Chapter 295: So, I’ll Hold On, While Holding Back

[FROLO]

After he lost Vitya, Sergei struggled to live.

Each morning was only engineered by the promise he made to his dying boyfriend, a man he had never been granted the grace of marrying. A man who fate had snatched from him before they even got to explore their lives as husbands.

The marriage papers from back then still sat heavy in Sergei’s safe, like they were a reminder of a love he had wanted to push forward with and fate had decided not to grant him.

He’d carried those papers almost everywhere he went, as if they were a reminder of his threadbare sanity.

Sure, the city believed Sergei was married to Vitya and that Vitya Moskowsky was his husband.

Sergei never once corrected them.

Because Vitya was the love of his life.

Because Vitya made life worth living.

Because Vitya was Sergei’s reason.

But what the city didn’t know...

Was the fact that Moskowsky was never Sergei’s name. It was Vitya’s name before Vitya got married to Gamov, Yaroslav’s father.

No one knew what Sergei’s last name was except for Anya and Vitya himself.

The city had known him as Sergei before Vitya.

During and after Vitya, they got to learn that Moskowsky was the devil’s last name. He’d stuck with it through and through.

The city also didn’t know that the mad devil had walked every single day with those unregistered marriage papers because he made a dying promise to live again.

It had been hard living.

Sergei had struggled through it for over two decades. He didn’t know how to move on in life without Vitya.

He couldn’t.

Then his only child brought Katya home, and Sergei, for the life of him... wanted to see Katya again.

One more day, he’d tell himself.

So, he’d held on for one more day just to see Katya back then.

The incomplete marriage papers between him and Vitya?

Took a backseat in the safe inside the Moskowsky penthouse.

Not because Sergei had forgotten about Vitya.

But because for the first time in twenty years, Sergei wanted to see tomorrow... willingly. He wanted to live just one more day, suddenly.

Not because he was hiding behind the father role he’d taken on when he was left with Vitya’s son.

Oh, he loved Yaroslav alright. With everything a father could give a son. Protected him in ways that no one would ever question. Granted, there were very countable times when he taught his son a harsh lesson, but that was just part of fatherhood for him.

"Father... This is my boyfriend, Katya," Yaroslav had introduced back then.

"Katya Romanov, sir," the citrus-scented beauty, looking like every sin Sergei was ready to commit, had extended his hand.

Of course, Sergei did too.

When their hands met... when their palms squeezed against the pressure of Sergei’s suddenly weak composure, Sergei knew he was fucked for life. Screwed beyond what anyone could comprehend.

He needed to see him daily.

To breathe in that citrus scent, no matter how long it would take.

Thing is, Sergei was okay with stalking Katya, watching from a distance. He was intelligent enough to know that his son’s boyfriend, then later husband, was off limits.

And gods help him, Sergei never had expectations.

He’d lived his life by a new, improved code after that meeting.

Other than his code to live for Vitya, to make sure his son with Vitya was well taken care of, and he performed fatherly duties... he’d added a few lines to his code.

Watch Katya... for living purposes.

Protect Katya.

Keep Katya’s life easier.

Eliminate anything that could ruin Katya’s happiness.

Love Katya... from a distance.

And he’d done it.

Gods, he’d done it faithfully without having any expectations.

Hell, he never had any hope that someday he’d be part of Katya’s life. He was always watching from a distance. Because as long as Katya was happy, even if it wasn’t with Sergei beside him, Sergei was a happy man.

His unrequited affections had become part of his life.

Until Katya confessed indirectly at first. And Sergei didn’t push. Didn’t ask for more. Didn’t demand anything. He survived on those crumbs like a man holding onto life.

His code remained the same.

Never changed.

He didn’t even dare to have hope that maybe, just maybe, Katya would choose him once upon a time.

After all, Katya had a boyfriend after the divorce, too.

And while it hurt that it wasn’t Sergei, Sergei was happy.

Because Katya was happy.

But then the explosion happened. And Sergei stayed with his code intact. Even when it hurt. Even when he wondered what life would be like for both of them.

But of course, he kept himself restrained.

Because Katya was not his.

Would never be his.

And that was okay.

He’d cry in secret, not for the love he would never have, but for the pain his beloved was feeling. The pain he couldn’t take away.

He should have been happy when the doctor said Katya accepted his pheromones, but Sergei had conditioned himself to never expect anything from Katya.

Not even affection.

Because he knew Katya was too principled to embrace two people for the same kind of love. So, he didn’t bother, because he knew he was the bad fruit.

The Devil of Frolo.

And compared to the senator, they were the day and the darkest hour.

Sergei had long accepted that.

Yet the first thing Katya did when he woke up was confess.

And worse...

To kiss Sergei.

A Sergei that had been thriving on unrequited affection and had never considered the possibility of Katya ever returning those feelings so brazenly.

Now there was an emotionally constipated alpha driving down the Frolo streets with an unconscious therapist in his back seat, wondering what the fuck he was supposed to do with that information.

Because honestly, he didn’t know.

He’d never dared to hope that someday Katya would love him too.

That Katya would spell out those three words... for him.

To him.

"Volkov, prepare basement three," Sergei said when he’d dialed Volkov hours before going to pick up the doctor from prison.

Of course, his assistant didn’t ask.

And it wasn’t even surprising when Sergei drove into the Moskowsky parking lot, like a man reporting to work... Or maybe a man returning home?

No one knew anymore.

But the five men waiting at his usual parking lot certainly knew what was about to happen.

"Carry her. I still haven’t gotten the answers I need, and I can’t go back to the penthouse without them," Sergei said simply.

It was like he was talking about the weather and not the fact that Katya’s kiss had left his brain stuck in processing mode.

The basement elevators were different. Not once attached to the private or even the public elevators. Because the basements were usually Sergei’s places of torture.

Yet today he’d intentionally had one of the rooms on basement three fixed up and turned into a home for this particular doctor.

"Should we wake her up, sir?" Volkov asked when they got there, and the doctor was still unconscious.

"No. I’ll deal with this on my own," Sergei said calmly, like the world was working right.

"What time is it?" he asked Volkov as he stared at the unconscious doctor on the couch.

"Ten minutes to six o’clock, sir," Volkov said.

"You stay with her here. I need to make a check-in call with the Romanovs and tell them that Solnyshka is awake now. Don’t torture her. Treat her as our guest for now," Sergei said before he got up to leave.

"Sir..."

"What is it, Volkov?"

"You haven’t slept in four days..."

"Solnyshka is awake. That is all that matters," Sergei said, as if that was the one thing that he cared about.

And Volkov wanted to argue with him. To remind him that he was basically functioning on one plate of pelmeni he’d shared with Katya earlier, and an absolute lack of sleep.

But there was no need for him to try.

Because the barbarian was just as stubborn as he was dangerous.

"He knows you haven’t slept in four days... I doubt you want to make him feel responsible for that," Volkov added when Sergei stepped into the elevator.

"Focus on your prisoner," Sergei huffed stubbornly.

But when he shifted elevators to the private one and headed for his penthouse, he knew he needed to think first.

Maybe he would after the call.

Well, it was a really good plan.

Until the elevator doors opened to his penthouse, until he walked three steps in...

And his body gave out.

Right in front of Katya Romanov.