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

from every direction of the mansion, but I’m calm. Calmer than I’ve been since this day started.

Adrik roars and points up. More men on the balcony overhead.

“Take cover,” I yell, just as they open fire.

The soldier in front of me takes the brunt of the opening salvo and goes limp against me. I drag him to the side and jump for cover behind a large pillar. Two more of my men go down, and I catch a glimpse of Kian take deadly aim at one of the shooters.

He’s got talent. I realize in seeing him fight that he moves like Cillian.

“Hold your fire!” someone roars.

Frowning, I reload and glance out from the pillar.

The voice that’s silenced the shooting appears on the staircase.

He has a gun in hand, but both hands are raised up in surrender.

It’s Anton Yahontov.

I step out from behind the pillar, only a little so that my body still has coverage but I can be seen.

“Yahontov,” I breathe.

“Coming back to L.A. was a mistake,” he tells me. “He has spies everywhere. Until then, he thought you were dead.”

“I wasn’t planning on staying dead forever.”

“Yahontov,” one of the armed soldiers snarls, coming forward. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Warning him,” he replies. “And now he’s been warned. We have you surrounded, Artem. It’s time to put your guns down.”

But as he talks, I notice some of the soldiers at his back move imperceptibly. They slip behind their own men.

I sense in my gut what’s about to happen.

Fuck, I hope I’m right.

I don’t turn my eyes away. Just wait patiently. There’s a signal coming—I just don’t know what it is.

“It’s time to give up,” Yahontov intones.

And apparently, that’s the sign.

Half of Budimir’s men turn on the other half.

And they fire.

It’s brutal and sudden and quick.

It’s not a fight. It’s an execution.

Just like that, probably two dozen of Budimir’s men drop to the ground.

“Fuck,” I hear Adrik say. “What the fuck was that?”

I smile, stepping over a body as I walk towards Yahontov. I offer him my arm and he takes it.

“There is a contingent of men upstairs with Budimir,” Yahontov says. “About twenty, I’d say.”

“He’s here?” I say, my jaw setting with new excitement.

“He’s here and hiding,” Yahontov nods. “But he also has—”

“Your wife,” a sickeningly familiar voice snarls from the top of the staircase.

Before anyone can react, more gunfire lets loose. This time, it’s not good for us.

Yahontov’s men on the balcony go down in a hail of bullets.

The odds tilt back in Budimir’s favor.

And suddenly, our position starts looking a little grimmer.

43

Esme

The Kovalyov Family Compound—Los Angeles, California

“Stop fucking struggling, you little bitch!” the guard snarls at me. His hand is wrapped around my forearm in a vise-grip that I can’t shake.

Phoenix is struggling in my arms. He’s been crying for so long that I’m starting to get worried by the color in his cheeks.

All through the chaos at the café, the car ride here, the rough drag up the steps and into this mansion, he’s been crying.

I don’t blame him.

I feel like crying, too.

“My baby!” I say desperately. “He’s scared.”

“He’s a baby,” the idiot replies. “He doesn’t know shit.”

Then he shoves me into a large room off the hallway, follows me in, and slams the door behind me.

Phoenix throws his little fists in the air and screams with indignation as I stumble through into the room. I collapse into the first chair I see and press my son against my chest, trying to shush him, calm him, soothe him.

As I do, I glance around at the windows. They’re all either out of reach or barred outside with iron. No chance of escaping through there.

“Why am I being held here?” I demand.

I’m a lot more confident now that Eagle Tattoo is not here. He disappeared right after we arrived on the compound.

It’s a sprawling estate that reminds me of Papa’s in terms of size, if nothing else. Papa’s was white and linen and beachy—this place is dark, stone, foreboding.

Well, actually, they’re similar in another way—both places are impenetrable fortresses.

But Artem knows this place.

He’ll find us.

He’s save us.

I say that to myself again and again. I whisper it to Phoenix, too, and it seems to help somehow.

But doubt has planted itself inside my chest and made it difficult for me to breathe.

I glance at the guard who’s ushered me in here.

Maybe I can take him.

It’s just me and him…

If I hit him with something hard…

I may have a chance to escape.

But the idea of putting Phoenix down to take such a reckless gamble makes me want to gag.

And, seconds later, the choice is removed from my hands when the door opens and three more guards stride into the room.

They surround me. More men trying to intimidate me into silent submission. It’s been that way my whole life.

I’m fucking sick of it.

I ignore all of them and look down at my son.

I’m trying to be as calm as possible, because Phoenix is clearly reacting to the panic that’s wafting off of me.

But the fear of what the next few hours might hold is overwhelming.

“Well, gotta say, I heard she was pretty,” one guard says. “But didn’t realize how pretty.”

“Put your dick back in your pants, Cena,” another guy retorts. “She’s off limits.”

“Says who?”

“Someone has to say so? Budimir will cut off our fucking cocks if we touch her.”

“Yeah, sure, he will—if we touch her before he does. He won’t have a problem with what we do to her after.”

I sit there, and for the first time since I’ve left my father’s compound, I feel truly and completely invisible.

I am reduced back down to an object.

A thing to be used and discarded as it suits the whims of the men I’m surrounded by.

Even in the darkest days of our relationship, Artem had never treated me like an object or an ornament.

“Bet she has a nice, tight pussy.”

“Are you kidding me? Look at that little shit in her arms. He’s probably stretched her the fuck out.”

“Yeah, I hear pussy bounces