Page 46 of Gilded Cage (Kovalyov Bratva 1)

“I should have killed you a long time ago,” Joaquin Moreno tells me, his eyes slicing into me like serrated daggers.

“You should have.”

“What do you want?”

“I want what you took from me.”

“You know I can’t give you that,” he replies.

The response is almost polite. Damn near apologetic.

But too casual by a long shot.

It wasn’t a small thing he stripped away. He tookeverythingfrom me.

Time to return the favor.

“Then you knew I’d be coming.”

Joaquin’s eyes trail up a little, but his expression still doesn’t betray concern. “Get it over with, then. Your daddy will want you home soon, I’m sure.”

I snarl in anger. But before I can ask him another thing, he raises the gun.

He’s fast, but I’m faster. I shoot him in the chest and he falls back against his white carpet, staining the fabric with thick blood the color of wine.

I grit my teeth and walk up to Moreno’s dead body. He wanted a quick death and I just gave it to him.

But I should’ve made him suffer.

His eyes stare glassily towards the ceiling, a sneer permanently etched onto his face.

“Fucking bastard,” I mutter. I spit on his corpse, then turn back towards the hallway to finish the job.

The house is almost completely silent now. I’m two steps outside the room containing Joaquin’s dead body when Cillian’s voice emerges from the staircase landing.

“Artem!”

I look over at him. “Did you find it yet?”

He waves me over without another word. I go after him, gun dangling at my side.

Cillian leads me to the last room at the end of the third-story hallway. It’s ornate and red with a gold doorknob.

Very expensive.

Very feminine.

“This is it?” I ask.

He shrugs. “It’s the only one we haven’t checked.”

I turn to the door, take a deep breath, and give it my best kick.

It explodes inwards. Figures that Joaquin would take the safest room for himself.

I step through the broken shards of the door frame and enter the large, opulent bedroom. I take quick note of the contents—big four-poster bed draped with a white mosquito net like a bridal veil. Mahogany desk, tasteful armchair. A bulletin board brimming with postcards.

There doesn’t seem to be anyone inside, though.

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