Page 181 of Gilded Cage (Kovalyov Bratva 1)

“You could have stopped me any time,” I tell her. “You just didn’t want to.”

Her eyes flash with anger, but I can see it’s directed at herself this time, not me. “Artem—”

“I know about the baby,” I interrupt.

Her mouth pops open in shock, her eyes flash to me, all confusion and vulnerability. Then realization washes across her expression and she sighs.

“Of course,” she nods. “They would have done tests at that clinic.”

“Four fucking months, Esme,” I say, in a low, dangerous voice. “You knew for that long.”

“Yes, I knew,” she says unapologetically. She crosses her arms under her bare breasts. “I was trying to protect myself. I was trying to protect my baby.”

I hear the flare of possessiveness in her tone. It doesn’t escape my notice how one hand slides down to her belly and rests there protectively.

“When did you find out?” I ask.

“A few months after The Siren.”

My heart stills for a moment. “So… the baby is mine?” I ask cautiously.

Her eyes go wide at the question. I realize it hasn’t even crossed her mind that I might assume the baby was someone else’s.

“You’re the only man I’ve been with since then,” she hisses venomously. “And for a long time before that, too, if you really wanna know.”

I sink back into the couch and contemplate that. It makes me strangely happy to know that. To see that beautiful, fiery body and know it’s truly mine.

“Okay,” I say. “I believe you.”

She seems satisfied enough with that. Nodding, she wraps her arms around her body, like she’s trying to comfort herself.

“I don’t know what to do,” she admits softly.

“Then you’re in good company.”

She laughs bitterly. “Does your uncle really want you dead?”

“Yes.” I nod. “I think he was hoping to get rid of me at the funeral, but that didn’t work out quite like he wanted.”

“You’re leaving L.A.?” she asks.

“Only with you.”

I had hoped we’d turned a corner in the last half an hour, but I can’t be sure anymore. She’s still holding her cards pretty close to her chest.

“You better put your clothes back on,” she tells me, gesturing to the pile she dumped on my thighs.

“Does that mean you’re done fighting me on this?”

She groans with frustration and throws her hands up in the air.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

“We don’t have time for you to fucking find out, Esme,” I growl as I stand up and put my pants back on. “We have to get out of this fucking city! Trust me on this—you don’t want to be a prisoner of the Bratva.”

She pales at that.

I reach out to her, grabbing her arm and forcing her to face me. “Esme, Iwillprotect you. You and the baby. You just have to trust me.”

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