Chapter 6
Zoya~
Twenty-four hours later, and I was still fuming over Kasmir Korolev’s stunt last night.
For no other reason than to just torment me, he had cost me almost all of my tips last night, leaving me only seven dollars at the end of the night, and it’d taken everything in me not to get myself killed by punching him in his too-gorgeous face.
That was another strike against the youngest Korolev son.
No one that evil should be so good looking.
Kasimir was easily over six-feet, and he had that whole tall, dark, and handsome thing going for him, except that he didn’t have dark brown eyes that usually accompanied that sultry bedroom look.
Instead, Kasimir had one bright blue eye and one white eye that was enough to give any sane person nightmares.
Unfortunately, it worked for him. With a face carved in complete masculinity and a pair of eyes that could hypnotize you on the spot, Kasimir Korolev was as beautiful as Satan before and after his fall, and it wasn’t fair.
Nothing about this was fair.
Nonetheless, it’d be a cold day in hell before I admitted that he’d gotten the best of me last night.
Even though I needed every dime from my shifts, I’d choose starving over begging Kasimir for mercy.
In fact, seeing him last night had been a reminder of why I needed to do a better job of convincing my mother to leave St. Moran.
There wasn’t anything left here for us, and I just wish that she could see that.
“Oh, my God,” Marcelle whispered, snapping me from my thoughts. “Is that Kasimir Korolev.”
My head turned fast enough to make blood rush down my spine, and dread grabbed a hold of my throat as I watched him walk into the diner, heading over to my section again.
Honestly, for a brief second, I wanted to cry.
I wanted to cry because it was Sunday, which was one of our slowest nights, and I hadn’t made enough tips yet to pay for whatever he was going to order tonight.
I felt sick.
I was also tempted to ask Marcelle if she wanted to take my table, but then I felt sicker when I imagined him doing the same thing to her. While Marcelle wasn’t poor-poor, she also wasn’t working as a waitress for the glamour of it all.
“You better hurry up and go wait on him,” she said. “He doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would appreciate waiting.”
I let out a shaky breath before I made my way over, and I could only pray that I didn’t have an epic meltdown, costing me my job. While I was barely making it, minimum wage was better than zero dollars earned while not having a job.
Just like last night, I placed a menu in front of him, then asked, “Would you like to start with something to drink, or would you prefer a few moments with our menu, sir?”
“I’d like a cup of coffee, lepestok,” he answered. “Black.”
“Of course,” I said before turning to get him a cup.
“What did he order?” Marcelle asked as soon as I began brewing a fresh pot of the potent caffeine.
“Just a cup of black coffee for right now,” I muttered, my stomach in knots, tears of frustration threatening to turn me into an unraveling joke.
“God, he’s gorgeous,” she whispered. “I bet he’s amazing in bed.”
Now, while it was true that he was sexy as hell, I wasn’t interested in what kind of women Kasimir took to his bed.
Plus, he didn’t deserve any credit for his looks.
He and Viktor Korolev had both taken after their father in looks, and so all the Korolev men were good-looking, and that had been a gift from God and nothing more.
“Oh, miss?” Marcelle and I both turned to see one of my tables waving me over, and the relief that I felt nearly dropped me to my knees.
“Do you want to take Mr. Korolev his coffee once it’s done?” I asked. “I need to go see what they want.”
Marcelle grinned like it was Christmas morning. “Absolutely.”
Leaving her to it, I walked over to my other table, and these people wouldn’t ever know how happy I was that they had called me over. “How can I help you?”
“We can’t eat another bite,” the man said. “Can we get some to-go boxes and our ticket?”
“Of course,” I grinned. “I’ll be just a moment.”
“Thank you so much,” the woman replied, smiling back.
When I reached the counter to grab a couple of to-go boxes, Marcelle was already pouring Kasimir’s fresh cup of coffee, saying, “This is going to be the highlight of my night.”
Ignoring that, I grabbed the boxes, then headed back towards the couple, handing over both the boxes and their dinner ticket.
It wasn’t until I was heading back towards the counter that Marcelle met me halfway there, and not only did she still have the cup of coffee in her hands, but she looked slightly worried as well.
“What?” I asked. “What happened?”
“He said that he ordered the cup from you, and so he expects for you to deliver it,” she whispered, trying to keep her voice as low as possible.
I let out a sigh before saying, “I’m sorry. I’ll take care of it.”
“Yeah, okay,” she murmured.
So, as quickly as I could, I poured another cup of coffee for Kasimir, then walked over to deliver it to him. When I placed the cup in front of him, I asked, “Is there anything else that you’d like, sir?”
“Since you asked, yes,” he replied coolly. “Do not ever place someone else above me again. Do I make myself clear?”
“I apologize,” I said, the words feeling like acid corroding my soul. “It won’t happen again.”
“Make sure that it doesn’t,” he said right before standing up, and my stomach dipped nervously at whatever was coming next.
That’s when he pulled out his wallet, then dropped a hundred-dollar bill on the table, and it took everything in me not to throw up everywhere. “I...uhm, I’m not sure that we have change for-”
“It’s yours, lepestok,” he said before adding a five-dollar bill to cover the cost of the coffee. “A tip.”
I immediately began shaking my head. “That’s not necessary, Mr. Korolev-”
“Call me Kasimir,” he ordered as he stepped forward, towering over me.
“I don’t want your money,” I said, pride driving right now. “The five dollars is more than enough to cover the coffee.”
“Take the fucking money, Zoya,” he hissed. “Do not piss me off.”
“I don’t want it,” I repeated. “No one earns a hundred dollars for pouring a cup of coffee.”
“Take the money,” he ordered again. “I will not tell you again.”
Before I could say anything to that, Kasimir grabbed the bill off the table, then pulled at my apron, stuffing the bill in my pocket, and I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been so enraged.
Last night had been a deliberate attempt to shame me for working for minimum wage, and now he was back to further humiliate me by casually throwing a hundred-dollar bill at me for a single cup of coffee that he hadn’t even taken one sip of.
“Do not forget yourself, lepestok,” he said. “Remember, you are only alive because Aurora has deemed it so.”
I was choking on his audacity as he turned from me, then walked out of the diner.
Even though I’d already known about the promise that Aurora Korolev had made my mother, I still didn’t like being reminded that I was at the mercy of someone’s good graces.
I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I was so fucking tired of paying for sins that I hadn’t committed.
“Is everything okay?”
I turned to see Marcelle with that worried look on her face, so I slapped on my fake smile, a professional at it already. “Uhm, yeah,” I replied. “In fact, he wanted me to give you this.” Lying out of my face, I reached in my apron for the hundred-dollar bill. “It’s for being rude to you earlier.”
Marcelle’s eyes lit up as she took the bill. “Oh, wow...really?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “He muttered something about having a bad day.”
“I’m definitely buying a lottery ticket with some of this,” she joked.
I just smiled at her before getting back to manning my tables, and I couldn’t wait for Wednesday to come.
Since our schedules changed each week, we didn’t always have the same days off, even though our shift was the same.
So, this week, I had Thursday and Friday off, and that was rare for me.
I was always asking to work the weekend because the money was better, but with people having lives, Lowell did his best to accommodate us when he could.
At any rate, even though I didn’t have any plans, I just needed a break.
Plus, I was always available for overtime, so it was a good thing that I never had plans to begin with.
However, after these two run-ins with Kasimir Korolev, I not only needed a break from life, but I seriously needed to start putting a plan together to get the hell out of St. Moran.