Chapter 141: So Don’t Keep Sayin’ Our Hands Are Tied

[KATYA]

Moskowsky group was changing.

Had been changing for a while now.

It wasn’t supposed to be surprising, given the way the chairman was, but this was one of those days that even the chairman wasn’t sure what to do.

A man who has successfully run the corporation without glitches for nearly a year now, Katya Romanov looked nothing like that man.

He wasn’t the composed chairman who had long earned to command power with just a look on his face.

He was no longer the omega who had been terrified of Sergei Moskowsky. No. Since the freedom clause was believable, the omega had changed.

He had embraced life.

Started to do the things that he wanted to.

Started to embrace what he wanted to do without anything coming in between.

"Will you please go on a coffee date with me?" the senator had requested months ago. It was a time when Katya was starting to accept the possibility that the chains he had been holding himself to had all been in his head.

"Yeah, sure," he had accepted the invite.

The senator had looked at him long and hard. Almost like that was a game for the chairman. Almost like Katya was pulling his leg. Only that Katya hadn’t been pulling his leg back then.

So, the first meal between the two was had.

A simple coffee date that spanned into dinner.

Katya had wanted to leave because dinners and breakfasts were a sore memory, thanks to the barbarian he had waited on for six months.

But like his friends told him, embracing a new reality didn’t mean that he was a bad person.

So, Katya had agreed to the dinner too.

He was expecting it to be terrible. To be the last one he ever shared with the senator. He’d gone in believing that this was the one chance that would be ruined and the senator would get off his back. But he wasn’t bad.

Senator Aleksandr was a gentleman.

An alpha who knew how to treat Katya well.

A man who came with peace and stability.

A man who worshiped the very ground Katya walked on.

And when the alpha asked Katya to be his boyfriend two months later, Katya didn’t see a reason to refuse.

The man had taught him that love wasn’t supposed to hurt.

The man had taught him to love himself with everything he had and didn’t have.

The man had been there through his long nights and happy days.

And Katya...

He was happy.

So very happy.

Even with the silent diagnosis he had gotten. Even with the way that he was noticing things and preparing for the worst. It was not supposed to be hard.

He had a doting boyfriend.

He had a good job.

Friends who had never left him to suffer alone.

Parents who loved him so much like the first time he came into their lives.

Katya had everything he ever needed.

But maybe everything was just not enough now, would it?

Because somewhere in the backpack Katya carried around was a sweater, a scarf, and an empty water bottle, he refused to explain why he carried it.

Because he was not ready to let them go.

In his mind, he made himself believe that this was the price for what he had been put through.

But a devil like Sergei Mokowsky never got attached to shit.

And Katya knew it already.

He had seen it more than once.

Hell, even now, his condition could be linked to the nonchalance of the barbarian.

Maybe if things had been right, Katya would have had the chance to breathe. But now... It was different.

Far too different.

And Katya hated that his mind was filled with something that he would never agree to name. Something unhinged in the kind of way that society would lynch him down for.

But what use was that something when he had the good senator for a boyfriend, right?

He had come to work like he always did.

But today was different, and he was not sure he was ready for it.

Who was he kidding? He would never be ready for shit like this.

Not to this magnitude anyway.

"No... This can’t be happening right now," Katya breathed as he tried to stay rational.

Today was supposed to be a normal day for him. It wasn’t that strange a day, yet deep down, Katya knew the risks.

He understood them all a little too well and still put on his business casual clothes and came to work. Like it was just another day.

And now that normalcy was biting him in the ass.

The office was slowly getting filled with the kind of scent that no one should have been able to smell.

Not even his secretary.

He had locked himself in his office, but it was getting worse, and it was just a matter of time before lines got a little too risky and blurry for everyone around him.

So shakily, he grabbed his phone, dialed the one person he was sure would be able to get him out of this place.

Or the one person he was hoping would do it fast anyway.

Senator Aleksandr.

Or as Katya called him lately...

Alek.

"Little rose," Senator Aleksandr breathed on the other side of the call, his enthusiastic voice a welcome distraction from the horrors of this darn morning.

It had been three months since Katya had gotten his freedom from Sergei, and honestly, it had been an awesome experience. Great, in fact.

But right now, Katya felt like he was about to lose his mind, and he didn’t know where to start.

Freedom wasn’t supposed to hurt.

And while Katya would die before he admitted that, even he couldn’t deny that some of the changes had pissed him off even more than the fact that he had long misunderstood everything.

"Please come pick me up... I... I’m at the office... hurry, Alek," Katya said before he hung up, not giving the senator a chance to ask any more questions.

Katya would think later, but not right now.

At the moment, he needed to get out of Moskowsky holdings. He needed to make sure he was far away from this place because otherwise, there would be a lot of things to deal with, and he didn’t even have the strength for it.

Katya rushed toward the window and drew the curtains as if that was supposed to hold back the thick citrus scent in the office.

It was so strong that it would take someone with a lot of strength in the mind to even say no if he stepped out there and asked to be helped with his heat once he was hazed out.

"Shit," Katya cursed as he paced.

This was not his fault.

This was Sergei’s fault.

The barbarian who didn’t keep his promise this time.

Sergei had told him that he was free to do anything he wanted. That he could choose whatever he needed, and Katya would get it.

While it wasn’t exactly in those words, the lilies at the penthouse balcony that were being cultivated by an apparent ghost and the approved payments despite how much money Katya wasted on the company card were hints at it all.

Yet the one time he really needed Sergei to decide, the man had been a ghost.