Chapter 231: Undead Beneath The Thorns

[FROLO]

"Did you ever meet the sender?" Prosecutor Rostova asked, and this time, strangely enough, their answers were the same.

"Yes."

Expectedly, everyone in the courtroom paid even more attention now. Things were finally moving, right?

"Where did those meetings occur?"

"Private consultation rooms," the professor answered first, and the surgeon let out a sudden broken laugh.

"Not always."

"Shut up," the professor said, turning to the surgeon.

"Why? We’re dead anyway."

"Please..." Doctor Belyaeva said, her voice shaky, eyes teary, and her breath growing faster like they were almost at the point of no return.

Whatever amount they had been paid must have been worth it for them at the time.

"No, you don’t get to cry now," Doctor Hamid said, pointing directly at the therapist.

"Shut up!"

"For what? Half the city’s already trying to kill us," Doctor Hamid said nonchalantly to the professor, who was still trying to think of a way.

But where they were at the moment, was there even any use to keep holding to whatever lie they could come up with? Wasn’t it better to let it out in the open then?

"You promised..."

"Promised WHAT? That we’d protect someone who abandoned us?"

The therapist began sobbing at the professor and the doctor’s words, but Doctor Hamid wasn’t done yet.

"You said, ’she’ll protect us.’"

He laughed like a man who couldn’t believe he had believed his co-conspirators.

Gods, she was done for, wasn’t she?

Meanwhile, the court completely froze for the first time in a while.

The court marshal didn’t even need to ask them to stay quiet, because everyone was thinking the same thing.

The surgeon had dropped a gender. Their first breakthrough.

Whoever had hired them... was a woman.

Not "they."

Not "him."

She.

"Don’t..." Doctor Belyaeva’s eyes widened, but the surgeon was done.

"Tell them!"

"Stop talking!" the therapist insisted defeatedly, her hands shaking as she held onto the professor like the professor needed to stop the surgeon, who seemingly was on fire with his responses at the moment.

Gods, the man was pissed.

"Look around! Both of you! Professor, your students hate you. Doctor, your patients hate you. And I have a feeling the only time I’ll be seeing a scalpel is if the psychotic Moskowskys slice through me for their vengeance.

"You know it too. Half the city wants us dead, and whoever hired us? Where is she now?"

"She promised," Doctor Belyaeva cried again as the court froze once again at her confirmation.

The prosecutor, on the other hand, didn’t interrupt her for a moment, as if she was giving the woman a chance to decide if this was a path she was ready to walk.

Perhaps that was why she waited a beat.

"Who is... she?" she asked finally, her tone quiet like that was supposed to make them yield.

Would they, though?

No one answered her.

"Doctor Hamid, who promised?" the prosecutor asked the surgeon like she had finally found the weak link of the three. And the surgeon let out an exhausted sigh.

"She isn’t coming. She’s saving herself, not us," he said instead, as he looked at the other two on the stand with him.

"Who negotiated your payment?"

"..."

"Who handed you the files?"

"..."

"Who specifically instructed that Chairman Romanov’s pregnancies must never survive?"

Like a frustrated man, the surgeon suddenly slammed both hands onto the witness rail that had been broken earlier when Yaroslav had dragged him off and beaten him like shit.

"SHE DID! She wanted him childless forever!"

That...

That had everyone pausing.

Katya stared truly for the first time.

"Stop talking!" the professor shouted, still loyal to his employer.

"Why?! She isn’t protecting us! Look around, we’re seven personnel down! Everyone else is dead!"

"She said he’d never leave unless they couldn’t have children," Doctor Belyaeva added in defeat.

Yaroslav stared in complete and utter silence at the realization.

Someone had gone through impossible lengths to make sure Katya suffered, to make sure there was an opening.

And his eyes stayed glued to the front, like he needed to think and listen at the same time.

Katya, on the other hand...

He wasn’t even looking at the stand anymore.

He was looking at the first row on the left.

"Enough!" the professor boomed.

"Enough? We’re standing trial for murder!"

"Name her," Rostova said, not to the exploding surgeon but to the therapist who was crying her eyes out.

"..."

"She’s sitting out the—" Doctor Hamid said, his eyes finding the one place they had earlier, before he stopped himself and focused on the prosecutor.

But everyone with eyes had seen it.

And if they hadn’t and needed more clarification, then it was probably because they were in a court of law and needed facts, not assumptions.

Katya felt his stomach coil in disgust and so much pain, and he rubbed his belly like that was supposed to make him feel better.

It didn’t.

It never would.

Because now, even before anyone could say it, the dots were right there.

From the trolls that had been so persistent, to the public shaming, to everything else he had had to endure.

And worse...

The anniversary.

"Doctor Belyaeva, the Court orders you to identify the individual," Justice Reginia pressed, and the therapist whimpered.

"M..."

The surgeon closed his eyes, sighing quietly. "It’s over."

"We’re dead," the professor added, lowering his head in shame.

For the first time since the court resumed, Doctor Belyaeva looked at Katya, the man who had trusted her.

"I’m sorry," she whispered before turning to the judges.

"Nurse Milan."

For a moment, there was nothing happening inside the courtroom.

Even the chatter was gone.

Outside the courtroom, the entire city seemed to be stuck in one moment in time.

That name.

They had rallied behind that name for years.

Every head in the courtroom slowly turned to the first row on the left, where Katya was still watching, his face blank and defeated.

He didn’t move, and the court had never been that quiet.

"Her," Doctor Hamid said, pointing a trembling finger at Milan for good measure, like he was letting everyone know who they were talking about was here. Inside this courtroom.

Sitting beside Yaroslav.

Yaroslav stood slowly, staring at the woman beside him.

He had suspected it the moment the surgeon started singing while looking in his direction, but gods, he had hoped it was a lie.

Yet here he was, looking at the woman like he had never really seen her before.

He had ruined his marriage over a lie orchestrated by the woman he had claimed publicly to make his husband happy without his husband’s consent?

What the fuck?

And Milan...

She didn’t even deny it yet.

"For the record, Doctor, the court requires a full name," Rostova said, and the surgeon swallowed thickly before he spoke again.

"Nurse Milan Popova."

Yaroslav’s eyes hadn’t left Milan, though she wasn’t even looking back at him. Instead, she just slowly closed her eyes, because everyone in the courtroom now knew exactly why she had come.

"Are you certain?" Rostova asked.

"...Yes."

"I’m asking whether, under oath, you identify Miss Milan Popova as the individual who coordinated the criminal agreement you’ve described before this court."

The surgeon closed his eyes.

"I do," the doctor said, breathing out in relief like he had gotten a huge burden off his shoulder.

On the front row, Milan, as if she had just remembered she was supposed to react to the accusation, sprang up from her seat.

"That’s a lie!"