Chapter 8: Winter Came With A House of Cards
[SERGEI]
"I sent you a file. You have an hour to register before I find someone else to do it, and your family plans a funeral," Sergei said coldly over the phone as she stood at the booth of the cardiac ward.
He looked so out of place; three-piece suit, eyes that could drill through a person’s sanity, yet even then, he stayed on the line, waiting like any normal person. Or at least that was what it seemed.
In reality, Katya’s mother was already in surgery. A heart was ready for transplant if needed, and seven specialists were already in the operating room with Mrs. Romanov.
And Mr. Romanov had no clue about it.
Until the doors to the operating room opened.
Sergei watched a very tired Mr. Romanov rush to the doctors.
"Please. Please save my wife. I will pay the remaining amount before the day ends. Please," the old man begged.
Sergei watched in careful precision. How humble he was. How desperate. How he was ready to do anything for his mate.
"Sir, everything has been paid for. Mrs. Romanov needed a new heart, and it has been found. Please just wait. The surgery will take a few hours. We will let you know in case of anything, excuse me," the doctor said, rushing away in the opposite direction.
The old man was left standing there, unsure of what had just happened.
Sergei saw it.
The way the old man’s heart shattered. The way he looked so hopeless. It was sickening.
Instead of reaching out to his new father-in-law, he walked away, his phone still in his hand, clenched so tightly that it cracked under the pressure, but it didn’t matter.
Never would.
"Sir—"
"Get out. I need the room," Sergei said as he walked into the hospital director’s office.
"But—"
"Your life means nothing to me. Leave or breathe your last," Sergei said coldly like he belonged.
Like this was his territory and not a hospital that he had come to because of someone he wanted. Someone so important that he would bring it all down.
"Okay, Mr. Moskowskowsky," the director said, moving from his seat and heading toward the door.
He couldn’t even protest or try to reason with Sergei, because the devil of Frolo was not someone to be argued with or even negotiate with.
With the director gone, Sergei turned to the landline on the desk and picked it up before dialing.
"How bad is the state of Romanov steel?" he asked.
"Sir..."
"I don’t remember paying you to ask questions, Volkov. How bad?"
"They filed for bankruptcy, but even that can’t save Mr. Romanov. He has too many debts. The family properties have been sold to pay off some of the debt, but it only makes up to five percent of the debt," Volkov said.
Sergey tsked, in disbelief.
"Buy back their properties under Mr. Romanov’s name. Pay all their debts and double the company value in the stock market. I need that empire functioning by the time the market closes for the day," Sergei said calculatedly.
And Volkov paused, like this was unusual even for Sergei.
"Sir, isn’t that... a lot?"
"Do you have a problem with how I spend my money?"
"No, sir."
"End of day, Volkov."
"Yes, sir," Volkov said.
Before Sergei could hang up, he heard a commotion in the background.
"Volkov?"
"Where the hell are you?" a voice snapped on the other end, and Sergei sighed.
He absolutely did not have time for this.
"Vol—"
"Sergei Vladimirovich Moskowsky."
An unsettling silence followed.
"Fuck... The office, alright? I’m in the office."
"Do not tell me you went after Katya again," the voice said, sighing exaggeratedly.
Seregi didn’t say a word.
"Sergei, you know he’s married, right?"
"He’s hurt," the alpha said stiffly.
And the person on the other end sighed, again.
"Goddess help us all. Lemme guess, you went with it anyway, didn’t you?"
"I am busy, Anya," Sergei added, and the woman on the other end, Anya, let out a long, frustrated groan.
"Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you," Anya added.
"Are you done?" Sergei asked.
"That is a hospital, Sergei. Do NOT kill anyone."
"The line’s getting a little rusty, Anya, I have to go... I can’t hear you!"
"this little—"
"Remember to take your medicines!" Sergei said, before hanging up.
Sergei stared at the blank screen before him, like this was the first time he didn’t know what to do. The silence in the room didn’t make him feel any better.
