Gilded Tears: A Russian Mafia Romance (Kovalyov Bratva Book 2) Read online

  I loved you.

  I used the past tense, but that’s just self-preservation.

  I still love him. I always will. I don’t know how to stop.

  11

  Artem

  One Week Later

  Old memories tether me to the darkness.

  They set their hooks in my soul and pull me in a thousand directions at once.

  I’m vaguely aware of the real world somewhere far in the distance. I can hear voices. Feel the light pressure of gentle hands on my body. And the pain, of course. So much goddamn pain, searing through every inch of me.

  But I’m not there. Not really.

  I’m too lost in this torture. Consumed by it. Torn to pieces by hook after hook after hook of memories I thought were long since gone.

  Budimir’s face. Sneering at me. Taunting me.

  My father’s grizzled brow. Arched in a disappointed downwards V.

  Cillian’s blue eyes. Fading away into the darkness. That ever-present glow extinguished.

  Last of all, there’s Esme. That molten gold spark in her irises that only flashes when she’s fiery with emotion. The tumble of her dark hair. Her scent, her skin, her laughter, her moan…

  I force my eyes open.

  The overhead light stabs in like an ice pick, but I refuse to close them again.

  I’ve had enough of the darkness. It’s my turn to fight back.

  There’s a burning pain in my side, but I ignore it and sit up slowly. When I manage to get mostly upright, I take stock of my surroundings.

  I’m lying on a dining room table in a house that’s been decorated with a few too many floral patterns. Pinks and blues and greens in various pastel shades.

  There’s a grumpy-looking cat staring at me from a chair in the corner of the room. But no people. No Esme, no Budimir. Just me.

  I’m not waiting around to see who this house belongs to, or figure out how I got here. If Budimir’s behind this—more of his fucked-up torture—then I want to escape while the route out is unguarded.

  I look to my side and notice that the table faces a set of sliding doors that open out into a pristine garden. Looks as good as any other direction.

  I inch off the table. The moment I land on my feet, pain rips through my body like an earthquake.

  I almost collapse. I have to grip the edge of the table to stop from crumpling down in a heap. It takes a long minute of breathing and steeling myself against the pain yet to come.

  But when I’m good enough to move, I wince and start to limp towards the sliding doors.

  Where is Esme?

  Where is Cillian?

  Are they…?

  I can’t bring myself to say it. Can’t even think it, actually. The thought is too much.

  “You’re up.”

  I whip around—hissing in pain when I realize what a mistake that sudden motion was—and find myself faced with a tall, willowy woman in a long grey kaftan. She has a mess of curly hair that frames her thin face.

  And she’s looking at me as though she knows exactly who I am.

  “Who are you?” I growl.

  “Aracelia,” she replies coolly. “My name is Aracelia. And you’re Artem. Esme told me.”

  I flinch at the sound of her name, but I can’t see any sign that Esme might be in this house.

  “Where is she?” I ask. I can’t figure out why this woman’s name feels familiar to me.

  “How about I check your wounds first?” she suggests. “Would you mind sitting down for me?”

  “Yes, I would mind,” I seethe. I’m about to totter over if I’m not careful, but I refuse to show weakness. I ball my hands into fists and focus on staying upright.

  “There’s no need to be churlish,” she says with a mild sigh. “I am the one who saved your life. Well, Esme and I.”

  She moves towards me, but I growl at her and she freezes. Just then, I pick up a bitter, rancid smell that fills my nostrils and threatens to make me retch.

  “What the fuck is that smell?” I demand.

  “My poultice,” Aracelia explains. She extends a long finger towards the mass of bandages covering my abdomen. “It’s meant to help you heal.”

  “Heal?” I repeat. “It fucking reeks.”

  God, everything hurts so badly. I can barely think straight.

  She scrunches her face up and I can see that I’ve offended her.

  “Where are my clothes?” I ask, realizing suddenly that I’m butt-naked in the middle of what I assume is this woman’s living room.

  “On the clothesline. I had to wash them because they were covered in blood. If you’d like, I can get them.”

  She disappears into a door around the corner before I answer.

  I turn on the spot, trying to figure out why this place strikes a familiar cord with me. Flowers in vases and jars and perched on windowsills, incense burning in every nook and cranny, a small table with Tarot cards spread out across the top…

  And then it hits me.

  When Aracelia reappears, I limp back around to face her once more.

  “You’re the woman who gave Esme a reading,” I say. It sounds like an accusation.

  “I did,” Aracelia agrees. “I also dabble in midwifery and natural cures.”

  I glance down at the green goo that seems to be oozing out from under my bandages. “I need to get this shit off me.”

  She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t. It needs time to do its’ job. And you need to rest.”

  “I can’t fucking rest,” I bite back. “I need to get Esme and—”

  “Esme is gone.”

  I freeze. My eyes fly to her face, searching for signs that she might be lying. She stares back at me, unblinking.

  “What did you say?” I grit.

  “She left a week ago,” Aracelia replies. “She took the car and drove off.”

  She didn’t say it, but I can hear the underlying message nonetheless: She’s not coming back, either.

  She left me here. She ran.

