Page 111 of Gilded Cage (Kovalyov Bratva 1)

“So you cook, you sew, you play piano. The perfect little housewife.”

I search for mockery laced in his tone, but there’s none. That’s surprising, too.

He’s right, of course. It’s why Papa raised me the way he did.To maximize my value,as he would say.

“I guess that was what I was groomed for,” I concede. I pause, then add, “Maybe my father knew that I would end up as nothing more than a mindless doll trapped in a life I didn’t ask for.”

Artem doesn’t so much as bat an eyelid. “There’s nothing about you that’s mindless, Esme.”

I glare at him, trying again to search for subtext in his words.

But as before, he looks and sounds completely sincere. As open and honest as he’s ever been.

Maybe this is just another mind game he wants to play with me.

“Do you think flattery is going to make me forget that you forced me to marry you?”

“I wasn’t trying to flatter you at all,” he replies. “I was merely making an observation.”

“Oh yeah? And what else have you observed about me?”

“Apart from the fact that you’re stubborn and frustrating as fuck?” he asks conversationally. “I’d say you’re not as confident as you appear to be.”

I laugh scornfully. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

I hate that he can be so fucking calm, while I feel like I’m about jump out of my skin. Even now, he looks at me without giving anything away. It makes me feel like I’m close to tears or tearing my hair out half the time.

“Perhaps. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“I’m not like the women you’re used to, you know,” I tell him, trying to get to a place where I feel like I’m solid ground.

“Oh?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. “And what women are those?”

“Women without a moral compass. Women who care about money and power.”

“You don’t care about money or power?” he asks.

I know already that he’s trying to lead me into a trap but I can’t help walking into it anyway. “No, I don’t.”

“That’s because you’ve always had it.” He runs a hand through his thick hair absent-mindedly.

“Okay, yes,” I admit. “I was raised in luxury, I had everything money could buy. Except my freedom. Ask me if I’d trade it all to be free. I would—in a heartbeat. And as for power… money or not, I’ve never had any of that.”

“Your father protected you—"

“No,” I correct, “my fathercontrolledme. I wasn’t allowed to go to a normal school with other kids because he didn’t want me to be influenced by ideas other than his. He didn’t want me meeting boys or having a life of my own. I was raised in a cage, and I thought when my father died, I would be free from it. But here I am again, right back where I started. Same bird, different cage.”

He looks at me in a measured way, but I can tell he’s purposefully keeping his expression vague.

I hate that I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

I hate that I’m giving him so much…

But I can’t seem to help myself.

Now that I’ve started talking, it’s hard to stop.

“At least when I was growing up, I had my brother,” I whisper, stumbling over my words just a little. “I had someone to rely on and talk to. He really loved me. Protected me. And now… now I don’t even have him.”

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