Katya was in a private ward, and gods; he wanted to go there. He wanted to see him, but he couldn’t. Not before he had something worthy to present.
He remembered Katya’s grey eyes. How they were so worn out. So tired from too much crying. He remembered how frail that body had been. How tired and lost he had been.
Sergei couldn’t think about anything else. His mind was plagued. But the bleeding form he had run into yesterday was impossible to get rid of.
He had been stalking him, as always. Waiting.
Anya had told him it was dangerous. But Anya would never be able to understand. She couldn’t understand that he could live without him.
The pretty omega with a heart of gold.
The boy with the kind of smile made him feel things he had never felt before.
Never with anyone.
And now he was here in the hospital, waiting.
Because he couldn’t trust himself to go back in there.
He just couldn’t.
He had seen the way Katya had looked at him earlier. How defeated the pretty boy was, and it haunted Sergei. But he had made a promise.
To fix everything.
Even if Katya didn’t believe him.
And he would.
"Every hour. Bring me reports of how he is doing. If anything happens, if so much as a heartbeat goes a little high, let me know," he had instructed the nurses.
Five hours.
That’s how long he had waited.
How long the reports had been consistent. Nothing new.
His Solnyshka was sleeping. In pain. Holding on. Struggling to survive something would not be easy to get out of.
Sergei wanted to know. Everything. All there was to the pretty boy he wanted him for himself.
And after pacing for hours in the director’s office, after breaking so many things he couldn’t even remember what they were, a nurse finally came.
But it wasn’t the news he was hoping for.
"Mr. Moskowsky, your husband’s heart rate spiked. He’s in distress," the nurse said.
Sergei was out the door before she could finish.
"Alert his family," he had said passively, like that was something that he wanted to make known.
Maybe because this was one he wasn’t sure how to deal with. He needed Katya to see his father when he woke up.
To trust him.
To understand that their agreement was not in vain. That what they had done was not something that Sergei took lightly.
"Sir—" a doctor tried to stop him, but Sergei was not listening.
And instead of walking, he ran towards Katya’s room. As if that was the only thing that mattered most in that moment.
He felt a kind of fear he had never felt before, and he hated it.
When he got there, he paused, breathing in and out, like Anya had always made him. As if that was supposed to make him seem more organized and less panicked.
But the door opened, and the sight that met him was one that had Sergei seeing red.
Yaroslav was there.
Kissing his beloved.
His husband.
And Katya, he wasn’t fighting. Not pushing away.
Sergei snapped, rushed to Yaroslav, and threw him so hard against the wall that everyone heard the sound of bones crashing.
Everyone stilled.
Then Sergei turned to his beloved, ready to remind him of their contract terms. Ready to make him understand that the marriage was not a game for him.
But Katya...
He was sleeping, heart rate still over the charts.
"Wh... what is happening to him?" Sergei asked quietly, like he was terrified of what the answer would be.
"He..."
"Speak. I don’t have all day."
"I’m sorry, Mr. Moskowsky. But the patient went into shock. He is unconscious," the nurse said.
And Sergei stiffened.
Unconscious.
His Solnyshka.
"What?" he asked, like he was not already commanding the entire room with just his presence.
"If we don’t attend to him immediately, he might go into cardiac arrest. And given his condition, he will die," the nurse said, each word spoken ever so carefully under the blanket of fear.
For a second, the alpha didn’t move. He didn’t even breathe properly.
Sergei felt his life leave him.
"Save him, please," Sergei begged, giving space to the medics.
Then he turned to Yaroslav, who was on the ground, too hurt to even see right. Barely conscious.
"You shouldn’t have touched him," Sergei said, hovering over Yaroslav.
And then...
A dark chuckle followed.
"F... father?" Yaroslav groaned in pain.
And the door to the room opened again.
Through it came Mr. Romanov.
Katya’s father.
