Gilded Cage: A Russian Mafia Romance (Kovalyov Bratva Book 1) Nicole Fox (people reading books TXT) 📖

“What?”

Crew Cut stands there, holding a tailored black outfit.

“Your car arrives in half an hour,” he tells me. The same way he always has—in a flat, toneless monotone. Like this day is no different from all the days before it or all the days I have left in this hellhole of a life.

“Where am I going?” I demand. “And don’t even fucking think about not answering me.”

“Don Stanislav’s funeral,” he replies. Nice of him to answer for a change.

But that gives me pause.

For some reason, I hadn’t even thought about a funeral for Artem’s father, much less attending it. No one has even confirmed to me that that’s even what happened, although I can connect the dots myself.

Numbly, I accept the outfit he’s holding out to me. He turns and leaves without another word.

I let the door swing close, then I walk back to the bed and lay the outfit on top, smoothing away the wrinkles as I think.

Could I get away with not attending the funeral? The thought of standing next to Artem and putting on a brave face for the men in his organization makes me nauseous.

But the moment I think it, I know it’s a stupid idea.

Artem would force his bodyguards to drag me to the cemetery kicking and screaming.

Even if he didn’t, I’d no doubt pay for it later.

That was how it had always been with Papa, too. If I did anything to displease him, he would make sure I was punished when the time came.

The punishments differed depending on his mood. Sometimes, it was mental manipulation. Other times, it was physical.

Personally, I preferred the physical punishments. A punch, a slap. One time, he pressed his smoking cigarette butt into the soft skin just above the crook of my elbow.

Those things hurt, but I could disassociate from them. And afterwards, it was over.

What I hated were the mind games.

Those kept me up at night, praying for an end to the turmoil inside my head.

And now here was Artem, proving to be a master at the same tortures.

I was right about him. He’s just like Papa. They’re one and the same.

I take out the outfit out from under its protective plastic wrap. It’s a smart black dress suit from Gucci. As with everything Artem has ever bought for me, it’s flawlessly classy and absurdly expensive.

I try it on. The numbness spreads through me again.

When I turn to my reflection in the mirror, I realize that my stomach is pooching out just a little. The obsidian black of the dress helps to hide it well, and it’s only noticeable when I turn sideways.

But still, it serves as a reminder. The clock is ticking and my time is running out.

Thankfully, when I pull on the matching jacket that goes with the dress, my tiny little baby bump all but disappears.

I breathe a sigh of relief. Today of all days is not the time for this baby to make itself known.

I choose a pair of black heels from my existing wardrobe and sit in front of my dressing table, trying to figure out what to do with my face.

My eyes are still puffy, my cheeks stained with dry tear tracks.

Sighing, I go into the bathroom and wash my face first and tie my hair up into a loose bun at the back of my head. Then, I apply a little foundation, some mascara and add a dark lip to finish.

That’s as much of an effort as I’m prepared to make.

When I walk out of my room, my bodyguards are waiting for me.

We go downstairs as a silent unit and get into the same black sedan that brought me here from the airport.

When we turn into a quiet cemetery, I sit up a little straighter.

“We’re not going to a church first?” I ask.

No one answers me.

I fall back against my seat, frustrated and sick of resisting the urge to rest my hand against my belly.

The cemetery is quiet and empty when the car pulls in.

But then we turn a corner and I see the number of cars converging through the narrow roads. They all look the same—dark, anonymous, luxurious.

Mobster cars.

My heartbeat ratchets up as our vehicle pulls to a stop. I just sit there with my hands in my lap until my door opens.

“What do I do?” I ask Crew Cut as he shuts the door once I’m out of the car.

He looks at me with an expression that I’m almost convinced is sympathy, although I’m probably just projecting my own anxieties onto the same blank look he always wears.

“The family is gathering over there,” he says, gesturing with his chin. “We’ll take you.”

It’s not really what I meant. I was half-heartedly hoping he’d crack into a big, sympathetic smile, sweep me up in his arms, and tell me to go live free as a bird with my baby somewhere far away from here.

Wishful thinking, obviously. I wonder if Crew Cut even knows what a hug is.

I follow him and Blue Eyes across the cemetery to the crowd gathering around an open grave.

A coffin sits off to the side of the pit in the ground. One glance tells me that it’s the expensive kind.

My bodyguards flank me, but I feel utterly alone as I continue the walk towards the crowd. Eyes settle on me, piercing and suspicious.

“Esme.”

I look up hopefully.

But it’s not Artem who’s spoken my name. It’s the blonde, boyish friend of Artem’s I’ve seen a few times before.

He gives me a sympathetic smile—real sympathy, not my imagination projecting onto Crew Cut’s blank canvas of a face—and offers his elbow to me.

Instinctively, I take it. He leads me towards Artem, who’s standing at the head of the open grave.

My husband doesn’t even look at me.

Clenching my jaw, I turn my eyes to the coffin. It’s a deep, elegant rust-brown that manages to glint even in the muted sunlight. The golden handles seem to glow.

I stand beside Artem like the dutiful wife Papa had always expected me