Chapter 29: What Now, Your Lordship...
[KATYA]
Katya had never been to a courthouse.
He never needed to, and frankly, he had never imagined that he would someday be dragged to a courthouse like that.
Looking like a tool for someone’s pleasure.
He noticed the eyes on them when they reached, how the legals were staring shamelessly and judging him like that was what they were getting paid to do.
Katya was an omega, after all, in a place that was basically considered an alpha or even a beta’s zone.
Omegas stayed away from the hard jobs like these, and yet right now, as Katya walked with Anya right ahead and Volkov behind him, he was not sure what life was going to be like.
He only knew that he had to please them. In whichever way they wanted, if he was going to save his mother’s life.
The elevator ride was way too tense.
Each floor that it stopped on had everyone scurrying to the side like they didn’t want to see them.
Like they didn’t want to run into these two particular people because, frankly, Katya believed he was too insignificant to demand such a reaction to power.
Katya noticed just how scary the woman was from the reactions of everyone, and honestly, he couldn’t help but find himself wondering what she wanted with him now that she had dragged him here.
At the same time, the elevator didn’t stop until the thirteenth floor.
It shouldn’t have meant shit to Katya...
But it would.
It would be the one floor Katya would never forget.
"Courthouse 13-A," Katya read when they got off and began walking down.
The longer they walked the hallways, the more he realized that there were more than just courts in this building. There were advocate offices, lawyers, and paralegals.
This place was swarming with legality, and Katya couldn’t think straight.
He had still held the contract in his hands tightly, but here and now, as they kept walking further and further for the elevator, he wondered what the woman was going to do to him.
’Moskowsky and associates,’ Katya read when they suddenly stopped.
He didn’t look as surprised that Sergei had an office at the courthouse.
Moskowsky Holdings was a superpower in business, and they could buy whatever they wanted.
’Even justice,’ Katya thought bitterly.
Anya pushed the door open, only for Katya to be pulled right into a room full of suits. People who worked for Sergei, clearly. People who could clean up the messes that came with the barbarian’s madness.
It was a shocker for Katya, and while he had been married to the Moskowsky household before, he had never gotten to see things like this, and it was exhausting at first sight.
Katya felt his breathing slow when they looked at him.
He could see that they were betas and alphas just like he had assumed earlier. And they were looking at him, curiously, as if he were just something that had been brought to their office.
Anya, who had walked in front, didn’t even seem bothered.
Instead, she walked to a corner office like she owned the place.
Katya followed.
It was the only thing he could do.
Besides, these people had already decided his fate; the least he could do was be submissive for the sake of his mother and her new heart, no?
"Wasn’t expecting you today, Anya," a woman in the office said, before her smile faded as she looked at Katya, and the only thing she let out was;
"Oh, it’s ready."
The omega didn’t know how to feel. His emotions were all over the place, but one thing he was certain of was the fact that nothing he was feeling would ever matter to these people here.
He was just a pawn for them, and if he stayed useful, then maybe he would survive long enough to tell the tale of a marriage to a Moskowsky.
"Take a seat, this won’t be long," Aya said coldly, not even looking at Katya.
And the omega took the farthest seat from her, terrified of the fate that awaited him.
Life hadn’t been kinder to Katya these past few days, and honestly, he was right to be skeptical. All of this was a lot. There was no end to the things he had been pulled into because of Sergei Moskowsky.
"Did he give you a timeline?" Anya asked as she looked at Volkov.
"No. He didn’t even respond to the texts I sent him," Volkov explained, and Anya sighed.
"Fine. Let’s get this one done with. Yaroslav will beg me to process this shit, and he won’t be as lucky," Anya said, if she was so done with everything.
At the mention of his husband’s name, Katya lifted his head towards them. He didn’t know why they needed Yaroslav, but clearly it was important if they had come this far to the courthouse.
Maybe they were here for a divorce.
Katya had never had time to figure out what was right and wrong, truly.
His heart was shattered, and he hadn’t even had enough time to process the betrayal because his sanity was clinging to the hope that his mother would get well.
Which was also why he had come along.
His mother.
The woman who kept him sane.
"Anya—"
"We don’t have time, Volkov. Besides, we have the omega here, I am not about to get myself stressed about him," Aya said dismissively, and this time, she was looking right into Katya’s eyes.
Her cold ones met his confused ones, and not once did they change it was like she was warning him, telling him silently that there were things that he had to follow.
Maybe this was the beginning of Katya’s end, but again, at this point, there was much he could do.
The fact that Sergei hadn’t picked up his call, hadn’t even responded to the voicemail, or even let him know that he received his voice note was unsettling.
The barbarian was really ignoring that he got him to sign over his rights and his sanity. Just great.
"You should ditch the documents you’re holding onto for dear life, Mr. Romanov," Anya suddenly said, and it took a good moment for Katya to remember that he was the Mr. Romanov in question.
"Th... The contract?" Katya asked, hope in his voice, like this was his chance at a normal life without the contract he owed Sergei.
With the contract, he was just another omega with a cheating husband.
That he could agree to, because being Sergei Moskowsky’s plaything was a fate worse than anything anyone would ever have to deal with.
"They are not legitimate," Anya said, her voice confusing Katya even more.
"What?" the omega asked, stuck between relief and panic, because without the contract, there would be way too much to deal with.
Without it, there was nothing that could save his mother.
And Katya was not ready to lose.
Perhaps that was why he hugged the papers on his chest, tighter like they were his link to life.
Perhaps they were really.
Because those were the papers that guaranteed his father’s life.
His mother’s heart.
Hell, they guaranteed that his family would be okay.
Katya didn’t mind being the sacrificial lamb, not at a time like this.
There was already too much going on with his daily life, and with the way Yaroslav hadn’t stopped calling him, he knew that Yaroslav would never help him.
It was just that simple a truth, however haunting occasionally for him.
"I don’t have all day. Come here," Anya said.
"Are you... Will I... am I going to work in a brothel?"
