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

the glass entryway doors, I can see my SUV waiting for me to take me to the meeting point that Cillian has arranged with Budimir.

I’m about three steps shy of breaking out into the Los Angeles sun when I feel a hand grab me by the back of the shirt collar and yank me into an empty room.

My reaction is immediate.

I seize the wrist of whoever the fuck is attacking me and rip it backwards. As I’m spinning around, my other hand finds the man’s throat. We go crashing to the ground together.

Our combined bulk careens into a shelf of some kind filled with cleaning supplies. Bottles of bleach and a pair of mops smack down on top.

I wrestle for control. Hands on his windpipe, crushing, squeezing the life from this fucking—

“Get off of me, you fucking moron,” hisses a familiar voice.

I stop, release. “Cillian?”

He sits up and wheezes. One hand rubs at the throat where I was just about to strangle him to death. My fingerprints are bright red on his pale skin.

“Well, I’m sure not the goddamn tooth fairy,” he grumbles.

Still seated on the cold tile floor of this supply closet, I slump back against the wall.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I demand. “I thought you were at the warehouse on Weston?”

“Lower your voice,” he snaps. He leans forward to peer through the slightly ajar door. “Did anyone see me grab you?”

“I don’t fucking—”

“Good.” He pulls the door closed. It plunges us into semi-darkness. Just enough light filters under the crack for me to see his bright blue eyes.

In all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen Cillian O’Sullivan fear a single thing.

Until now.

Now, he looks downright fucking terrified.

“Listen to me and listen to me closely, brother,” he says. “We don’t have much time.”

“You’re going to lecture me on time?” I interrupt. “Whoever attacked us could be coming back anytime now. We have no intel, we have no plan, we have no—”

“They already came back.”

I freeze. “What?”

“We were looking in the wrong place for answers, Artem. Looking out when we should’ve been searching in.”

“Why the fuck are you still speaking in riddles? Talk straight to me, man!” I bellow.

He winces like something is physically paining him. His eyes fall to the ground between us before he sighs and fixes his gaze on me once more.

“Budimir,” is all he says.

I blink. “Budimir what?”

“Budimir has taken over.”

Silence. Footsteps shuffle past outside the door. I hear a gruff male voice—is that Olezka?—calling my name.

“Artem? Don Artem?”

We don’t move a muscle or dare to breath. Eventually, his footsteps fade away.

When he’s gone, Cillian grips my forearm. “He’s been planning this coup for a long time. The meeting you were about to go to is a trap. He was never going to let you walk out of there alive.”

My head is spinning. “You’re not making any sense.”

Cillian runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “While you were in the safehouse, he called a meeting. Demanded loyalty from the rank-and-file. Accused you of treason, too.”

My throat constricts with rage. “Treason?”

“Against the Bratva. He’s saying you killed your father. You staged the shooting at the funeral.”

“You can’t be fucking serious.”

“He has nothing,” Cillian tells me. “But he wants his takeover to appear legitimate. If he comes across like a rebel, it’s going to cause friction. Make the Bratva look weak, you know?”

I don’t even know what to say. All I can think about is wringing the light out of my uncle’s beady eyes.

“Artem, we have to get out of L.A. immediately.”

Those words snap me back to the present.

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t fight your uncle like this,” Cillian tells me. “We don’t have the men or the resources. He’s issued a kill order on you. And on me.”

“He did all of this,” I whisper numbly, mostly to myself. “Everything he’s accusing me of. He killed his own brother. Tried to kill his own nephew.”

Saying the words out loud makes them easier to process. Forces me to accept the cold reality.

It’s like a slap in the face.

But I can handle a fight, even if the deck is stacked against me. There’s a simple clarity in facing down an enemy. There’s a sense of finality to it.

Either you win or you die.

“He’s going to pay for this,” I growl under my breath.

Cillian’s hand lands on my shoulder. “We will make him pay together, brother,” he assures me. “But in order for that to happen, we need to lie low for a while. As long as we’re in this city, we’re sitting ducks. Budimir’s men are everywhere.”

The words themselves make me sick. Budimir’s men?

No, those are my men. My father’s men.

How fucking dare he take what’s mine?

“Any motherfucker who supports this coup will pay with his life,” I snarl.

“Yes, they will,” Cillian says with a nod. “But there are many who are still loyal to you. They’re targets too now, which means they’ve gone into hiding. We need to rally, find our allies and then—when we have a plan, when we’re stronger—then we can attack.”

He’s right about everything, but the idea of running doesn’t sit well with me.

I wasn’t made to run.

I was made to stand up and fucking fight.

“Artem,” Cillian’s voice cuts through my conflicted thoughts. “I know you better than anyone. We’ve grown up together, we’ve been through dark times together. I know what you’re thinking… you want revenge.”

“He opened fire at my father’s fucking funeral!” I yell, but Cillian doesn’t so much as flinch back. “He’s trying to kill me. He’s trying to kill you. He’s betrayed the Bratva and he’s been planning this for a long fucking time.”

“I’m not arguing his crimes,” Cillian says in his most measured voice—although I notice that the angry vein in his forehead is throbbing. “But I am advocating for our lives. If we stay and fight now, we will lose. To have any hope of taking back control of the Bratva, you need to get out of this fucking city. We have to play the