Page 182 of Gilded Cage (Kovalyov Bratva 1)

I see the doubt in her eyes then. I want to pretend like it doesn’t cut to the fucking core of me, but it does, and I’m just gonna have to deal with that.

I hear my father’s voice in my ear, the Russian rasp that’s already growing hazy in memory.

Trust takes decades to build and moments to shatter.

“We have to leave,” I repeat for the thousandth time.

“I have to wait for Tamara,” Esme says, shaking my hand off. “I need to say goodbye first. She risked everything to take me in and—”

Tamara.

I had watched Esme’s cousin leave the apartment with her head turned down towards her phone.

“Actually, it’s been over an hour,” Esme says, frowning. “She should have been back here by now.”

My body stiffens with alarm as I grab my shirt and pull it on.

“Where did she go?” I ask.

“She said she was gonna get us some real food,” Esme replies. “She was a little distracted, though.”

“Distracted?”

Esme frowns. I can see her trying to catch up with my train of thought. “Um, well… there’s a new guy in her life. She was just preoccupied with him, I guess.”

“Did you hear her speaking to him?”

“On the phone,” she says. “A couple of times.”

“What did she say to him?”

“I… what does it matter?” Esme asks. “She wasn’t lying to me.”

“What did she say to him, Esme?”

She flinches a little. “I… I didn’t actually hear what they were talking about. She wasn’t talking too loud.”

“Fuck,” I groan, kicking myself for being a fucking idiot. “Fuck!”

“Artem, what’s wrong?”

I grab her hand and pull her towards the door. “We have to get the fuck out of here right fucking now. We’ve been here too damn long.”

“Artem!” Esme cries. There’s fresh panic in her tone. “What are you talking about? Tamara has nothing to do with any of this. She’s my cousin. Shehelpedme.”

I move quickly into the kitchen, with Esme following behind me, and pull out the sharpest knife I can find. I hand it to Esme, who takes it with wide-eyed disbelief.

“You don’t know my uncle, Esme. He can make people do anything he wants,” I tell her.

I know I’m frightening her, but she needs to be frightened now.

Our lives might depend on it.

“Come on. We’ve been here too long already.”

I grab her free hand and pull her towards the door.

That’s when I hear it—thundering footsteps.

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