Page 12 of Keeping My Enemies Closer: Pt. 1

“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.