Page 7 of Keeping My Enemies Closer: Pt. 1

Chapter 4

Zoya~

I walked into the kitchen to see my mother making herself a late breakfast, and she looked unfairly happy, which was an uncharitable thought.Still, I couldn’t help how I felt, though I did my best to try.No matter what could be said of this past year, my mother had been a good mother to me all these years, and I’d be a shitty daughter to jump ship without her now.

“Hey,” I said, greeting her as I made my way towards the refrigerator.

“I thought you said that we were good on the bills,” she said, her greeting a lot different from mine.“I saw a couple of late notices when I grabbed the mail yesterday and...well, it just isn’t the thing, Zoya.When your uncle was alive, we never had late bills.”

Forgetting about the orange juice in the refrigerator, I turned to look at my mother.“Well, that’s the difference between a bratva salary and waitressing wages,” I replied, trying to keep the anger from my tone.“Plus, Uncle Armen was only paying your bills, not mine.”

After my uncle had been killed, my mother had been left completely bereft, and I’d been scared to leave her alone.Not only had she lost the only family that she could count on, but the Korolevs had shown up on her doorstep twice, which had been enough to worry anyone with a brain.However, it hadn’t been until she hadn’t gotten out of bed for three days that my concern had really grown.So, after having lost my job, it’d made sense to move in with her, not only for the emotional support that’d been needed, but also to give us both time to figure out what to do financially.Between my savings and Uncle Armen’s estate, I’d been under the impression that we’d be okay for a while.

Yeah, no.

Doing my best to navigate the unknown, I had taken my entire savings, had made a significant payment towards my mother’s house, then had refinanced to lower the payments, thinking that a minimum-wage job would get us by if we couldn’t find something that paid more.However, I hadn’t planned on my mother feeling like she didn’t need to work.For whatever reason, she kept convincing herself that my uncle’s money would never run out, and nothing that I said would snap her out of her grief-stricken denial.

So, now I was broke, my uncle’s money was running out, and my mother still refused to work.Plus, if that wasn’t enough, not only did she refuse to get a job, but every word out of her mouth sounded unreal and ungrateful as hell.Having been taken care of her entire life, she really believed that the responsibility now fell on my shoulders, and she felt absolutely no embarrassment over it.

“Well, have you considered getting a second job since waitressing obviously isn’t paying you enough?”she asked, and it was a miracle that I didn’t bite clean through my tongue.

“Well, haveyouconsidered getting a job?”I shot back.“Whether you want to accept it or not, Uncle Armen isn’t here to support you anymore, Mom.”

She gasped, and I wasn’t surprised at what came next.“I know that he’s no longer here, Zoya,” she cried out dramatically.“It’s all that I think about, but you act like I should be over it already.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” I argued.“I’m just saying that the world doesn’t stop for our personal tragedies, Mom.The mortgage company...the utility companies, they don’t care that we’ve suffered a loss in our family.All they care about is getting paid.”

“Armen wasmurdered, Zoya,” she hissed tearfully.“His death wasn’t an accident or due to some unfortunate illness.He was killed.”

“The world doesn’t care,” I repeated.“The only people that care are us and mybabushka i dedushka.”Now, while I didn’t know a lot of Russian, I knew the word for grandparents.

Ignoring that, she said, “I can’t believe that you expect me to work when I’m still mourning my brother after such a heinous situation.”

“Mom, Uncle Armen conspired to kill Aurora Korolev,” I said pointedly, though it killed me that it sounded as if I was excusing what the Korolevs had done.“He wasn’t exactly an innocent bystander.”

She gasped again.“How can you say such a thing?’

“Because it’s true,” I argued.“It’s true, and it’s time that you stop...stop self-medicating and face the truth of what happened.I need you to help me here.”

She started shaking her head at me, and I knew that this conversation was over.Her breakfast forgotten, she said, “I am going to go lay down and rest.I’m also not going to stand here and let you sully your uncle’s good name.”

What in the actual fuck?

“Mom, you can’t avoid reality forever,” I said, speaking softer, trying to reach her.“You need to get a job, and then we both need to figure out how to get our lives back.”

“How do you expect me to get my life back without your uncle’s help?”she bit out, quite seriously.

“Then you carve out a new life, Mom,” I replied.“I’ve suggested it before, but why can’t we just take whatever money is left and move-”