Chapter 455: Of Dwindling Lights, Together… And Alone

[FROLO]

Sergei watched as the doctor tried to hold onto the explosive and grip her oxygen tank. He didn’t even care that there was a chance this woman could drop that shit and blow them both to hell.

He was living in hell already.

His nights were lonelier than his days. His life had become a repeated cycle of things that he had not wanted in the first place. He had finally learned to live and be mundane and normal.

But now he had lost his beloved to the government, and he didn’t know whether he would get Katya back or if he would have gone crazy by the time the government decided to bring Katya back to him.

But Sergei...

His patience was fading.

By the last count of the five-minute second timer, Sergei put the tasers to the side and grabbed the court notes again. He was not done.

"You made him believe he destroyed his husband’s future, and he apologized for it countlessly... You know, I wasn’t even that wicked with your husband.

"I simply drowned him in the bathtub because that was better than your kids seeing him handled in your living room in the fan.

"I was kinder with him than you ever were to my Solnyshka," Sergei grumbled like he couldn’t really understand why this doctor had been mean to his boyfriend.

Surely there had to have been better ways for her to talk to Katya than make the omega believe everything was his fault, right?

Doctor Belyaeva let out a muffled sound as her tears fell down her cheeks. She was only learning about most of his family, and that didn’t make her feel any better.

Sergei had taken out her husband.

He had taken everything she could have lived for, yet she wasn’t even sure if her children lived because he hadn’t mentioned them.

Was Sergei that cruel to go after children, though?

"Your children are alive, relax," Sergei said like it was the only reassurance he had for the doctor.

"I overdosed them all on Zip... You know, the memory wipe drug?" Sergei said casually as he browsed the court notes.

The doctor whimpered.

Sergei didn’t even bother looking at her.

"Your children will live... But without memory of who they are... Even to each other. I already shipped them to different orphanages under different names. No one will tell you who they are or what they look like.

"Gave them new faces too," Sergei said casually.

Then he looked at the doctor.

"It’s better than what you did to my Solnyshka. You took his children from him. He could have had a happy family. Could have been a good father. But thanks to you, he didn’t get that chance.

"You ruined a young family, so I erased yours," Sergei smiled heartily, like that was a nice confession that he didn’t mind making.

But then Sergei had been fair, or at least that was what he was thinking as he looked at the doctor who was shaking with rage and fear and pain.

She looked like she wanted to scream at him, but even if she wanted to, her voice box was ruptured. She wouldn’t be able to let out that many sounds. And even if she did, they would all be incoherent anyway.

A waste of energy, as Sergei had mentioned to her the day he personally cut off her tongue and left the doctor with Meera so Meera could patch her up.

"Anyway... Session fifty-seven has you listing that Solnyshka believed his husband deserved someone who could give him children. Someone better.

"Yet the whole time you knew he wasn’t infertile. You just loved the money in your pockets more," Sergei sighed in confusion.

And Doctor Belyaeva...

Teary, tired, desperate, and in so much pain, Doctor Belyaeva...

She just... Nodded.

"I’ve been curious for some time, doc... the Romanovs are the largest legitimate empire in the realm. And then the Moskowskys have enough money to buy the realm thrice...

"You interfered in a Romanov-Moskowsky marriage when you could have just come to us and made your demands. That was really stupid of you...

"...you could have gotten more money than you’d have spent in your lifetime," Sergei sighed in disappointment, as if the doctor’s logic were so warped and she should have done better than to use someone’s hope for children to get pennies.

Doctor Belyaeva nodded.

"Doctor... You taught me that love was part of life. That people who were in love could always find a way, right?" Sergei asked.

The doctor just agreed, even though she knew for a fact that she wouldn’t like whatever Sergei was going to say to her next.

"But in session one hundred and five you didn’t explain it to Solnyshka. You just told him acceptance was part of healing. I mean, you’re not wrong about the statement...

"...My parents told me the same when I lost Vitya. It did take a long time, and if I’m being honest, some days hurt worse than others... but you wanted Solnyshka to accept that he couldn’t have kids and that his marriage was doomed...

"When you guys took his hope and stomped on it all in three hundred and twelve sessions," Sergei said, the disbelief on his face something that had the doctor freezing.

This man was a lunatic, but at the same time, if she was being honest... She didn’t even know what to do. She was trapped, and she couldn’t even blow them both up.

It wouldn’t hurt Sergei either way because this man was gone from the grief of missing his Solnyshka. Even in her hazed-out state, the doctor could read Sergei, and that haunted the hell out of her.

Because Sergei...

Had gotten unpredictable as fuck.

"I have a question, doc... If I let you go... Will you accept that your infertility and disability are your current state and live your life like normal people?" Sergei asked calmly.

The doctor struggled to look at herself.

At the missing toes. The amputated leg. The shot arm.

The blade in her chest. The explosive on the other and the eternal oxygen tank she was holding.

Was she to accept this life?

What was the cost of it all?

What was she going to have to do to make things better for her? Would she ever be able to speak again? Or would she eternally need surgeries just to keep her functioning? That was a cruel life to live.

And in a daring moment...

The doctor shook her head.

And Sergei...

The alpha laughed.

A real laugh in the middle of the chaos that threatened everything they believed in. More like whatever the doctor was left to hold onto at the moment.

"You’re a hypocrite, doctor... Or maybe you took the Hippocratic oath literally. You made Solnyshka try to accept an infertility that never existed while the person who hired you worked hard to ruin his marriage.

"My goodness, your scale of evil is worse than mine," Sergei laughed again, and the doctor whimpered.

It was all she could do.

"That isn’t even crazy yet. He asked you twenty-three times in desperation why he couldn’t have children... And instead of even trying to say it wasn’t his fault... You just blamed life’s unfairness...

"You really are crazier than I am," Sergei asked in disbelief.

And the doctor...

She cried.

But would it matter to Sergei?

"Save the tears for the taser time, doc. Right now all you have to do is nod or shake your head," Sergei smiled sinisterly.