Chapter 22
Zoya~
As soon as I walked into the house, I was hit with a sadness that I hadn’t been expecting. I’d been so prepared to sell my body in order to make a life somewhere else, but now that my choices had been taken from me, I felt inexplicably mournful over moving out now.
However, before I could even begin to dissect how I was feeling over all these new developments, my mother was walking out of the kitchen, and the look on her face told me all that I needed to know about whether or not she’d seen Kasmir walking me to the door.
Great.
“What are you doing with Kasimir Korolev?” she asked, getting right to the point.
“It’s a long story,” I hedged.
“I’ve got time to listen,” she bit out as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“I...I went out last night and...”
“And what, Zoya?”
“I ran into Kasimir and...and we sort of got to talking and kind of hit it off,” I lied. “We...we ended up talking all night and...and a lot of stuff got cleared up.”
“Cleared up?” she echoed as her arms dropped to her sides. “What was there to clear up, Zoya? His family killed my brother, your uncle.”
“How many times are we going to dance over the facts, Mom?” I asked, feeling weary to my bones. “Uncle Armen betrayed the Korolevs, and he did it while knowing what would happen to him if they ever found out.”
My mother’s eyes widened. “Are you saying that he deserved it?”
“No,” I snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then why are you making up excuses for the Korolevs?”
“I’m not,” I semi-lied. “I just think that it’s unfair for you to put this all on the Korolevs. No matter how good Uncle Armen was to us, he never should have betrayed the one family that wouldn’t take kindly to that. I mean...c’mon, Mom.”
Her face was red, but she didn’t go off the deep end completely. “I still don’t understand how that translates into you and Kasimir Korolev becoming friends.”
“We don’t even know which member of the family killed him,” I said, deflecting a bit.
“It doesn’t matter!” she yelled. “All the Korolevs are responsible for Armen’s death!”
While I’d known that this conversation would be hard, I never imagined the pain and guilt that I’d feel over how I’d slept with the enemy, no matter the reason.
It also didn’t matter that I was right about how my uncle had taken his life in his own hands by betraying the Korolevs.
How could I sleep with Kasimir for any reason?
How could I forget that his family was partly to blame for my uncle’s death, and there was no way around that fact.
No way.
Knowing that I couldn’t win here, and that my mother was never going to concede on the matter, I decided that there was no use in putting off the truth for another time.
Whether now or later, my mother wasn’t going to take the news well, and I’d be lucky if she let me stay in her house long enough to pack my stuff before leaving for good.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. “I really am. I’m sorry that you’re still hurting, and I’m sorry that our family has been torn apart by what Uncle Armen did, but...
but after last night, I...there’s more to Kasimir Korolev than just his reputation, and...
and he’s made it clear that he’s interested in getting to know me... uhm, better.”
My mother gasped, but it was hard to blame her. “What?”
“Kasimir is interested in getting to know me better,” I repeated. “And...and I found him fascinating enough to want to get to know him better, too.”
Her face turned an alarming shade of red as her brain processed what I’d said. “What in the hell does that mean, Zoya?”
“We’re...Kasimir wants to...date,” I answered lamely.
“Date?” she choked out. “How fucking na?ve are you, Zoya? Kasimir Korolev doesn’t date women, he uses them like disposable whores, and you’re out of your mind if you think that you’re any different.”
“That’s not true,” I automatically denied, trying to ignore the circumstances of how we’d gotten together last night.
“Of course, it’s true!” she yelled.
“It’s not like that!” I yelled back.
My mother began shaking her head. “Oh, God...you really believe that, don’t you?”
“I believe the facts,” I replied plainly. “And the truth of the matter is that Uncle Armen never should have betrayed the Korolevs.”
“So, what?” she scoffed. “You’re going to tarnish your uncle’s memory for blood-stained money?”
“I am not tarnishing his memory,” I denied. “I am just trying to not make my life all about him. I’m only thirty, and I don’t want this to be the end of my dreams, Mom. I want more out of this life.”
“And Kasmir Korolev is it?” she hissed. “You think that his money is how you’re going to achieve these dreams of yours?”
“I don’t know,” I semi-lied. “I just know that I want to try something besides working every day to just get by.”
“I’ve already told you to get a second job!” she thundered.
“I am not going to kill myself in some warped way to honor Uncle Armen’s memory,” I told her. “I’m sorry if you don’t understand that, but I’m not going to do it.”
“If you think that I am going to allow you to live in the house that your uncle paid for as you whore yourself out for Kasimir Korolev, then you are very mistaken,” she spat, and I could see that the hate in her blue eyes wasn’t a manufactured figment of my imagination.
Now, while she’d just given me the perfect ‘excuse’ to move out, I wasn’t going to let her rewrite reality for the sake of cruelty.
“Uncle Armen’s not the only person who paid for this house,” I reminded her.
“I put all of my savings into refinancing it for us to be able to manage the payments, and since then, I’ve been paying the mortgage since you refuse to work.
So, if there’s anyone who doesn’t deserve to live here, it’s you. ”
She gasped again, and it was beginning to become clear that my mother wasn’t interested in digging herself out of this mess.
She wasn’t interested in moving past Uncle Armen’s death, and while I hadn’t wanted to admit it, maybe she really was too far gone to bring back.
In fact, since she didn’t want to work for a living, you’d think that Kasimir’s money would be a selling point in his favor, but my mother felt more comfortable being the victim than anything else.
“So, now that you’re screwing Kasimir Korolev, you’re going to throw your mother out on the street?” she sneered. “You no longer need me, so off to the street I go?”
I wanted to roll my eyes.
I seriously did.
“Well, even if I’d wanted to, since the house is in your name only, I hardly have the power to throw you out,” I replied pointedly. “However, it’s obvious that we can no longer live together, so I will be packing my stuff, and I’ll be out by Sunday.”
“I am not going to let you emotionally blackmail me, Zoya,” she huffed, and if my emotions weren’t already so all over the place, I’d laugh at the accusation. If anyone was emotionally blackmailing somebody, it was her. “If you leave, you will not be welcomed back.”
It was only a little after two in the afternoon, and I honestly had no idea if I was going to be able to make it until Sunday, which was ironic as hell.
I had asked Kasimir for some time and space, and now I wasn’t even sure if I still wanted it.
While work would get me out from under my mother’s relentlessness for a few hours tomorrow, that still left me with her tonight and all day tomorrow until my shift started.
“Fine,” I said. “If that’s how you want to do this, then fine. However, I’m done arguing with you, Mom. I’m going to go take a hot bath, get some rest, then start packing.”
“I’m not kidding, Zoya,” she hissed. “If you leave, you will never be able to come back.”
“I believe you,” I replied stoically.
“You’re ruining everything!” she yelled before storming off towards the back of the house, but I knew the truth. With me gone, she was going to have no choice but to work, and that’s what she was upset about most.
Letting out a deep sigh, I headed towards my bedroom, then locked the door behind me once I was safely inside, safely away from my mother’s venomous hate.
It wasn’t until I was soaking in the tub, the hot water close to scorching, that I was finally able to think about all that had happened and try to figure out what I was going to do. Everything felt like it was snowballing out of control, and I just wasn’t equipped to handle it.
I sure as hell wasn’t equipped to handle someone like Kasimir Korolev, either.