by Nicole Fox
Gilded Tears
A Russian Mafia Romance
Nicole Fox
Copyright © 2021 by Nicole Fox
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
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Gilded Tears
1. Esme
2. Esme
3. Esme
4. Artem
5. Artem
6. Artem
7. Esme
8. Esme
9. Esme
10. Esme
11. Artem
12. Esme
13. Artem
14. Artem
15. Esme
16. Esme
17. Artem
18. Artem
19. Artem
20. Esme
21. Artem
22. Esme
23. Artem
24. Artem
25. Esme
26. Esme
27. Artem
28. Artem
29. Artem
30. Artem
31. Esme
32. Esme
33. Artem
34. Esme
35. Artem
36. Esme
37. Esme
38. Artem
39. Artem
40. Esme
41. Artem
42. Artem
43. Esme
44. Esme
45. Artem
46. Artem
Epilogue: Artem
Sneak Preview of CORRUPTED ANGEL: A Dark Mafia Romance
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Also by Nicole Fox
Kovalyov Bratva Duet
Gilded Cage (Book 1)
Gilded Tears (Book 2)
Princes of Ravenlake Academy (Bully Romance)
*Can be read as standalones!
Cruel Prep
Cruel Academy
Cruel Elite
Bratva Crime Syndicate
*Can be read in any order!
Lies He Told Me
Scars He Gave Me
Sins He Taught Me
Belluci Mafia Trilogy
Corrupted Angel (Book 1)
Corrupted Queen (Book 2)
Corrupted Empire (Book 3)
De Maggio Mafia Duet
Devil in a Suit (Book 1)
Devil at the Altar (Book 2)
Kornilov Bratva Duet
Married to the Don (Book 1)
Til Death Do Us Part (Book 2)
Heirs to the Bratva Empire
*Can be read in any order!
Kostya
Maksim
Andrei
Tsezar Bratva
Nightfall (Book 1)
Daybreak (Book 2)
Russian Crime Brotherhood
*Can be read in any order!
Owned by the Mob Boss
Unprotected with the Mob Boss
Knocked Up by the Mob Boss
Sold to the Mob Boss
Stolen by the Mob Boss
Trapped with the Mob Boss
Volkov Bratva
Broken Vows (Book 1)
Broken Hope (Book 2)
Broken Sins (standalone)
Other Standalones
Vin: A Mafia Romance
Box Sets
Bratva Mob Bosses (Russian Crime Brotherhood Books 1-6)
Tsezar Bratva (Tsezar Bratva Duet Books 1-2)
Heirs to the Bratva Empire
The Mafia Dons Collection
The Don’s Corruption
Gilded Tears
Book Two of the Kovalyov Bratva Duet
I’LL MAKE HER CRY GILDED TEARS IF SHE EVER RUNS AGAIN.
Esme was just a girl in a nightclub.
Until I made her the center of my world.
The queen to my kingdom.
The mother to my child.
We had the future in our hands.
And then she left me on that mountain to die.
Little by little, I clawed my way back.
Back to life.
Back to strength.
Back to where I belong.
And now, the time has come to reclaim what belongs to me.
Once upon a time, Esme thought I was her savior.
She thought wrong.
Because by the time I find her again…
I’ll be her worst nightmare.
GILDED TEARS is the second book in the Kovalyov Bratva duet. Make sure you’ve started with Artem and Esme’s story from the beginning in Book 1, GILDED CAGE.
Esme
The Mountain Lodge, Picacho Del Diablo, Mexico
Everything has gone wrong at once.
The seconds after Artem leaves stretch out into endless eternity. Minutes slither past, mocking me.
Don’t just sit there.
Don’t just panic.
But I don’t know what else to do. I can barely form a coherent thought.
The cabin is quiet and moonlight splices in through the tiny little cracks in the blinds that Artem pulled down before he left.
How long since he walked out that door? I know it’s been a minute, maybe two, but it feels like so much longer.
My heart drums hard against my chest. I know it’s warning me, but I don’t know what it’s warning me against.
I feel my baby turn inside me and I cry out in shock, in pain. I place a hand over my stomach and try to infuse as much calm as I can into my voice.
“Hush, little bird,” I whisper. “We’re going to be all right. Papa’s gonna come right back.”
