Chapter 131: The Promise Keeper In A Cage That Never Was

[FROLO]

Everything was just too much.

This was an illusion.

It was the only way.

But the facts...

"I can only ask that UNTIL the issue with Yaroslav is resolved, you spend your nights at 13 Emerald..."

"I married you on paper to protect you, not to cage you..."

"You’re free, Solnyshka. You always have been..."

Katya refused to believe it.

There was just no fucking way.

"He is Sergei Moskowsky. This is his empire. He will want it back," Katya insisted, and they stared at him quietly.

It was obvious he was not ready, but given how heavy the past few days had been, embracing facts was going to be way easier for Katya than dealing with the trolls who would always want a piece of him.

But the facts were a little crueler than he had imagined.

They were worse than the desperation that he had had yesterday when he checked the black envelope and signed it all.

The facts today pointed to something else altogether.

Something far too dangerous to play around with, and Katya was losing his mind trying to stay ahead of the mess. But what use was it when he was right at the centre of it all?

"Romanov... Moskowskys never go back on their deals. Everyone knows that," Svet said as if that was supposed to get Katya to rethink his analogy.

But then again, what had he agreed to if not for the safety net that the contact offered his family?

And as he had just learned...

Himself too.

"This is not a deal, though, Svet. You just don’t wake up and give a stranger everything you own and have worked for just because you want to protect them!" Katya sighed exasperatedly.

He was honestly tired.

It had been a long night.

"Protect?" Andre asked curiously, the new information was something that they had definitely not had a part of before.

"That’s what he said the day before everything changed. That he knew I would never accept his help if there wasn’t leverage involved. That he saw me in pain and wanted to help.

"He even had the nerve to tell me that he married me on paper to protect me, not cage me," Katya crashed out, not understanding.

Everything was confusing.

Sergei Moskowsky was a monster.

Not a savior.

Never a savior.

They had to have gotten it all wrong, and Katya was getting angrier by the second.

"Hold ON, Romanov..." Svet said, trying to understand what it was that Katya had said.

The version Katya was talking about sounded like what the contracts had said, and it was weird, creepy, and unhinged at the same time.

Yet they were both copies of an airtight contract that kept Katya safe even if he ever chose to leave the Moskowskys.

Only that Katya understood the Moskowskys better than them so they had to work with the assumption that part of this was true and the rest was just... wrong?

"He even said, "I didn’t bring you to Moskowsky to ruin your life, Solnyshka. I just wanted to make your life easier." who the fuck does he think he is?" Katya asked, throwing his hands around in genuine confusion.

"Romanov..."

"Oh, and it gets worse, you know..." Katya said, frustratedly.

"What?"

"He said I wasn’t his property. That if he wanted to be my owner, he would have announced to everyone that he married me. Does he think that makes this shit better?!"

"Romanov..."

"And the one who recommended me for the chairperson position? Anya Kavinsky. Of all the people. That darn woman made the recommendation, and fucking a Vladimir didn’t even think twice about giving it up.

"What kind of madness is this?" Katya cried in frustration.

He was getting overwhelmed.

There was a part of him that wanted to be relieved that maybe the contract was true, but the other part of him was raging and frustrated because life these past seven months had been literal hell for him.

They had ruined him, and he had accepted it because that was all that he could deal with.

That there was never an out for him.

But maybe...

Maybe if he had read the contracts?

Then again, Katya had read the first contract one too many times at the hospital. He could even spell out what was on every page.

So, it made no sense that Sergei would give all that shit up.

What was the use of the signatures yesterday, then?

At the same time, the contracts that Katya had signed never mentioned Katya owning Knox. Only managing.

Was it safe to say Katya was driving himself nuts with his own fear of the Moskowskys?

He had really been hoping for hidden clauses.

Things that would justify his hatred for Sergei. Things that would make him and his friends go after the wicked devil of Frolo. But instead, he was met with something else altogether.

A man who never asked for anything in return.

A man who did not threaten him... His servants were the ones doing that shit.

Not Sergei.

Never Sergei.

"I hate him," Katya cried as he fell to his knees on the floor amid the spread-out papers.

"I hate him," the omega insisted.

Perhaps because hating Sergei was easier than admitting that there was a chance that he had misunderstood everything and needed to rethink it all.

Maybe hating Sergei was the only way this wouldn’t hurt.

Besides, no one from the Moskowsky camp had ever corrected him and his beliefs, right? They had just let him believe whatever was in his head.

Well, maybe Sergei...

Not even maybe.

Sergei had corrected him.

Explained himself.

Yet Katya’s trust issues had not accepted it. Because it was too easy. Too simple for a man like Sergei.

But what if this time it was just that simple?

And his friends were shocked for the first time in a while. The man Katya was talking about was nothing like the devil they had known over the years in frolic.

"He mowed a fucking garden and wrote my name on the grass, then kicked me out of the house," Katya laughed bitterly at the shit he had learned early this morning. It was really something else altogether.

"... Men like that barbarian don’t go back on their words..."