Chapter 12
Kasimir~
Zoya was tired of feeling helpless, and while I understood how frustrated she must be feeling, her insistence that we finally go back to her mother’s house wasn’t sitting well with me. She was still raw, and going back to her mother’s house might hurt more than it might help.
Nonetheless, when she’d woken up this morning, over breakfast, Zoya had asked me to finally take her back to her mother’s house to begin the process of saying goodbye for good.
Granted, if she wanted to keep the house, I had no problem with that.
I could pay it off, and it could sit vacant for all I cared.
The problem was that, while the police had released the house as a crime scene-with a little urging from Viktor-it hadn’t been cleaned up, and not because I hadn’t wanted it done.
Not knowing which items held sentimental value for Zoya, I hadn’t wanted anything getting accidentally thrown out.
I was at the point where I’d absolutely lose it if Zoya had one more thing to cry about.
So, now we were currently driving to her mother’s house, and while I was bracing myself for the possibility of another meltdown, Zoya was staring out the window, lost in thought, watching the familiar scenery fly by as Yuri drove us.
While it wouldn’t have been a big deal to drive Zoya myself, I hadn’t wanted anything taking my attention away from her.
If she needed me, then I wanted to be available to her one-hundred percent.
However, when Yuri turned onto Mikkelson Street, Zoya surprised me when she blurted, “Can you stop?”
With the partition down, Yuri heard her clearly enough and just in time to pull over alongside the street curb, and when I looked past her, that’s when I saw Ruby’s right across the street.
It was the morning rush, and the place was packed, the adjacent parking lot pretty full.
From what I could see through the window, the diner looked like it belonged in all of the small towns in America.
“What is it, lepestok?” I asked, turning my head to look at the side of her face. “Are you hungry?”
Zoya shook her head. “No.”
“Did you leave something behind?” I pressed. “Do you need me to go in there and retrieve something for you?”
Zoya shook her head again. “No, it’s...it’s nothing like that.”
“Then what is it, baby?”
“Look at her,” she said, and that’s when I looked back towards the diner. “Look at how happy she looks. Look at how her life is just going on as usual, no worries in the world.”
That’s when I finally noticed Marcelle waiting on a table of four, and I had to wonder if she was working overtime, or if she had asked for a shift change after our little conversation the other night.
Of course, she had to be stupider than I was giving her credit for it she thought that she could outrun any Korolev, but kudos to her for trying.
“She got my mother killed,” Zoya went on. “She...she took the most important person in my life from me, and look at her. She’s just...look. She’s at work like nothing happened. She’s smiling at customers like she didn’t just destroy my life.”
Now, not wanting to add more to her plate, I hadn’t told Zoya about confronting Marcelle the other night.
Since nothing significant had happened, and because I’d left Marcelle still breathing once I’d gone, I hadn’t seen the need to tell Zoya about it.
For the first time in my life, I found myself semi-walking on eggshells around someone, and I could admit to not quite knowing what I was doing with that.
“I’m on my way to sift through the shredded memories of my mother, and she’s smiling at customers for tips,” she practically spat.
“She’s at work without a care in the world, and when the holidays roll around, she’s going to be able to go to Utah and eat Christmas dinner with her parents.
She’s going to be able to open presents with her family, and... and where am I going to be?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she was going to be with me, but now wasn’t the time.
Zoya was in her emotions right now, and trying to placate her was sure to backfire in my face.
She didn’t want to listen to words of encouragement or condolences.
She didn’t want to hear how everything was going to be okay, because it wasn’t true.
Everything was going to be different, and she may never be okay with that.
Plus, sometimes, people just wanted the freedom to be angry. They wanted to be able to feed their erratic emotions without interruption or coddling. Sometimes, people just needed to let the fury run its course, damn the consequences, and I understood that.
However, when Zoya turned to look at me, her next words had me ready to rip my still-beating heart from my chest to hand to her.
“I mean, I know that my holidays are going to be filled with you now, and that I’ll never be alone again, but why couldn’t I have had both you and my mother?
” She shook her head with the weight of all that she was feeling, and my heart ached for her.
“I’ll never argue for my uncle because I’m a realist, but my mother didn’t deserve any of this. ”
“Tell me what to do to make it better, Zoya?” I asked simply, willing to do anything that she wanted of me.
“Can you tell me why life isn’t fair?” she whispered, looking at me like she trusted me to make it all go away. She was looking at me like I never imagined any sane woman would.
“Because God created a race of humans, not robots,” I replied as evenly as I could. “A bunch of flawed humans that have to learn how to live life without an instruction manual.”
Tears brightened her hazel gaze as she said, “She had my mother killed over money, Kasimir. Even in my most desperate times of struggle, it never occurred to me to kill or rob someone for money. I mean, who does that?”
“Zoya-”
“I mean, I know that crime happens all the time, but she was supposed to have been my friend,” she went on.
“How do you do something like that to someone that you called your friend? In fact, if she hadn’t approached me the way that she’d had, I would have been more than happy to give her some of the money.
I would have been willing to help her out. ”
Now, while I couldn’t be sure, I had a sneaky suspicion that Marcelle’s betrayal was about more than just money.
As undeniably beautiful as the woman was, I could see her ego not appreciating how Zoya had begun a bidding war, which had resulted in me paying half a million dollars for her.
While Zoya was just as beautiful, she had a quiet beauty about herself and didn’t flaunt it for attention or tips, something that Marcelle Jensen had no problem doing.
However, instead of getting into a discussion about human nature, I just said, “Money does funny things to people, lepestok.”
Instead of replying to that, she looked back out the window, and the car was silent as Zoya watched Marcelle wait on customers, going about her life as if it wasn’t going to end soon.
Granted, she couldn’t possibly know that we were going to come after her, but still.
She really did look as if she had no care in the world, and I could see how upsetting that’d be for Zoya.
There was also the fact that Marcelle was merely the mastermind behind the robbery.
We still needed to find the two men who had actually attacked Zoya and her mother, and I couldn’t wait.
I was going to keep those men alive for as long as humanly possible while I slowly tortured them into losing their sanity, and I couldn’t ever remember feeling this eager for revenge before.
Not even when we’d found out who’d been behind the attack on my sister-in-law.
Finally, after letting Zoya obsess over Marcelle for a while, I asked, “Do you want to go in there? Do you want to confront her?”
Zoya looked back at me as she shook her head. “What for? Is it going to bring my mother back? Is it going to return my life to a time when I didn’t feel so horribly guilty and hopeless?”
“Your anger has to go somewhere, Zoya,” I replied evenly. “Who better than the person behind it?”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” she huffed. “I’d love nothing more than to confront her. Still, walking into the diner and causing a scene is going to do nothing but get me arrested.”
“I would never let you get arrested, lepestok,” I smirked, running my hand across her left thigh.
Her hazel gaze regarded me carefully as she said, “I need to have a better plan in place before I confront her with everything that I know. I want answers, Kasimir. I want answers from her, not denials or feigned ignorance.”
“I can understand that,” I said as I gave her a simple nod.
“Can we just leave now?” she asked, sounding tired all fucking over again.
“Sure, baby,” I replied before instructing Yuri to start driving again.
Nothing more was said during the rest of the drive to Zoya’s childhood home, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what Zoya had said about wanting answers.
The only way that she could get the answers that she was seeking was to come along for the ride, but I couldn’t allow that.
Interrogations came easily to me, and I had no problem sleeping like a baby afterwards, but Zoya wasn’t like me, and I didn’t want her to be.
I wanted her to be a Korolev in name only, keeping her soul as pure as possible.