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

long game here. Not just for yourself. For everyone in your care. You’re the don, Artem. You have people to protect.”

I hate this plan. But it’s the only real option.

Cillian is right—I owe my loyalty all the men who have gone into hiding rather than betray me.

They’ve chosen their true don over their own sense of self-preservation.

They’ve chosen me over my uncle.

And I have a duty to prove to them that they had made the right choice.

I have someone else to protect, too.

I swallow the metallic fury in my throat and croak, “Fine. We’ll leave. But first, I need to go and get Esme.”

“Let me get her,” Cillian says. “You need to leave now.”

“Not without my wife,” I growl.

“I will get her out—”

“No!” I bark, my tone harsh. “This is one thing I have to do myself.”

Cillian’s eyes go wide as he realizes how deadly serious I am. He can see that I’m not going to budge on this so he drops it immediately.

“Fine then. You can use the—”

My phone rings. I glance down at the screen. It’s the clinic, weirdly enough. They must’ve thought I’d already left the building.

I pick up immediately. “Yes?”

“Sir? Mr. Kovalyov? I’m Nurse Louisa…”

“Is she okay?” I ask, already impatient with her nervous energy. “Did my wife wake up yet?”

There is a long, pained pause on the other line. It takes my full effort not to bellow.

“Tell me,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Sir… she’s gone.”

44

Artem

My blood turns to ice at once.

The first thought in my head is that Budimir got to her first. I want to fucking break something.

Why am I crouched in a fucking janitor’s closet instead of protecting my wife? Protecting my child?

“What the fuck do you mean she’s gone?” I snap into the phone.

“I, uh… There were some men who came,” she stammers. “They were trying to get into her room. They had guns, sir, and I didn’t know what to—”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“They pushed past me and got into her room but…”

“But what?” I growl. “But what?”

She sounds like she’s on the verge of tears. “When they walked in… she was gone, sir. She had run.”

“How?”

“She pushed open the window, sir, the one that leads to the maintenance balcony.”

“Where were my guards?” I demand. “The ones I left in her room?”

“They left,” she replies.

“They… left?”

“And then they came back with more men, sir.”

She’s a blubbering mess now. It’s one thing to run a private clinic that sometimes caters to the city’s nastier elements. It’s another thing to have murderous troops storming down your hallways and hunting your patients.

But I don’t have time to cater to her emotional breakdown.

“I… don’t they all… work for you, sir?”

Fucking hell.

Not anymore, it seems.

“Does anyone know you’ve called me?” I ask.

“No, sir.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way,” I reply. “Forget my name. And go home. You’re not safe here.”

I hang up before she can answer.

“Artem?” Cillian asks, his eyes pierced with worry.

“Budimir’s men are here,” I tell him. “But Esme was gone by the time they’d got to her room.”

“Gone?” he asks, his expression falling flat.

“I don’t have the answers,” I snap, furious that I have to admit that at all. “I just need to fucking find her.”

I get to my feet and I’m about to charge out of the closet when Cillian grabs me again.

His face is solemn. “Artem… we may have to leave her. Budimir won’t hurt an innocent woman.”

I look over my shoulder and glare at him. “She’s my wife, Cillian. I’m not leaving her.”

“Artem—”

“She’s fucking pregnant!” I yell, the words ripping from me before I can stop them.

Cillian looks at me in shock. There’s two seconds of silence and then his hand falls from my shoulder.

“Pregnant,” he says with a look of amazement in his eyes. “Not how I expected you to ask me, but yes, I’ll be the godfather.”

In spite of everything, I laugh.

This fucking idiot is my best friend?

There’s no one else in the universe I’d rather have at my side in this war.

“Come on, brother,” he says to me with a grim set in his jaw. “Let’s go find your woman.”

45

Artem

I peer out into the clinic hallway. The coast is clear.

Carefully, the two of us step out. Cillian starts to head back towards Esme’s room, but I grab him.

“They said she went out the window,” I point out. “That means she’s outside somewhere.”

“Then she could be anywhere, Artem.”

“She can’t have gotten far. She’s been laid up in a hospital bed and sedated. She’s going to be disoriented and weak. That’s going to slow her pace.”

I have no idea if that is true or not, but I’m counting on it working in my favor. Every time I think of Budimir getting to Esme before me, my stomach turns to black bile.

That is not a fucking option.

“But you’re right about one thing,” I continue.

“I’m right about everything,” Cillian jokes with a hollow laugh. “Which thing in particular are you talking about now?”

“We don’t know which way she went. So we need to split up. Cover more ground. You get us ready to escape the city. I’ll find Esme.”

He shakes his head at once, just like I knew he would. “No way. We’re sticking together.”

“Not this time, brother.”

“You can’t do this alone,” Cillian says.

“It’s better that I do,” I reply. “She’s my wife, and in any case, it makes more sense. I’m going to look less suspicious walking around by myself.”

Cillian narrows his eyes at me. “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? Shit, I’d arrest you on suspicion of something, and I’m the best friend you’ve got.”

If the situation weren’t so fucking heightened, I might have smiled. “Don’t worry about me,” I say. “I can handle myself.”

Cillian grumbles in frustration, but he knows I’m right. The sooner we find Esme, the sooner we can escape Budimir’s trap. Every second he spends arguing with me could be the difference between life and death.

“Fine. We’ll meet tomorrow,” Cillian says. “We need to figure out our plan.”

“You’re staying in the city?”

“As