Page 5 of Keeping My Enemies Closer: Pt. 2

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.”

Chapter 3

Zoya~

Deep down, I knew that Kasimir wasn’t lying, but I didn’t have any more room in my life for this kind of heartbreak.I didn’t want to hear how those bastards had killed my mother, the only family that I’d had left.I didn’t want to hear how I was going to have to notify my grandparents that their only other surviving child was gone, and that they were never going to hear from her again.

I also didn’t want to think about how her death was my fault.

Logically, I knew that Uncle Armen had been one to introduce the Korolevs into our lives, but I’d been the one who had agreed to participate in that damn auction.Had the lure of money and a new life not tempted me to agree to Marcelle’s crazy plan, my mother would still be alive.I was the reason that my mother had been shot and killed, and how was I supposed to exist with that knowledge?How was I supposed to accept such a huge emotional tragedy?No matter how our relationship had taken a turn this past year, my mother hadn’t deserved being beaten, shot, and killed.

I also didn’t want to think about funeral arrangements.While my mother had a few friends, apart from my grandparents, we had no other family to justify a funeral that I couldn’t even afford.My mother had no life insurance, and I certainly didn’t have the money for anything formal.Yeah, theoretically, I was supposed to have three-hundred-thousand dollars and some change to my name, but there was just something very distasteful about paying for my mother’s services with the same money that had gotten her killed.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting in silence, just staring at my lap as I tried to come to terms with the truth, but I knew that ignoring the issue wasn’t going to solve anything.The world didn’t stop for personal grievances.It didn’t care that I’d just lost my mother or that I was barely hanging on by a thread.Businesses were businesses, and even if they dealt in a person’s worst moments, they still wanted their money, and they still wanted us to move along, so that they could make more.

“I...I need to...I need to make the arrangements-”

“You’ll be doing no such thing,lepestok,”Kasimir remarked firmly.“You will spend your energy on healing.I will handle the details of your mother.”

I looked over at Kasimir, and he hadn’t moved one inch from where he’d been sitting this whole time, remaining quiet while I did my best not to have a complete meltdown.Thankfully, that white eye of his was tinged with blue again, which I was taking as a good thing.If the eyes really were the windows into our souls, I wondered how many times evil looked back at Kasimir through the mirror.

“I don’t know what to do,” I admitted.

“I told you that I will handle it,” he repeated.

“But I don’t know what you’re supposed to handle,” I shot back.“I don’t know...with my grandparents in Russia, I don’t know if they’ll come here for a...a funeral, or if I should cremate her since it’s just me here to...to mourn her.”

“How about you speak to them first, then decide,” he suggested.“You’ve also a couple of days before anything needs to be done.”