second—not until the lead soldier is right on top of him.

Then he moves, faster than I would have thought possible.

He ducks under the soldier’s raised arm, punches him in the gut once, and then goes for his face.

He lands one elbow to the face before grabbing the soldier by the neck from behind and slamming him against the same wall he fucked me against.

His movements are fast and confident. His eyes never veer from his target.

It looks almost like a choreographed fight scene—except that Artem’s the only one aware of the moves.

Luckily for us, Tamara has a narrow entryway to her apartment. Only a few soldiers can fit in at once.

With the first soldier down, two more approach, stepping over their comrade’s limp body.

I feel the panic return. I’ve seen Artem fight enough times now to know that he would win in a fair fight easily.

But now he is dealing with two trained assassins, both of whom look as tall and as large as him.

And then a flash of movement to the corner reveals a third Bratva soldier pushing his way in.

I don’t know when I make the decision but suddenly, I’m getting to my feet, knife clutched in hand. In front of me, the fight is starting already.

One of the soldiers manages to get in a punch. Artem stumbles back as blood trickles from his nose.

Taking advantage of the defensive position Artem’s been forced into, the second soldier swoops in and punches him in the gut. The third soldier moving forward, victory already written in his beady eyes.

“No!” I scream. “Artem!”

All three masked men turn to me, giving Artem time to gain his footing once more.

He grabs the first soldier, shoves him against the wall, and stabs him in the