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

by Nicole Fox

  “Your clothes are on that chair over there,” Annette says. “Next to the duffel bag you had with you when you were brought in.”

  Anette comes forward and puts Phoenix back in my arms. Then she and Maria head out the door, glancing back at me the whole time.

  The moment the door shuts on me, I set Phoenix down on the bed and pull off my hospital robe.

  I dress fast, wincing every now and again at the pain. But it’s secondary, a mild irritant to the stress of escape.

  Lingering above it all is a vague sense of déjà vu.

  I realize I’ve been here once before.

  I’ve woken up in a hospital room and fled it towards an uncertain future.

  Of course, I found Artem in the end.

  But I’m not sure it will be that simple this time around.

  Once I’m dressed, I make sure that Phoenix’s swaddle is nice and tight before I pick him up and settle him in the crook of my arm.

  Then I hoist my duffel bag onto my shoulder. It’s heavier than I remember, but that’s probably only because I’m weak from the operation.

  I slip out of the hospital room and walk through the hospital, keeping my head low so that I don’t have to meet anyone’s eyes.

  I walk calmly out of the hospital with my heart beating fast.

  Only once I’ve cleared the area do I allow myself to pick up the pace.

  Phoenix stirs in my arms. His eyes flutter open and then he lets out a loud and angry wail.

  A harsh wind tears at our faces. I tuck my son as close to my body as I can, but I’m still clumsy after the surgery and I can barely balance him and the duffel bag at the same time.

  I’ve only walked about a block when I feel someone tailing me. I glance behind and see a shitty black car trailing behind me.

  Oh, God. Oh, God. Who has come for me?

  Who did that doctor tell? I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him. Shouldn’t have trusted anyone. They know my name, my real name…

  I try to tell myself that I’m paranoid, my fear is getting away from me.

  But then I hear the window roll down.

  “Esme.”

  I freeze.

  They’ve come for me.

  “Esme.”

  I turn slowly to face my pursuer.

  And then relief floods me with warmth.

  “Geoffrey.”

  He parks and steps out of his car. He limps around to me slowly, his eyes glancing down at Phoenix.

  “Congratulations.”

  “How did you find me?” I ask. It’s embarrassing how the sight of a friendly face has me near tears.

  “I was driving by to see you,” he explains. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. And then I saw you walking away from the hospital like you had ghosts on your tail.”

  I give him a forced smile. “That’s kind of you,” I reply. “But I was just discharged.”

  “Discharged?” he asks. “So soon.”

  “I, um… I insisted,” I stammer. “I have to leave town.”

  I hear another police siren in the distance. My head turns in its direction before I can stop myself.

  It feels as though the walls are closing in on me.

  “Esme?”

  I force my eyes to turn back to Geoffrey. “I have to…”

  “You have to leave,” he nods. “I know.”

  I just stare at him.

  “Get in the car,” he tells me. “I’ll drive you to the bus station.”

  Some days, it feels like I’m living on kindness.

  21

  Artem

  Dublin, Ireland

  The moment the plane touches ground in Dublin, I grab my duffel bag, hoist it over my shoulder and prepare to disembark. The curvy Irish stewardess who’s been sniffing around me the whole flight gives me a smile.

  “Hope you enjoyed your flight, sir,” she says, honey coating her tone.

  I nod brusquely and keep it moving.

  I’m on edge. Have been since I boarded this flight.

  Some might call it a suicide mission or a fool’s errand. Whatever fits, I guess. True, it’s a fucking long shot.

  But it’s the only shot I’ve got left.

  It takes me an hour to clear customs. When I step out of the airport, the fresh Irish wind hits me smack in the face. Green hills roll in the distance beneath a cerulean sky.

  I feel Cillian’s absence more keenly than I’ve ever felt it before.

  He should be here with me.

  But even as I think it, I know that Cillian would never have stepped foot back in this country. It wasn’t a refutation of the land itself.

  It was a refutation of the family that exiled him from it.

  I bite back the anger for my best friend’s sake and unclench my fists. This is not the time for doubts. It’s not the time for old grudges, either.

  It’s time for war.

  I didn’t bother with booking myself into a hotel ahead of time. For all I know, I’ll be dead by nightfall.

  Besides, my purpose is clear. Things must be done in their proper order.

  I take a cab from the airport and drive out about an hour from the main city to an address that I’ve picked out from one of my old portfolios.

  I feel strangely naked. Since I’d taken a commercial flight out here, I couldn’t travel with the usual arsenal of weapons that I would usually have with me. I was already flying under a fake identity I purchased in Mexico City, so the added scrutiny of a gun in my luggage would’ve been unnerving.

  But it does mean that I’d be showing up on the devil’s doorstep without so much as a pocketknife to defend myself.

  That won’t do.

  I need to rectify the situation.

  The cab stops outside an old warehouse-like building in the middle of nowhere.

  “This is the place?”

  “Aye,” the cabbie replies. He looks back at me. “You sure you know what you’re doing, son?”

  I hand him the cash and get out without saying a word.

  At the front entrance of the warehouse, I find two men smoking by the front façade. They straighten up when they see me. One stamps out his cigarette.

