Chapter 57: Never Alone, What A Relief, Right?
[SERGEI]
"Sir... we need to get you out of here," Volkov said, as he looked at his defeated boss.
"No... I... I have to work. I have to make it easier for him. I have... I have to be worthy of him," Sergei said, his voice breaking quietly and slowly as his secretaries stayed next to him.
He was still hunched over, but they understood him.
After all, they had been there throughout all his obsessive phases. And they knew for a fact that everything Svetlana had come with had affected him so badly that he was so close to losing himself.
"But the media, sir," Rahim tried, but Sergei stopped her.
"Let them be. Don’t delete the footage. Let Solnyshka see his friend coming at me," Sergei said, and Volkov stared at the man like he had gone boulders. Surely this was insane.
The media would eat that shit up. The way that Svet had come at him, Svet choking Yaroslav, and Sergei just standing there doing nothing?
They would start rumors that they had been on these streets enough times to know that Sergei was paired with every walking man and woman in the city, even if it was dangerous.
He was almost like an eligible bachelor, and with Svetlana fearlessly standing up for Katya like that, it was obvious what the waves would look like.
How people would translate the alpha and the woman who had not once flinched while coming at him. They would call them a power couple.
And Sergei...
He would lose his shit and definitely burn the city for daring to pair him with anyone other than Katya Moskowsky.
He was that insane.
But damn, this was just a whole other day for the secretaries, no?
"This isn’t about guilt, is it, sir?" Volkov asked.
Sergei stiffened, instantly straightening up like Volkov had cracked the code that made him snap back to who he had always been.
Maybe that was what was needed, but was it really a necessity with all that was happening at the same time?
"He has people who care about him. People who are not afraid of coming after me, too. That reinforces a whole other layer of protection. Cutting that out from the day’s reviews will only make my Solnyshka seem weak;
"...He is not weak," Sergeis instantly defended before he began walking back into the building like he hadn’t been struggling to breathe right.
He was too tired. Too worn out.
The information from Svet had ruined him.
Broken his heart in the kind of way that he had never thought was humanly possible. And he needed to think. He needed space to think clearly because otherwise he would screw up again, and Katya wouldn’t want him.
"This would be so much easier if you just stayed the big bad wolf," Volkov sighed as they went into the private elevator, ignoring the fact that the entire office was once again dead silent.
Not even the sound from the printers was heard.
Then again, Sergei was back, and that would definitely be their usual.
"Rahim..." Sergei said as the elevator began going up.
"Sir."
"Get me CCTV footage of every day that Solnyshka came to work," Sergei said, and for a moment, Rahim wasn’t sure she had heard him well.
Shit like that took ages to sort. It was insane to say the least, and why the fuck was the barbarian running a seventy-floor multibillion-dollar company needing to watch video tapes of his obsession again?
"All of them, sir?" she asked, unsure if this was really the one time she would die by the hands of Sergei Moskowsky.
At least Volkov had had his fair share of a broken glass entry.
"Yes. Volkov will help. Clean the footage, and get me what I need. Every single day. I don’t care if he went to the hospital, went to take coffee downstairs, interacted with someone, or smiled at anyone.
"I need all the footage that has my Solnyshka in it. You have until tomorrow morning," Sergei said right as the elevator dinged and he stepped out first, never once looking back at his shocked secretaries, who didn’t have to step out.
These Security offices were on the middle floors of the building after all.
"Yes, sir," they both said before the elevator door closed, and they went back down, leaving Sergei Moskowsky alone on the floor.
"He had a tracker in him," Sergei mumbled in defeat as he walked towards Katya’s office.
It was smart and looked so simple. It was like the man had been doing his very best while surviving on the kind of shit that Sergei had imposed on him.
The fact that Katya had a tracker on him was breaking him even more because there was nothing he could do about it.
Svetlana had warned him, and while he wanted to call the bluff, Svetlana was the right kind of crazy to smuggle her friend into any place just to keep him away. If Sergei couldn’t handle that.
If Katya left him, if Katya abandoned him, Sergei would definitely die.
He was so sure of it.
"I’m sorry," Sergei sighed in defeat as he stood against the concrete wall a few feet outside Katya’s office. He was watering at the floor, at the glass office, at the very tight end this floor had become.
When she had stepped into Katya’s office earlier, the omega’s scent had been potent, and claiming it had been the something that had anchored him, yet now the scent was still there.
However, Sergei felt so undeserving of even breathing it in, however hard it was to seek out.
He had become the monster Anya warned him about.
The person that Katya Romanov would never have willingly wanted, and fuck it hurt like hell because he knew that nothing that he did would ever make up for the piece of tech in his Solnyshka’s body.
The tech that was there to tell his friend that he was alive.
He was somewhere they could find him.
That heck that they could use to find him.
The tech that was intentionally taught her, because they believed that Katya would most probably die in the smoky family madness.
And Sergei couldn’t hold it in anymore.
The alpha let out a defeated whimper as he slid down the wall, overwhelmed, as the morning replayed in his mind, over and over, not once giving him a chance to breathe.
He curled on his own floor, mumbling apologies like that was supposed to make Katya feel better. A lie that was supposed to make Katya feel secure enough to get the tracker off him.
"He is scared of me," the alpha whimpered in realization, his chest constricting even harder as he tried to keep himself steady. But what use was he being steady when he had nothing anymore?
What use was all of this when he had given it up for Katya, and Katya was terrified of him?
How was he supposed to live his life?
How was he supposed to work through anything right now?
Sergei was heartbroken, and it hurt.
Admittedly way worse than it had hurt when he buried the love of his life thirty years ago.
"I’m sorry... I’m so sorry," Sergei said softly, his tears freely slipping down to the floor he was curled up on.
He looked nothing like the big bad alpha the city feared. He looked nothing like the man who owned an entire empire and who could buy empires.
The only thing he was feeling like at the moment was not even heartbreak per se.
He was mourning what hadn’t even started yet.
What should have been, but wouldn’t, because he had lost his damn mind.
Sighing, he reached for the landline receiver hanging from the wall and dialed Anya.
She was the only person who understood him after all.
"Anya... it hurts... he... he hates me... but I l..." Sergei said, hiccupping on the cold floor of his own office.
When Anya didn’t say anything on the other end, he figured she was still listening like she always had been.
After all, it wasn’t that far a stretch, so he continued.
"I never said it out loud... but you know it... You’ve known it all along. Anya... I love him. So much... I love him, and he hates me. I... I would hate myself too after what Svetlana said today...
"I wanted to make him happy. I only wanted to see him happy. He... he thinks I want to take his mother’s heart back... to hurt him... but how do I hurt someone I’ve dedicated my life to all these years... fuck, it hurts.
"Please make it hurt. Please... I think... I think I’ll go away again. Let him be happy with his family and friends... Anya... how do I live without the one I’ve loved all this time though..." Sergei trailed off, letting sleep take him right there.
Still, Anya didn’t hang up.
Didn’t say a word.
Only that the call...
Sergei never dialed Anya.
He’d dialed Katya.