  For good.

  I snatch my clothes from her hands and start getting dressed. I can feel her watching me, judging me, probably glad that Esme left me as unceremoniously as she has. I don’t stop until I’m fully dressed. My clothes feel as if they don’t belong to me, like I’ve donned a second skin that’s not my own.

  Everything feels strange, wrong. Like my world has been shifted off its axis.

  I straighten up and look at the woman. Aracelia. Even when I say her name in my head, it comes out in a snarl. Something about her just pisses me the fuck off.

  Did she tell Esme to run?

  I know that this woman has nothing to do with the weight on my chest. That she’s not responsible for my pain. That she just happens to be the only one here right now with any semblance of answers.

  But she’s in my way and I’m unable to keep my fury from unfurling.

  “Where is she going?” I demand.

  She blinks at me. Either too stupid or too fearless to pay much attention to my tone.

  “Somewhere else.”

  My hands clench into fists. Even that tiny action sends pain rushing up and down my arms. I have a high threshold for physical pain, though.

  It’s the emotional shit I could never deal with.

  But I don’t have a choice anymore. Pain of all kinds is here to stay.

  Matter of fact, pain is all I have left.

  I shove past the woman and head out of the house. I’ve just limped through the door when I hear her call my name.

  “Artem!”

  Despite myself, I freeze.

  “For what it’s worth… I think leaving was incredibly hard on her,” she tells me. Her tone is sorrowful, sympathetic.

  But I am too black with loss to accept it.

  I spit on the ground and keep stomping away.

  Aracelia doesn’t pursue me. But when I glance back twenty minutes later, just before I round the hill and her hovel disappears from sight, she’s still there. Still standing in the
lit rectangle of her back door. Watching me go.

  I spit once more and keep walking into the mountains.

  I must’ve left sometime around midnight, if I had to guess. And yet the sun is high overhead by the time I reach the top of the mountain trail.

  My bandages are red at the edges with blood. Everything hurts. More pain than I’ve ever experienced at once.

  The cabin comes into view. It looks the same way it always has. Quiet. Peaceful.

  It’s painful to even glance at it.

  Too many memories of happy days with Esme, waiting to taunt me like ghosts.

  I don’t go inside. I’m not ready for that. There are things that need to be dealt with first.

  I only stop at the shed, long enough to pull out a shovel.

  Then I keep going, delving into the woods with single-minded purpose. One bloody, painful step at a time.

  The smell hits me before I reach the clearing. It turns my stomach and I have to slow my pace just a little. The pungent odor smells distractingly like rotting meat.

  I feel a crackle of pain as I realize that that’s exactly what Cillian is now. Nothing more than a heap of rotting meat.

  When I turn the corner, that’s what I’m going to see.

  Just a few more steps.

  Just one more.

  Then I break through the brush and prepare myself to look upon the body of my best friend, who died trying to save me.

  It’s not there.

  I do a double-take. I must be dreaming, hallucinating. Maybe my injuries have wrecked my brain.

  I stomp around the edge of the clearing, looking for signs. When I reach the spot where he fell after Budimir shot him, I see the blood on the ground. But no body to be found.

  Wincing in agony, I sink to one knee and look closer.

  The blood is mostly mud now. Caked into the dirt and darkened by the days and nights since everything happened here.

  This close, I can see that there’s a faint trail leading off into the brush. Like something heavy was dragged from this spot and away.

  The shovel falls from my hand.

  Did Cillian escape?

  Or did Budimir drag him off and leave me to die alone?

  I close my eyes and sigh.

  “Cillian,” I whisper to nobody at all.

  I wish I believed in heaven or hell. I wish I could close my eyes and picture him free of pain. Reunited with his love.

  But I don’t. There is nothing after death. Just darkness.

  So, wherever my best friend is, he’s either Budimir’s newest pincushion, or he’s worm food. I’m not sure which fate is worse.

  “Thank you, brother,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. You put your faith in me and I let you down. I should have been a better don. A better friend.”

  It’s killing me inside that I don’t even have anything to remember him by.

  I can’t live with that. I need something. Call me stupid or sentimental, I don’t care. I just can’t let him disappear into the ether.

  I look around me and see a huge mound of rocks off to one side. I rise to my feet and limp over there.

  And then I start to work.

  I find a nice spot underneath the largest tree I can find. I shuffle back and forth from the rock pile to the spot I’ve chosen. One by one, I pile the stones up.

  It’s slow-going, and hard. But I welcome the pain that claws at my body. It feels like penance. Like I owe this much to Cillian.

  I work until the sun it burning hot in the sky. Sweat drips down my face, pools in my bandages, and soaks through my clothes. But I don’t allow myself a chance to rest. Not until it’s done.

  With every stone added to the construction, I keep seeing another mistake. Another way I let down my father, my best friend, the men in my command.

  What makes it worse is that I’ve done all this before. I had been so blinded by grief over Marisha that I missed all the ways in which Budimir was undermining my father and plotting his death.

  One mistake leading to the next.

  And now years later, it appears that I’ve learned absolutely fucking nothing. I’ve been so consumed with Esme that I had ignored my duty to the Bratva.