  “You lost?” the older man asks. He’s got blue eyes that reminds me of Cillian and a sports cap that supports some team I’m not familiar with.

  “I hear you sell quality caviar,” I enunciate clearly.

  At the code phrase, both men raise their eyebrows. Their faces shift from suspicious to courteous at once.

  “Come right on in, sir,” the younger man welcomes, jumping to his feet.

  I follow him into the warehouse, which carries a distinct and unpleasant scent. The other men walks behind me. Together in that single file line, we go to the very back of the building.

  The younger man fiddles with a lock. When the bolt slides free, he pulls it open and steps aside to usher me in.

  I nod my thanks and enter.

  The moment I walk in, the smell of oil and metal fills my nostrils.

  Sleek, shiny guns stare back at me from every nook and cranny. I’m spoiled for choice.

  “We’ve got a variety of caviar for you,” the older man says pridefully as he slips in the room behind me. “Only the finest.”

  “I can see that,” I rumble. “Good thing I came hungry.”

  By the time I walk out of the warehouse, I’m armed and most definitely dangerous. My duffel bag rattles with fresh weaponry as I walk a few miles down the road and catch a cab back into the city.

  Now that I have guns on me, I feel much, much better.

  I have the taxi drop me off at a bar that Cillian mentioned a few times over the years.

  The pub is typically Irish in façade. It’s got a distinctive sign out front that says “O’Malley’s” in a swirling Gaelic script. The paint job looks a little old.

  But other than that, the place looks relatively well kept. Completely innocuous.

  I walk in, bag and all, and sit myself down at the bar directly in front of the
bartender. The man has an impressive ginger beard, but his hair is dark brown, the exact same color as his eyes.

  He casts an appraising glance over me. His eyes linger on my tattoos as though he’s looking for signs.

  “What can I get you, friend?” he asks, though his tone doesn’t suggest we’re friends at all.

  “Beer,” I reply. “Guinness is fine.”

  “Coming right up.”

  As he fills my beer mug up to the brim, I survey the barroom. There are three men occupying one booth and a few lone customers hunched over their alcohol at single tables. Drunks, by the looks of them.

  The men sitting at the booth are eyeing me curiously. I get the sense that if I ask them the right questions, I might get the answers I need.

  “New in town?” the bartender asks.

  “Brand new.”

  “Ever been to Dublin before?”

  “I haven’t even been to Ireland before,” I reply.

  He drums his fingers on the beer tap. “Business or pleasure?”

  He’s trying to be casual, but I can sense the underlying interest in my answers. “For some, business is pleasure.”

  “Talking about yourself there, lad?”

  I have no trouble understanding his thick Irish accent. Probably because Cillian had the same one when he first landed in the States.

  Of course, he’d worked hard to lose his accent over time, but it brought back old memories.

  Memories that make me very fucking angry.

  “I am.” Underneath the bar counter, I crack my knuckles and ready myself for a fight.

  I haven’t drawn a gun yet. But the moment where that might become necessary is fast approaching.

  The men at the booth are still staring daggers into my back. This is definitely the right place.

  I just have to figure out where to poke.

  “What’s your business then, friend?” the bartender pries. His tone is growing icier with each exchange.

  I shrug nonchalantly. “This and that. But the reason I’m in Dublin at all is to do a favor for a friend.”

  “Oh?” the bartender says, raising his eyebrows.

  “Cillian O’Sullivan,” I say, raising my voice slightly to make sure the boys in the back can hear me. “Ever heard of him?”

  The bartender stills instantly.

  Jackpot.

  “Can’t say I have,” he says. “Close friend of yours?”

  “Very.”

  “You haven’t touched your beer,” he remarks, pointing down at the full mug in front of me.

  I look down at it as if I’m considering taking a swig.

  But the truth is that I left my taste for alcohol back in Mexico. If I never drink again, it’ll be too soon.

  That was the old Artem who drank until he didn’t have to face his demons anymore.

  The new Artem looks his demons in the face when he buries a knife in their chest.

  I raise my gaze back up to lock eyes with the bartender. Here we are—the moment where the violence starts.

  I’m fucking ready.

  “I’m Russian, friend,” I spit, purposefully emphasizing the term of not-so-endearment. “I don’t drink this Irish piss.”

  The bartender’s fake smile drops at once. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

  I smile coolly. “I think you heard me just fine.”

  More to the point, the boys in the back heard me.

  The bartender’s eyes flick over my shoulder. But I’m way ahead of him.

  I already feel them coming, and I act before any of them have even realized that I’m far more than they bargained for.

  Grabbing the hilt of the dagger I’ve had hidden against my thigh since I sat down, I turn and hurl it through the air.

  The blade buries itself in the neck of the man closest to reaching me. His face freezes in shock.

  He wasn’t ready to die.

  To which I say—then he shouldn’t have come anywhere near Artem Kovalyov.

  I don’t let any of his mates recover. I swing around, grab the hilt that’s protruding from the dying man’s neck, and step behind him in the process.

  I use him as a deadweight human shield, just before the three men still standing reach for their guns.

