Chapter 486: The Ghost In The Photographs

[FROLO]

Sergei didn’t look away first.

He never had.

But Zhenya did.

Maybe he was not used to it. But the machines beeping inside the room he was standing out of sought him out, reminding him of why he should really come to the hospital.

Why, after everything, he still found himself here.

It was crazy in a way, because he was fighting a different battle from Sergei.

A battle with the same objective but absolutely different methods.

Perhaps that was why he wasn’t surprised to see Sergei at the hospital. Standing without any weapons, as if the city didn’t know these psychos worked better without weapons.

Zhenya didn’t even need to know what the outcome of this would be.

But when he heard knocks at the door and Sergei’s singsong voice, he knew they had badly injured the soldiers who had been standing guard.

The people Zhenya had considered the best of his best. Then again, what use was the best of his best against Sergei Moskowsky and his legion of psychos?

"Zhenyaaaa... We’ll open the door... We hope you don’t mind!" Sergei added in the calmest voice he could muster.

He still sounded cold.

There was boredom in his voice.

Zhenya knew this was not Sergei playing games. This was Sergei hunting. And he knew Sergei would not walk away. Not before getting what he wanted.

"Come in," Zhenya said, and for a moment the six with Sergei stared at Sergei as if waiting for a confirmation. If he said they were not to go in, they would go in.

They were not terrified of losing themselves here. It was what they had signed up for from the very beginning. The kind of lifeline no one had forced on them.

One they had chosen for themselves.

Sergei didn’t say another word.

Just pushed open the door like he had suddenly remembered how to be a civil man in the face of whatever the fuck was coming.

He knew it would not be easy, but what the hell, no?

"Hospitals make me sick," Meera grumbled suddenly, and Elara stared at her while Rahim...

"You’re a surgeon..."

"Doesn’t make the disinfectants any more pleasing," Meera grumbled before they both focused.

The hospital room was perfect in every sense. It looked more like a lounge than a hospital room.

On the bed was President Boris, seated and looking like he was a few minutes away from running away.

Beside him on that bed was Zhenya Levin.

He wasn’t under the sheets.

Just sat beside Boris, close enough to get the beta to breathe him in.

At every corner of the room were two soldiers, dressed in plain clothes and looking like they should have gone to battle with the devil himself. They looked terrifying, and like they were here for a battle.

Compared to the psycho team that walked in covered in the blood of the soldiers they had beaten right outside, these soldiers looked like they were not scared of anything.

That was good...

Right?

The Moskowsky psychos didn’t step any further into the room.

Sergei stayed by the door, while Rahim and Volkov stepped forward, looking around the room so calmly as if they were sniffing out any devices. Which was weird because they should not come in with anything, right?

"Why did you come here?" President Boris asked at the same time Rahim turned to Sergei.

"Three listening devices, an explosive on the corner beside the door is already beeping. The soldiers are carrying nine millimeters with six rounds each," Rahim said, and Volkov continued.

"We’re stepping on a pressure plate; I assume it’s linked to the explosive device in the wall. And the water sprinkler is laced with silver to keep us down," Volkov added.

"Do we kill them, sir, or do you want a conversation?" Reeves asked calmly, like he was talking about how nice the setup in the room was.

It really was good if they were being honest.

This place was huge enough for a gaming room too. For the seven of them. Well, if Katya didn’t kick them out on the first day for screaming and shouting their lungs out every thirty seconds.

"Start a timer. Ten minutes. After that, you’re free to measure which intestine is longer compared to the ones outside," Sergei said, stepping ahead.

The device in the wall began beeping fast. But none of the psychos were bothered as much.

They were ready to live and die for Sergei. It was nothing new for them, regardless of what situation they found themselves in.

In fact, they resumed the conversation from before.

They bickered about who would be sitting in the driver’s seat when they stole another car to go home with.

And Rastenkin was very wildly unpopular.

Meanwhile, Sergei stopped right beside Boris’s bed.

"I hope you don’t mind me taking a seat here, Boris," Sergei greeted, his gesture not even morphing enough to get a read on the man. He looked unpredictable. As if one frown and one wrong move and people would die.

"Why are you here?" Boris asked, pretending like the bickering idiots by the door weren’t some of the most lethal weapons this man had.

"Aleksandr," Sergei said, taking a seat beside the president.

Boris paled.

Stiffened at the mention of the senator.

The man he had tasked with bringing Sergei to his knees.

The man who had taken Katya away.

Boris didn’t know really why Sergei had come here.

Now.

He wasn’t so confident about his deeds being a truth he could live with. Not anymore anyway.

"What about Aleksandr?" the president stalled, not willing to lean into the possibility that this man had picked up shit about his arrangement with Alek.

Zhenya stayed quiet on the president’s side like he was only here to make sure no one hurt Boris.

Then again, it was a bit diabolical, seeing as he was still pissed about the cheating and had been considering his options long before Sergei had come to them like this.

"The funding you gave him. Take it back. Or I’ll kill you here and now, then take it still.

"We both know you don’t need the money, but I don’t mind doing a few charity activities for the betterment of Frolo," the alpha said, not even changing an expression on his face.

He had stayed stiff.

Bored.

Blank.

The president looked at the Devil of Frolo as if he was trying to figure out what part of the madness he had unlocked.

Over the months, he’d never been this close up with Sergei. He’d only made demands and Sergei had reacted.

But this man was here.

Had already threatened his people.

Had a team of psychos bickering over heaven-knew-what while standing on the pressure plate of an explosive device that was already counting down, yet were not exactly terrified of the possibility of it exploding in this place.

Sergei was not the kind of man President Boris played games with or was willing to play with. But he had made the promise in front of the entire city.

He’d financed the man publicly.

If the city learned that Alek was not given the right resources, they would ask questions, and Boris wasn’t interested in running the nation that was divided.

All he wanted was for his alpha to forgive him for cheating, yet Sergei was here with a new set of rules.

"No. The funding stays. You can do your worst," Boris said confidently.