  I hid up in the mountains while Budimir hunted us.

  And now, Cillian is dead because I ignored my instincts.

  Not again. I will not let it happen again.

  Eventually, I get the rocks piled up into a stable pyramid of smooth white mountain granite. Then, I fashion a small cross from some thick branches, lash it together with strips of bark, and wiggle it between the stones.

  When I’m finished, I step back to evaluate my handiwork.

  It’s a pitiful tribute to the memory of a good man. A few twigs and some pebbles in this fucking shithole of a world.

  But it’s all I have to offer.

  The pain in my chest has now dulled to a hollowness that swallows emotion. I think about Esme, about her beautiful dark hair, her hazel-gold eyes, and her easy, open smile.

  I still feel love when I think of her. But I have to try and let go of the possessiveness. Her hold on me is what caused me to lose my way.

  She left. So let her be gone.

  If I want to focus on what I have to do next, it’s my only option.

  She’s probably driving as far from this nightmare as she can. She’s carrying my baby, and in a few months, I will have a child.

  But I no longer assume that I will see or even know that child.

  The baby is lost to me. Just like she is.

  I look again at the makeshift remembrance in front of me and feel the hollowness in my chest grow.

  I always assumed that Cillian would be my right-hand man when I became don. Now, I’m looking at a different reality.

  He won’t be my second, but rather the ghost on my shoulder, reminding me never to lose focus again.

  I have lost everything now. I have lost my father, my best friend, my wife and my child. Budimir has picked away at me, bite by bite by bite, like a vulture plucking a carcass down to the bone.

  I have nothing left anymore.

  Nothing but revenge.

  I turn and look out over the ravine and towards the snow-capped mountains beyond.

  I take a deep breath. And then I roar out, “I’m coming for you, uncle. Do you recognize me? No, how can you—when I barely recognize myself? My name is not Artem Kovalyov. Not anymore. My name is death. And I’m coming for you.”

  12

  Esme

  THREE MONTHS LATER—A SMALL TOWN NEAR TIJUANA, MEXICO

  “Emily?”

  I balance the tray on my huge belly and try to sidestep Sara, the other waitress, as she rushes past me to the kitchen. There’s a mess at table three I need to sort out and a couple at table four who’ve been trying to flag me down for the last ten minutes.

  “Emily?”

  I can see the annoyance on the couple’s faces but I really need to get table one their dinner. Jose got their order wrong the first time, so they’ve had to wait an extra half hour for the right meals. Which of course means they’re snippy and hungry.

  And since they can’t see Jose, I’m the outlet for their annoyance.

  “Emily!”

  Fuck.

  I’m still not used to the name I go by now. My reaction time is slower than I’d like to admit.

  I turn to find Ruby, my manager, staring daggers at me. My arms are already screaming from holding three plates each.

  “I’ve been trying to get your attention for, like, ever,” she snaps.

  Her bright red lips are pursed with irritation and a lock of strawberry blonde hair has come loose from its usually pristine topknot.

  “Sorry,” I mumble. “I’m a little backed-up here.” I fidget back and forth to readjust my weight on my feet.

  Ruby’s eyes fall to my stomach and then back up to my face. “When are you due by the way?”

  Fuck, again.

  “I’ve got a month to go,” I lie smoothly.

 
“Are you sure?” Ruby asks. “You look huge.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I say, trying to make light of my discomfort. “Just what every girl dreams of hearing.”

  I had a month to go—a whole damn month ago. According to my doctor, as of this morning, my due date is five days in the rearview mirror. I should be resting at home, swollen feet propped up.

  But I need the paycheck from the diner, shitty as it is.

  “You know what I mean,” Ruby sighs, rolling her eyes.

  “Um, Ruby, hold that thought for a sec, will ya?” I plead. I’m on the verge of dropping all the plates in my hand. That would really piss off the angry couple. “Let me get this order to table one and I’ll be right back. Pinky promise.”

  “Fine,” she says. “Be quick about it.”

  I nod and waddle to table one, intentionally steering clear of table three so that I can avoid the mess a little longer.

  “Hey, guys,” I apologize. “Really sorry about the wait.”

  The couple just clucks their teeth in irritation. At least their look happy to see me.

  “Did you bring my curly fries?” the boy chirps.

  “Right here, little man,” I say, giving him my best smile.

  He blushes a little as he accepts the fries. His sister doesn’t look as happy with her sloppy joe, but she lights up when I put down a side of potato wedges.

  “Some complimentary wedges,” I say. “For the delay.”

  That seems to appease the dad, who nods in acknowledgement, but his dark-haired wife looks at me with a pinched expression.

  “How far along are you?” she asks.

  “Got a month to go,” I say brightly.

  “You shouldn’t be working.”

  I don’t know if she means to show concern, but her tone implies otherwise.

  “I don’t have that option,” I sigh before I can stop myself.

  She narrows her eyes. “Single mother?”

  I bristle a little at the question, but the reality of my life these days is hard to deny. “Yes,” I admit. “I am.”

  She looks like she’s about to say something else. But I’m not sticking around to be insulted—or worse, pitied.