  That’s my window of opportunity.

  I cock back and throw my knife a second time. The moment it leaves my hand, I grab the gun tucked in the back of my waistband.

  The knife finds its home in a second man’s beefy neck. Struck an artery, by the looks of the blood spatter. He falls to the ground, gurgling. I let my human shield go and he hits the deck like a sack of potatoes.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  The third sound is the man I’ve shot thudding onto his knees. He has just enough time left in his life to look down at the bloody mess where his beer gut once was and then back up to me.

  Horror is etched in his eyes. Disbelief, really.

  He looks like he wants to say something to me. Ask me who I am or how I managed to do this. His fat lips sputter with the word.

  But then the clock of his life ticks down to zero and he collapses on top of his friend.

  Goodnight, friend.

  Satisfied with my handiwork, I turn slowly and turn my attention to the bartender.

  His eyes are wide with fear as he realizes just how out of his depth he is.

  “Drop your gun,” I order.

  He was dumb enough to pick up a pistol from somewhere behind the bar, but not brave enough or fast enough to use it on me in the fight.

  He does as I say immediately. The moment the gun is down, I saunter back over to the bar.

  The other lone drinkers are nowhere in sight, clearly having raced out of here the moment shit got real. Smart thinking.

  I sit down on the same barstool I’d been occupying only minutes earlier and pick up my beer mug. Raising it to my nose, I take an inhale.

  “Smells as bad as it tastes, I bet,” I drawl. I hurl it against the mirrored wall behind the bartender. He flinches as it streaks past his ear and shatters into a million glistening pieces. The mirror goes with it, huge shards collapsing to the ground.

  The man’s hands are still raised. I can see his fingertips trembling.

  “Can we dispense with the pretense now?” I ask conversationally.

  The bartender looks at me with fearful calculation. I know exactly what he’s thinking. He’s wondering if he’s going to live to see another day.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he asks in a hushed voice.

  I remember the words I roared over the ravine after I built Cillian’s makeshift grave.

  I am death.

  But I want this poor sap to be cooperative, not to piss his pants in terror. So I save the theatrics for another time.

  “Does it matter?” I ask instead.

  “Well, what do you want?”

  “A better question,” I agree. “But first, you need to answer me.”

  “You didn’t ask a question.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Yes, I did. And you lied to me, which better men than you have lost their lives for. So, do you wanna try this again?”

  He nods. I note the panicked swallow of his Adam’s apple.

  “Excellent. Did you know Cillian O’Sullivan?”

  “Not personally,” the bartender stammers. “But I know… of him.”

  “Fair enough.” The gun in my hand is still aimed at the bartender. “I assume you know his father.”

  The bartender stills and his pale deepens. Then he nods.

  “Also excellent. Where do I find him?” I ask.

  “Listen—”

  “Just so you know, I don’t take kindly to excuses,” I tell him. I tap the butt of the gun on the countertop to remind him who’s still in charge here.

  “He’ll gut you. Ronan O’Sullivan is not a man to be trifled with.”

  “Clearly, neither am I.”

  The bartender looks past me at the bodies of the thugs littering his pub floor. “I know whe
re you can find him,” he sighs, with resignation and defeat in his tone.

  “There’s a good man.” I tuck the gun back into my waistband. The man droops with audible relief.

  “I’m reaching for a pen and paper,” he calls to me as I stand up from the barstool. “I’ll give you the address.”

  I laugh and shake my head. “Oh, no, friend. I’d rather you just took me yourself.”

  “You… you want me to take you?” His pallor is back and sicklier than ever. I just killed three men in the blink of an eye, right in front of this sorry bastard, and yet he’s still almost as scared of Ronan O’Sullivan than he is of me.

  The Irishman’s reputation is impressive.

  A lesser man might be afraid of that, of him.

  But not me.

  I’m the most dangerous man on the planet, and I have nothing left to lose.

  The bartender closes up and we head out onto the street. He leads me to a pretty nice car, certainly one that’s above the pay grade of a simple bartender in a podunk pub on the outskirts of Dublin.

  But I don’t question him as I fold myself into the passenger seat of his car.

  We drive through the town, but I can’t seem to concentrate on anything. My mind is racing.

  This was Cillian’s home. He grew up on these streets. He got into fist fights and chased girls down these streets. He loved these streets up—until the day they spat him out on a one-way flight to America.

  And yet, I can’t picture him anywhere.

  I can’t see him fitting in here.

  His family’s betrayal had forced some quintessential Irishness out of him. Like a part of his soul never left his home country.

  “I’ve got my blonde hair and blue eyes,” Cillian would always tell me as we stumbled drunk from one club to the next in our younger and more reckless teenage years. “Gifts from Mother Ireland. And they’re the only things I’ll keep.”

  The memory stings worse than I expected.

  “Do you have a name?” I ask the bartender. Anything to distract myself from the storm raging inside my head.

  “Does it matter?” he snarls.

  I laugh darkly. “You’re right. It doesn’t.”

  He pulls to a stop outside the gates of a fancy compound. It’s sprawling, but nowhere near as luxurious as the one Stanislav owned.