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

[FROLO]

The drive to know felt like the greatest drive of shame for Yaroslav Gamov.

His face was upholstered everywhere. Literally.

And it wasn’t because he had been charitable enough for the Frolo society to give a fuck about him beyond the fear that manifested in their lives because of the Moskowsky family, no.

But because they were accusing him of something far worse than any sanity could ever compare.

Cheating.

He was accused of cheating, and the city knew it.

Not just Svetlana Vasileieva.

The entire city of Frolo.

Which also meant that the Romanovs had not known it either. They were definitely aware of the madness that had been Yaroslav Gamov, and they were waiting for answers.

Only that it had been three days, and Yaroslav hadn’t called them.

Hadn’t said a word about it.

He hadn’t even had the chance to breathe right, and was currently in his self-driving car, trying to fix himself as properly as he could because there was someone worse than the chaos with furlough that scared the living shit out of him.

His father.

And with the cheating posters, condemning so publicly, Yaroslav knew Sergei would never forgive him for this. The man could forgive him killing people, could forgive him being stupid for every reason, but the poster boy for cheating on omegas?

That was different, and Yaroslav was aware it was never going to be easy to talk his father out of anything right now.

"The cheater returns!" someone yelled from the roadside, and Yaroslav froze in realization.

He had used his car to head to the office.

He had customized number plates, which meant that everyone knew it was him; they knew he was the cheater of the century. Because who the fuck even showed up three days after the worst scandal of his life, a designated black woman half his size?

Goodness, there was no salvation for him.

So, when the first egg hit his SUV, Yaroslav didn’t fight it. Didn’t even try to stop and try to reason with them. Not even when someone sneaked a stone and pelted it at his car. He didn’t say a word, because all of that would not be worth it if he didn’t get to the office before his father.

It didn’t help that there was too much traffic with people intentionally slowing down just to waste his time.

Maybe he should have taken one of the helicopters, but then he had woken up at Milan’s house, which was a thirty-minute drive from his matrimonial home.

He was doomed either way.

There was no way that this would end well for him.

"Cheater!!"

"Disappointment!!"

"How could you fumble an omega like Katya!!"

The shouts were not slowing, the eggs, the stones, and everything that could be thrown at his car. At some point, he had to decide not to clean his windshield because there was no use.

Some threw oil at him, others Molotov cocktails; you would think that Yaroslav was the demon himself. But for some reason, he couldn’t even find it in himself to blame them. He had ghosted after the revelation, didn’t take accountability. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

He had been exposed, and he didn’t even know where Katya was after everything that had happened. It would have been easier if Katya were around him; he could simply step out and tell Katya had taken him back.

But he wasn’t even sure his omega was alive.

Or even where he was.

Gods, it was going to be a long day.

"Fuck!!" Yaroslav slammed his head against the steering wheel when the clock struck eight, and he was still ten minutes out.

With all the traffic and the intentionally slow drivers, he would only ever make it to Knox in thirty minutes or worse, an hour.

Sighing, he called his office.

"Hey Belova...?" Yaroslav said, calling his secretary.

He had to be ready for whatever was happening, though he had to know what he was going to get into because his father would probably throw him off the balcony of the highest floor for being incompetent.

But the call went to voicemail.

That only ever happened if every office was too busy to answer phones. Which was only ever possible with Yaroslav in the office, or his father.

And since Yaroslav was gracefully in his car, freaking out, it was definitely because of just one other person.

His father.

"Shit, why the fuck is traffic not moving?" Yaroslav groaned, honking like a maniac.

Still, none moved.

If anything, it was almost like they had intentionally stopped now. He was never going to make it in a reasonable time to even try to tell his father that he was late by ten minutes or twenty.

So dejectedly, Yaroslav set the car to autopilot and set the destination before he stepped out, all disheveled and looking like he had been stuck in Satan’s ass the entire week.

And Yaroslav ran.

To the office.

He ran like he had a life to save.

Ran like his thigh didn’t have a bullet wound that had not healed completely. He ran as if his life depended on it. And still he got himself knocked on, honked at, and cursed at by everyone on the street.

But those didn’t matter.

He had to get to the office.

He didn’t care that there were many people filming him laughing, and no one was offering him a ride. They wouldn’t anyway, he could tell the way they sneered at him, like he was the worst scum. Oh, but it was a long run to the office.

When he finally got there with all his joints aching and his entire body feeling like he had been slammed under a truck for hours, Yaroslav found his office dead silent.

Of course, his father was here. Fuck.

So, he did the only reasonable thing: he ran, still. Not caring that he hadn’t taken a shower in three days, she smelled like rotten alcohol, and worse than a dumpster, or even that he looked worse than the houseless people on the Frolo streets.

This was his competence being put to question, and frankly, as much as he was doomed, Yaroslav was counting on his father seeing him rather than not seeing him at all. But would it even matter?

Yaroslav was an hour late.

"Sir?" his secretary spoke as she stared at him like this man had just spawned himself to the office.

Everyone was staring, but Yaroslav didn’t even have the time to care about that, at least not right neo because he had way more important things to deal with without ruining deals.

But hadn’t he already fucked up if he was missing three whole days of his life and his head was hammering like he had been stuck in some plant he knew nothing about?

Oh, he smelled worse than a brewery at nine o’clock, and his mind was filled with the different things his father would do to him.

He was a dead man walking.

"Which conference room is the meeting in?" he asked Belova.

"Main conference, sir."

"Alright, thank you, Belova," Yaroslav said before he ran a hand through his hair and hurried down the hallways to the main conference room.

In the conference room, ideas were being pitched.

Then the door opened, and through it came a stranger wearing the face of Yaroslav Gamov, their CEO.

"Sorry, I’m late," Yaroslav said, before he stilled for a moment.

Not because he saw his father but because of him. His eyes found the one person he always looked for in the room.

And this time, he was never going to let him go.

Katya.

*******

[Not author note - Yaroslav is giving me anger issues, sorry]

* Okay, Yaroslav, the author note section wasn’t enough, but did you know.... "The Egyptians believed the most significant thing you could do in your life was die?"

* Well, now you know, goodbye, ughhh