Why does that sound like a lie?
Images of dead men and circling birds of prey fill my head. I see blood and violence and my hand clinging onto a gun I don’t want to hold.
The panic took root in my soul the day I saw the dead man down the ravine. It’s been dormant until now, just biding its time and waiting for an excuse to come out and torture me.
But it’s more than just my own head creating monsters.
It’s also the look on Artem’s face before he had left.
That was the look of a man with blood on his mind.
The look of a man who had faced violence so many times that he had become immune to its hold.
In other words… the look of a man who lied to me when he said he was ready to give it all up.
I can’t bring myself to relax or lie still. So I abandon my search for calm and head out of the room.
“Cillian.”
“Heyo, there she is,” he mumbles cheerily.
But I can tell that that his unruffled façade is forced.
He gives me a tight, unconvincing smile. “It’s late. You should be in bed.”
“You should be with Artem.”
I hadn’t meant it to sound so accusing, but Cillian flinches back slightly. It’s the first chink in his armor. I wonder how long it’ll take him to be honest with me.
He shrugs nonchalantly. “That old grouch? I have more fun with you.”
I narrow my eyes at him and join him on the couch. One glance tells me that there’s a gun placed surreptitiously under the cushion
beside him. I pretend that I don’t notice.
“You mean, Artem forced you to stay back to protect me,” I say.
Cillian’s smile is my answer.
“You’re the most important thing in the world to him, Esme. You and that baby you’re carrying.”
“He doesn’t know what’s out there.”
“He can handle himself.”
I sigh uncomfortably and lean back against the sofa.
“I don’t know how you do it,” I tell him. “Isn’t your stomach in knots for at least twenty-three hours of the day?”
Cillian considers that question for a moment. “I suppose it used to be. At the beginning, when I was a green boy with no experience and little confidence. But it’s like anything else in life—you get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it.”
“I know,” Cillian says softly.
“Can I ask you something?” I venture.
He raises his eyebrows just a little. “Shoot.”
I frown.
He laughs softly. “Sorry, wrong choice of word,” he corrects. “Let’s stick with, ‘Go ahead.’”
“What was Marisha like?” I ask as delicately as I can.
Cillian’s expression doesn’t change, but I can tell he’s surprised that I’m asking him at all.
“You’re better off asking Artem,” he says evasively.
“I’m asking you.”
“Marisha was… She was lovely,” he admits. “I liked her a lot.”
“Was she cut out for this life?” I ask, feeling my throat constrict just a little.
“No one’s really cut out for this life,” he says. “It chooses most of us. After that, there’s no going back.”
“How did the life choose her?” I’m stroking my belly again and again. I don’t dare to meet his eyes.
“Well, she fell in love with Artem,” Cillian replies. “She had no choice after that. If she wanted him, she had to accept the baggage he came with. She knew she couldn’t have one without the other.”
“Like I’m trying to, you mean.”
Cillian’s eyes soften. “That’s not what I mean, Esme.”
“I know,” I sigh. “Did he tell you?”
“That you want him to walk away from the Bratva?” Cillian asks. “Yeah. He told me.”
I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I can’t decipher if he resents me for trying to pull Artem away from a life that they’ve shared together for so long.
So I just ask him.
“Do you hate me for that?” I ask directly.
Cillian does a double-take. He stares at me in surprise. “Of course not,” he says with all apparent sincerity. “Why would you even think that?”
“If Artem walks away from the Bratva, that would change a lot between the two of you,” I reason.
Cillian shakes his head. “We wouldn’t be brothers-in-arms any longer,” he concedes. “But we would still be friends. That wouldn’t change.”
“So you don’t think I’m crazy for wanting a life that’s separate from all this?”
“No, I don’t,” he answers. “It makes sense, really. Happy endings don’t exactly go hand in hand with life in the Bratva. You want more for yourself and your child. I can hardly blame you for that.”
“Thank you.”
There’s a moment of silence. Then, without looking at me, Cillian murmurs, “If Saoirse showed up at my doorstep and asked me to walk away from everything, I would.”
It’s my turn to do a double-take. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Even after all this time?”
Cillian looks up at me. “Is that pathetic?”
