Contract Marriage: Married to My Ex-Husband's Alpha Stepfather [BL]

Chapter 215: Standing Among The Hollow Suns

[FROLO]

Nikolai’s gaming room had never been that cold for Yaroslav.

Not even once.

Yet even the regulated temperatures did nothing for the way he was feeling right now. Everything was quiet, even the processors that had been humming from overuse seemed to mute themselves out as Yaroslav played the confession for the fifth time.

Someone had stolen five years from his omega’s life with a lie.

Five years of happiness.

Five years of a smiling Katya.

Of a Katya who didn’t have to worry about what society thought of him.

All that his Katya had endured because the doctors all said the same thing. The doctors who were located in different hospitals and clinics across the city. Doctors who no one would have even thought were working together.

Yet that was what the confession had confirmed.

While he had faithfully walked with his omega to the appointments, while he prayed and hoped to the moon that the next appointment would be one with good news, the people his Katya had trusted had failed him.

Had made his omega live through so much pain and mockery.

Had forced the love of his life into a corner that no one deserved to be pushed into.

They had backed the love of his life into a corner, and all because of money?

Money?

Paper in exchange for his Katya’s fate? His Katya’s precious years?

The nights Yaroslav had helplessly comforted Katya came back to him, even as he knew that there was never going to be a change. He had watched his omega fade away bit by bit because they were both chasing the one dream they had hoped for.

A dream that had been shattered in ten medical rooms over the past five years.

They had suffered together, but his Katya had suffered the most. His baby hadn’t eaten on most days because depression had been the order of the day.

Frolo didn’t attack his omega publicly during their marriage, but Yaroslav had been defending him each time. In galas. In societal halls. In places that meant something, where people whispered his omega’s name wrongly.

Yaroslav had lost count of the number of lives he had taken just to protect Katya’s sanity and happiness. The endless times his hands were covered in blood, only for him to clean himself up and join his crying omega in bed;

Because even Yaro knew that there was nothing he could do that would take away Katya’s pain back then. He had tried everything, and it never worked. He had watched the light dim in his husband’s eyes without even knowing what to do right.

And now, seven years later, there was a video confession from the same people they trusted. The same people everyone said were the best. The same people who made his omega have hope in each appointment, only to shatter it.

The endless herbs Katya was given.

The injections Yaroslav watched his husband be subjected to.

The tests that stripped away Katya’s fear for a whole of five seconds before they brought it right back.

His Katya had suffered. His husband had been in so much pain, and for what?

Yaroslav seethed. He was raging.

Determined to hunt.

But deep down, even he knew that going on a hunt wouldn’t change what he had done to Katya, too. What he had forced the omega to endure.

It had been a selfish decision on his end, he knew it. How he decided for both of them instead of coming clean to Katya from the beginning? And now...

Gods, Yaroslav felt sick.

Katya was never barren.

Katya was never barren.

Katya was never barren.

The doctors had stripped his husband’s happiness just like that. They had ruined his life, and for what? Oh, but Yaroslav couldn’t even think straight.

And the flashbacks he had just had came at him, haunting him, how his words had been venomous. How he had been so cruel when he found Katya at the hospital, when in truth his husband had endured the worst of losses on his own.

They had the chance to have their baby, and on the day that was supposed to be the best day for them, Yaro had fucked up. And their baby died.

He had lost something he had been searching for for so long.

His Katya’s happiness.

No amount of apologies could make it any better. Not this time.

But in the midst of it all, Yaroslav realised something. The doctors were brought together by fear. Forced into that confession because of the Senate’s fear. Which meant that his father had known.

That’s why he had shot Yaroslav back then.

Yaro had only thought his father was angry because of how he had been caught hurting Katya... But it had been because of something worse, something far more sinister than what he had seen.

And he didn’t know.

He didn’t know his omega was hurting.

Suddenly, the podcast that he had been forced to listen to by Nikolai started making sense.

The city thought Sergei was in love with Katya.

But Yaroslav knew Sergei had been protecting Katya.

From everyone. Including Yaroslav himself.

His father had been protecting the man he knew his son loved. Had been fighting to make his son better by not ruining whatever was left of their relationship.

And as Yaroslav stared at the confession looping over and over, he could already feel his father’s disappointment.

He had messed up so badly that his father had chosen to keep Katya safe from him. That his father decided to protect Yaroslav’s heart when Yaroslav was too stupid to even protect himself.

Where did that leave him then?

The scum husband?

The coward of the century?

The man who watched his beloved fall apart and tried so desperately to get a solution when he could have protected Katya better?

Oh, but Yaroslav felt sick.

He could already imagine the long nights Katya must have had with the trolls Milan hired. With society turning against him. With the shame of having to stand while Yaroslav proclaimed to the world that Milan was expecting his child.

It was too much.

Too much for even Yaroslav to handle.

Yet his Katya had gone through it all alone.

His beautiful Katya.

His sweet omega, who never did anyone any wrong.

Now Yaroslav understood why Svet and Andre were so mad at him.

It was as if everyone knew about the miscarriage except for him.

Everyone knew about the life that had been growing and the one that he had ruined.

As if that wasn’t enough, Yaroslav remembered seeing a box of new baby shoes in the bin the morning after their anniversary. He simply assumed it was just one of Katya’s hopes and dreams being shattered.

But they had been new.

And Katya...

He was never one to hold onto baby items before their pregnancies were confirmed. Sure, he watched the baby shoes as they walked by. But he never bought one. Not once.

Yet Yaroslav had found them there.

Instead of asking the right questions...

He had broken his husband’s heart once and over and over. He had hurt him in the kind of ways that no one would ever fix.

Even his life was not enough a payment for what he had done to Katya.

What society had done to Katya.

And Yaroslav...

He needed his father.

He didn’t care that Sergei would kill him this time.

So he got up and walked out into the rainy Saturday morning, his phone pressed to his ear, as he dialed his father.

He just wanted his dad.