Page 213 of Gilded Cage (Kovalyov Bratva 1)

I whisper her name. She pirouettes slowly, like a dancer, and wraps her arms around me, burying her face in my chest. I hold her tight and kiss the top of her head.

We stand like that for several minutes, until finally Esme takes a deep, shuddering breath and pulls her head off my chest so she can look up at me.

“I don’t know what to do with this feeling,” she tells me desperately. “I killed a man, Artem.”

Only then does it hit me just how much she’s been carrying around with her this whole time.

You never forget your first kill.

I’m a fool not to have seen it earlier.

“Come,” I say, pulling her towards the vehicle.

I lead her to the open trunk and we sit down on the air mattress opposite one another so that our legs meet in the middle. Her eyes trail over the stark landscape, haunted and searching.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I should have realized this sooner.”

“I killed a man,” Esme says again, looking at me. But not really at me—more like past me, through me, beyond me.

I nod. “You did what you had to do.”

“Did I?” she asks. “I could have injured him without killing him. That’s what I should have done.”

“Esme—”

“I stabbed him until I killed him,” she continues. “And even after he was dead, I kept stabbing.”

“You were in shock.”

“I knew what I was doing. I could have stopped.”

“You were protecting me,” I say, leaning forward and taking her hand. “You were protecting our baby.”

Her sob escapes through her teeth and she shakes her head. “I keep seeing his eyes. The way they looked just before he died…”

“Is that what you were dreaming about?”

She nods. “You knew him?” she asks in a shuddering voice.

I get the feeling why she’s asking. “A little,” I acknowledge.

“Did he have a family?”

I squeeze her hand. “Will it help you to know that?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Probably not,” she admits. “But I want to know all the same.”

She waits for my answer.

But I know that the truth will only hurt her. It will double her guilt and invite in more nightmares that she doesn’t need.

I think about my child growing inside her and all the stress my world has already put on her and the pregnancy.

This baby has to be okay.

I can’t do this again.

“Yes,” I say. “Mischa has a wife. And two children.”

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