Chapter 341: We Bleed Just To Know We Are Alive

[YAROSLAV]

Closure, Yaroslav had learned, was a very important aspect of life through and through, regardless of how things got. He had learned it from his father that some loose ends needed to be tied up once they were considered redundant.

It was just what life was, and as Sergei’s son, Yaroslav understood it well.

Maybe that was why he was inside his basement again, staring at the woman who had cost Katya his happiness. The woman who had stolen his chance to be happy too.

Yaroslav had always tried to figure out what Milan’s motive had been to subject Katya to all that agony, but each day he tortured Milan after coming from his errands, he never came up with the perfect explanation.

Because frankly, there was none.

Nothing could justify Milan’s cruelty toward Katya Romanov. Nothing.

"Wakey, wakey, Milan. It’s your funeral today," Yaroslav said excitedly, like this was the one thing he had been preparing for for weeks.

He should have murdered this woman on the first day, but murder was a little too easy for the woman. Maybe that was also why Yaroslav had been torturing Milan every single day for over nine months now.

She had been confident and sassy; now she was just a shell of all that. Even the sass was gone, just like her arms and legs that had been stopped from functioning by Yaroslav.

Her face was swollen from the beatings she had gotten over time. Her bald head had a few traces of hair, but that didn’t matter because after today she wouldn’t have to worry about that.

"Wh...?" she asked, unable to finish the word because of just how swollen her tongue and throat were.

There wasn’t much left of her, really.

The former head nurse of Frolo General Hospital looked worse than the homeless on the streets of Frolo.

Gods, not even the money she had made from her little project of torturing Katya for five years had been able to save her.

Yet penance had remained a thing of the past for her.

She didn’t care.

She wasn’t sorry.

And if she had to do it again just so she could have Yaroslav in her bed... Milan Popova would make the same decision again.

She had made that obvious to Yaro over the months, and even now her defiant eyes were still the reminder that Milan was not sorry until the very end.

Well, Yaro wasn’t expecting an apology. They were past that phase, and even if Milan had apologized, he would still have tortured her because Milan denied him and Katya the chance to be happy together.

Milan had left him with the guilt of not being able to see that the person he had turned to for help in Katya’s pain was the cause of that pain.

And now Katya was happy with his father.

Fuck...

His father was happy with Katya too.

This woman had pushed Yaroslav into the kind of position no son ever wanted to be in.

Because Yaro was convinced his father didn’t fall in love with Katya overnight. The years they had spent together at Moskowsky had been the beginning, which meant their love came after the anniversary.

No matter how angry Yaroslav was with the whole thing, he couldn’t help but be caught in a conundrum. He’d always wanted his father to be happy. To find someone who made him happy.

Because Sergei Moskowsky usually drowned himself in work and went home. A lonely man.

And now, he had Katya to go home to. Katya to call if things got hard for him. His father was finally living again, even if it was with the man he loved and the man he’d lost.

He couldn’t hate his father. He’d never hate Katya.

Which made Yaroslav’s hate for Milan even more intense.

"I am going to kill you... today, Milan," Yaroslav began as he looked at the chained woman.

"You see, the thing is, I have someone else to target now... the senator. Aleksandr... He called Katya pathetic. And I found texts on his phone talking to his subordinates about Katya being a whore.

"That makes him a better target than you. And I love playing with interesting targets, so I’ll kill you and go after him, alright?" Yaroslav said, getting closer to Milan.

"No... Er... Erika..." Milan breathed, their daughter’s name the one thing that had clearly been playing in her mind all this time.

Their little girl.

Erika Gamova Moskowsky.

The princess of Moskowsky.

"I’m not that cruel as to kill you before you see our daughter. That’s why she’s coming here. I’ll put you in clean clothes, and then she’ll see you one last time. And then I’ll kill you. If you ask me, it’s fair.

"Seeing as you didn’t give my Katya a choice when you ruined his ability to carry pregnancies, hmm?" Yaroslav smiled as he got even closer.

Milan tried to crawl away, but she couldn’t even get far because the silver against her weak body was dooming her.

It was the kind of shit that she hated, but this was the fate she had decided for herself when she continued hurting Katya for over five years, right?

"Yaro..." she tried to plead, her tears streaming down her face.

"Katya cried every night, you know. He thought I didn’t hear him cry. My soul cried every single night because he acted like what Frolo was saying about him was true.

"He was haunted by the barren trolls day and night." Yaroslav undid the chains, freeing Milan without even worrying that she would run.

He’d ruined her.

Made sure she’d never be able to.

"He still woke up and went to work, eyes swollen and hidden under tons of eyeliner. And I couldn’t even make it better. I’d run out of comforting words for the love of my life all because you decided my sweet Katya didn’t deserve to be happy.

"So, excuse me if your tears don’t mean shit right now." he dragged her across the floor, wrapped in polythene mats.

"He forgave you, you know?" Yaroslav said, angry at the way things had turned out.

"My beautiful Katya always has a kind heart. Even in the face of war and all that you put him through, he still forgave you. Still wished you a happy life," Yaroslav laughed sadly as he grabbed a hose pipe and aimed it at Milan.

"But I’m not so forgiving when it comes to him, Milan. You took away his smile, so I’ll kill you, then go after the senator." Yaroslav cleaned the woman up.

"The only reason you’re getting a chance to see our daughter again is that my Katya would be disappointed in me for not giving Erika closure.

"He’d ask me why I didn’t give you a chance to say goodbye, and glare at me with those pretty eyes. And I wouldn’t have an answer," Yaroslav sighed before focusing on the main reason he had come down here today.

"At least this way, when your body is found tomorrow in front of Frolo General Hospital, I’ll be able to look him in the eye and defend myself," he said, smiling once he was done.

And Milan...

Couldn’t even fight her fate anymore.