Chapter 417: Every Breaking Wave Of Unloved Melodies

[FROLO]

"From the top," Sergei said, voice ice-cold as he stared at his subordinates.

He’d come from the Romanov manor an hour ago and had summoned the Hercules team. He knew of the mission that had been carried out in the morning, and frankly, Sergei didn’t give a shit about that.

Not right now anyway.

"The sniper shot came from the left, and I countered it, sir," Rahim said, looking like shit.

She, just like the Myrtles and Volkov, was on her knees, looking bloody, with broken bones threatening to tear through her skin. If it wasn’t for the fact that Sergei trusted her, she would be dead.

They would all be dead by his hands.

The cold floor of the interrogation room was not a welcome sight, especially with the cold weather, but then that was the least of everyone’s problems in this room.

Svetlana and Andre stood in the corner, too shocked to even say a word about what they had just witnessed.

Yaroslav stood calmly while Irina looked like she was about to take the next bus to hell herself to avoid being tortured by Sergei Moskowsky.

Rastenkin stood on a different side of the room, probably because he was Sergei’s father figure, but even that didn’t excuse him from the interrogation.

Meera, Reeves, Elara, Rahim, and Volkov were at the centre of the dimly lit room, kneeling before a pissed Sergei who was seated on a chair a few feet before them, his handgun with its silencer attached in his hand.

It had been a while since Sergei had dealt with them that angrily.

"You had the sensors, and you couldn’t even spot a sniffing rifle in time. What if you had missed?" Sergei asked, even though a part of him knew that the chances of Rahim and Volkov missing their sniper shots were zero.

Or it was just what he’d made them into. Weapons that could be used in precision wars. They were the best, no doubt.

But it didn’t change the fact that Katya almost died.

"The governor wasn’t armed. Didn’t pose an active threat, yet somehow shots were fired. Who was in charge of the threat assessment?" Sergei asked flatly.

Reeves looked up at Sergei, voice too hoarse to even form a word.

Thing is, Sergei had made them spar first.

It was harmless.

Then he changed his mind.

Best each other, he had said.

He knew what he was doing was wrong, but someone had to pay for what almost happened to Katya. He knew his team, and he knew why they were efficient. But what had happened at the surrender was not what should have happened.

They were far too trained for that, yet they had failed.

And Sergei despised failures.

"They all had the same weapons, sir. I should have checked better. The perimeter was covered by Volkov, Rahim, and a few other snipers. Everything was set to go well," Reeves explained.

"I almost lost him," Sergei said coldly.

"I almost lost someone I love again," Sergei added, and the room stilled at the reminder of Vitya. They all knew Vitya Moskowsky. They didn’t need any reminders.

Reeves didn’t say a word.

Maybe because he knew that nothing, he said, would ever change the fact that Katya had almost died. They had all seen the fear on Katya’s face. They had smelled the raw horror. But even now... Gods.

"I trusted you, and you let me down. You almost cost me," Sergei added like he hadn’t already insinuated it the first time.

Andre, who was in the corner, was confused worse than the city itself was out there.

The city was still jumbled over the man who had spent half the night swooning over the fact that Katya Romanov had marked him. The man who had donated billions for no apparent reason. The man who people thought was doing damage control.

No one understood Sergei out there, and clearly in here, Svet and Andre were realizing there were a thousand and one sides to the devil of Frolo.

Because while the city was trying to figure out what was real and what Sergei’s intention was, Sergei was interrogating his own team, determined to work out what the fuck had gone wrong two days ago.

It was the kind of shit that gave chills, and if he was being honest, Andre felt the chills down to his feet.

Gods, what the hell was Sergei Moskowsky?

"It won’t happen again, sir," Elara said, looking at Sergei, heart in her hand as she stared at the handgun that was yet to be fired.

Maybe that was meant to be comforting, but Sergei Moskowsky with a weapon could only be trusted as far as he could be thrown. Otherwise everyone was doomed.

"The mission today," Sergei said, and Yaroslav stiffened.

He had led that one. It was a success, but his father was never impressed with simple successes. Sergei was not impressed nearly at all.

"Get the reports to my table after this. One wrong step and you’ll be back in the nursing home. All of you," Sergei said flatly, looking even in Rastenkin’s direction.

No one would be spared.

No one was ever spared from the wrath of Sergei Moskowsky.

"Yes, sir," the warriors in the middle of the room said, nodding their heads in the process.

"Keep sparring. You stop... You die," Sergei said.

And like clockwork, the team in the middle of the room got up and began sparring. Hard. They had their blades. Real blades that were sharpened well.

Sergei didn’t leave the room.

Not after the first hour of sparring.

Not after the second when they were getting weaker.

Not after the third when they were getting weaker and throwing lighter punches, their blades still as sharp as ever, aimed at their teammates.

By the fourth hour, Sergei wasn’t impressed.

"Go clean up and take the next mission from Rastenkin. If it’s not a success, then I’ll kill one of you," Sergei said, looking at the people in the middle of the room who were too worn out from sparring.

It wasn’t even sparring because they were the best and brightest of that madman.

"The rest of you, pick a side. The next time my omega is targeted, and you’re right there without assessments, it won’t just be necks snapped," Sergei said to Andre, Irina, Svet and Yaroslav.

The warning lingered thickly in the air even as Sergei got up to leave. Neither of them moved.

Not even Yaroslav said something.

Because he knew.

Of course he did.

His father wasn’t playing games with him.

"Dismissed," the alpha said.

Then he left.

Inside his chairman’s office at Moskowsky Holdings, Sergei the idiot returned. Or maybe it was Sergei the man with a crush.

He was grumbling even as he handwrote the thirteenth copy of his apology letter to Anya for stressing her and Rastenkin out in the morning with his donations.

There was the option to type the apologies, but Anya told him she knew he would simply print more copies.

"I can’t even be happy in peace before I’m punished with thirty handwritten apologies. This shit is too longgg," Sergei grumbled, writing his apology regardless.

Anya Kavinsky was the meanest woman in his life, the alpha grumbled as he wrote his apologies.

Meanwhile, outside, the city was still trying to understand Sergei Moskowsky.

Would they be able to?

Would Alek succeed with his plans?

Even worse, would there ever come a day when anyone fully understood what and who Sergei was, when they only ever saw the part of him he felt was convenient for whichever occasion?

"Dear Anya..." Sergei sighed, his hands tired.

But he had to continue.