I feel emotion well up inside me as I look at his face. All I want to do is hug him. For someone who always looks so happy-go-lucky, right now, his expression is haunted.
I settle for moving a little closer to him on the sofa, and I place my hand over his.
“No,” I say as strongly as I can muster. “It isn’t.”
“That’s nice of you,” he says. He tries to smile. “But I know it is. She’s long since moved on. She has a bunch of kids, too. She doesn’t spend her days thinking about me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“You just need to find the right girl,” I argue.
I don’t even know if I’m right. I just want to be able to tell him something remotely hopeful.
“Maybe that’s it,” Cillian laughs. “Maybe I need to find my Esme.”
I blush a little and sit back, trying not to peer out into the night searching for Artem. It’s probably been about fifteen minutes since he left, but it feels like an hour has passed on this sofa.
“He’ll be all right, Esme,” Cillian says, sensing my worry. “Have you ever seen him fight?”
“A few times actually,” I admit. “It’s terrifying.”
He nods knowingly. “Artem is an instinctive fighter. He was always a force to be reckoned with in combat. I wouldn’t want to go up against him.”
“He could be outnumbered.”
“Sure, by bears,” Cillian fires back, though I don’t quite believe that he believes that. “We don’t know that a human being triggered the perimeter traps.”
“Do I need to remind you about the man I saw down the ravine?”
“Artem can handle it,” Cillian says again.
But this time, it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
2
Esme
I get to my feet and groan with frustration. With nothing else to do, I start pacing.
Cillian just sits on the sofa and watches me. But his body is tense and his eyes are alert.
“Esme.”
“We haven’t heard anything, Cillian.”
“That’s a good thing.”
I run my fingers through my hair, feeling as though I’m going insane. “Maybe we should go out there and see if Artem needs some help.”
Cillian frowns. “We are not going anywhere. You’re staying right here.”
“Cillian!”
I’m about to argue harder when a gunshot blasts through the night.
I gasp. My heart is thundering so loudly that I almost miss the second gunshot.
“Cillian!” I scream again. I rush over to him just as he gets to his feet.
I need him to say something. Anything. Lie to me if he has to.
It was just rocks falling.
A car backfiring.
A bird calling.
But please, for the love of God, tell me something.
Cillian says nothing.
“We have to help him!” I beg desperately.
I keep looking out through the window, hoping for a sign.
Only darkness stares back.
But that doesn’t scare me. Not anymore.
At long last, Cillian turns his gaze to me. With a grim set to his mouth, he says, “No.”
“No?” I repeat, staring at him in shock. “We just heard two gunshots!”
“Artem told me to stay here with you, no matter what. Two gunshots falls in the ‘no matter what’ category.”
“I don’t think he assumed he was going to be facing a fucking firing squad!” I snap in near-tears—just as another gunshot tears through the silence.
“My don gave me an order,” Cillian says tonelessly.
“Your don!?” I repeat furiously. “Your fucking don gave you an order? Cillian, he’s not your don, he’s your friend!”
“Esme, you don’t understand—”
“I do understand!” I yell.
“No, you don’t,” Cillian interrupts. “Because if you did, you would understand that Artem can survive a firing squad if he has to. But he won’t be able to survive losing you.”
“I’ll be fine—”
“He barely survived losing Marisha, Esme,” he says, raising his voice this time. “He’s not going to survive losing you. And he’ll never forgive me for leaving you, either.”
I feel desperate tears slip down my cheeks. My voice falters.
I turn away from Cillian as a new round of gunshots pelts the silence. I lunge for the cupboard under the sink and pull out one of the guns that Artem has stashed when he thought I wasn’t looking.
It feels heavy and ungainly in my hand. I hate it instantly.
But I’m determined to use it if I need to.
I rush to the door, ready to go out.
Only for Cillian to block my path.
He shakes his head sadly. Those mirthful blue eyes are brimming with sorrow.
“Esme, you know I can’t let you walk out of here.”
“Too bad you won’t be able to stop me.”
For some reason, I didn’t really believe Cillian would go this far.
But as I tried to walk around him, he blocks me again.
“I can’t just leave him out there,” I say desperately, my eyes looking past Cillian into the darkness of the mountains.
“You’re right.”
Relief floods through me. I see the panic and fear in Cillian’s eyes, too.