Chapter 2
Kasimir~
Zoya was lying to us.
Or, at the very least, she wasn’t telling us the whole truth.
While I was certain that she was accurately reciting what had happened, it made no sense that two men would pick their home to rob.
Zoya and her mother lived in a very modest neighborhood, and with not even one car parked in their driveway to steal for parts, their house wasn’t exactly an attractive target.
Plus, after the death of her uncle, without the extra money to keep up maintenance on the property, the house really didn’t look like it’d be hiding a goldmine inside.
Now, having lived this life for as long as we’d had, Viktor was also very aware that Zoya was holding back some details, but I also knew that he wasn’t going to press her too much right now.
While it was important for us to know everything, she was hurt, tired, and possibly disoriented, and so we just needed enough to keep the police from interfering with Korolev business, and Zoya Kuzmin was definitely Korolev business at this point.
Doing his best not to come at her like the Korolev heir that he was, Viktor asked, “What else can you tell us about them, Zoya? Were they tall? Short? Skinny?”
“They were both tall to me...I guess...maybe six-feet,” she answered. “And they seemed normal, not fat or skinny...just...just regular.”
“Anything else?” my brother asked.
“One had light blue eyes, and the other dark brown ones,” she replied.
Shooting me another glance, I knew that my brother was saying so much with just that one look, and he was telling me that he knew that she was holding something back, that we’d talk about it more later, and that I’d better keep my shit together.
Now, while I was fully aware that she was holding something back and that this wasn’t the end of it, I couldn’t promise that I wasn’t going to lose my shit.
Just looking at Zoya had my trigger finger ready to shoot everyone on sight, but since I wanted to find who did this to her more than I wanted to take my next breath, I was going to do my best to remain focused as much as I could.
“Okay, this is what’s going to happen,” Viktor said. “When the police come to speak to you, you are going to tell them everything that you’ve just told us and nothing more, Zoya. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“If they try to press you for any other details, manipulate them with your health condition and say nothing more,” he went on. “If they continue to be persistent, let Kasimir know about it, and we will take care of it. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she repeated, and I could only imagine how terrified she might be feeling right now. After all, she’d given my father her word that the police would never appear at our doorstep, yet here we were.
Looking over at me, Viktor said, “I will call you later.”
“Of course,” I replied, nodding, knowing that he was speaking to me as our Sovietnik and not my brother right now.
When he looked back down at Zoya, he said, “Let us know if there is anything that you need, Zoya.”
“Thank you,” she muttered quietly, but if she only knew that my brother was doing this for himself just as much as he was doing this for me. He’d given Aurora his word that no harm would ever come to Zoya, and he was not about to allow someone to cause his wife to be upset with him.
Once Viktor left the room, I walked over to the chair that I’d been sitting in while waiting for Zoya to wake up, then dragged it over to sit next to her bedside.
She’d been out of it for almost two days, and Viktor had been kind enough to bring me toiletries and a change of clothing.
While the hospital frowned on visitors using the patient’s facilities, I’d made myself at home by taking a shower in her adjoining restroom, and because of my last name, the staff hadn’t said shit about it.
“While I’m sure that the doctor will give you a recap once he hears that you’ve awaken, it’s important for you to take it easy, lepestok.
You’ve four cracked ribs, three broken fingers on your left hand, many lacerations, and there’s concern about concussion possibilities,” I told her.
“So, pain management is the focus right now.”
“And...and the gunshot wound?”
I clenched my teeth before saying, “It wasn’t a clean shot, so they had to operate to get it out, but the bullet didn’t hit anything vital.”
“So, is my arm in a sling because of the bullet?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
She didn’t say anything for a long while, but when she finally did, she asked, “When are they going to let me go home?”
“You cannot be released until the doctor comes and sees you for himself,” I answered. “But since it’s already far into the evening, my guess would be tomorrow afternoon or so.”
“And...and what about my mom? Do you think that they’ll let her go home tomorrow, too?”
Before this moment, death had never bothered me.
Since I’d been bathed in it since birth, I had accepted it as a part of life a long time ago.
Now, that wasn’t to say that I wouldn’t care if any of my family members were to pass tragically, but we expected to meet our maker almost every morning that we woke up, and we were thankful every night when we didn’t.
The problem was that Zoya hadn’t been raised in this life.
While most of St. Moran had heard about the Korolevs, the Marchettis, the Zhangs, the Schmidts, and the Aldeas, citizens of this fine city and state didn’t really have to deal with any of us as long as they were law-abiding and stayed out of our way, and Zoya had fallen into that category.
Until we had knocked on her door to inform her of her uncle’s untimely demise, she’d been clueless.
She’d been living her life in ignorant bliss that the boogeyman would never darken her doorstep, but now she was going to marry the deadliest boogeyman in Korolev territory.
However, now that I was sitting next to Zoya’s hospital bed, listening to her ask about her mother, I didn’t feel as dismissive about death as I usually did.
I knew that telling her the truth about her mother was going to break her heart, and it was going to kill me that I wasn’t going to be able to make things better for her.
Yeah, I planned on avenging her in a way that was going to prove just how mentally unstable I was, but that still wasn’t going to bring her mother back, the only family that she’d had left.
Yeah, she had grandparents in Russia, but she wasn’t close to them, and they weren’t going to be able to see her through this all the way from the motherland.
Still, I couldn’t lie to her or put off telling her the truth.
Whether right now or a week from now, the news was going to hurt just the same.
No matter when I told her, how I told her, or where I told her, Zoya’s heart was going to break, and that was reason enough to skin the men who had done this to her alive.
Unbeknownst to them, they’d broken my future wife’s heart, and they were going to pay in a way that was certain to guarantee my entrance into Hell.
“Lepestok, I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but your mother did not make it,” I finally answered, telling her the inescapable truth.
“Wh...what?” she rushed out. “What...what are you talking about?”
“The paramedics tried their best, but they couldn’t save her,” I went on. “Unlike you, the bullet that hit her found a major artery, and she bled out on her way to the hospital.”
“No...” she mouthed. “No, you’re lying. Why are you lying to me?”
“Baby, I’m not lying,” I said as firmly and as kindly as I could. “Your mother is gone, and I’m so very sorry for your loss.”
“Stop talking to me like...like some funeral director,” she snapped. “My mother is not dead.”
When Zoya tried to sit up-presumably to go in search of her mother-I placed my hands on her shoulders as softly as I could. “Stop,” I ordered. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Get your hands off me,” she hissed, tears forming in her eyes, but I wasn’t sure if they were a result of her pain or the news of her mother’s death. “I need to go see my mom.”
“Zoya, your mother is gone,” I repeated, only a little bit more forcibly this time, though I did remove my hands from her shoulders, not wanting to hurt her. “Your mother is gone.”
“Leave me alone,” she ordered before turning her head from me.
“I cannot do that, lepestok,” I replied as calmly as I could. “I will never leave you alone.”
Looking back over at me, she said, “You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Tell me that my mother is dead, and then pretend to care about me,” she spat.
That familiar melody began to play in the back of my head, but I did my best to push it back. This moment wasn’t about me, and I knew from watching Viktor that being in love meant handling life with a soft hand at times.
“This is not me caring about you, lepestok,” I corrected. “This is me loving you, even when you don’t want me to.”