Chapter 350: You Can’t Be Him, And It’s A Really Good Thing

[FROLO]

"No charges filed by Moskowsky Group leaves the prosecution no choice but to let Senator Aleksandr go."

"The senator walks free after accusations related to the Moskowsky bombing."

"Not enough evidence to incarcerate."

The news headlines were screaming at the people of Frolo again. This time it was because of the one thing they were convinced was true and had no power to keep going because the Moskowsky Group had refused to file charges.

In fact, the company had not made any changes to the statement that Sergei had given. Which made the city wonder whether it was strategic of Sergei or if the alpha had finally started choosing peace.

Maybe that was true.

Maybe that wasn’t.

But then, as the senator walked out of the police station, a free man, as he looked at the media who had gathered, Aleksandr saw someone he could swear he had never seen in over thirty years.

"What?" the alpha wondered, faltering and nearly tripping down the stairs of the police station.

Nothing had prepared him for that. At all.

"Senator, do you have a comment?" the media hounded him, but his eyes never left that face at the back. The face that he had been sure he would only ever get to see in the afterlife.

And like a ghost, he walked toward it. Eyes focused, like he was terrified that if he blinked, he would not see him again. It wasn’t what he hoped for, but fuck if he was going to let that be the last time.

Thirty years was no joke.

Thirty whole years of waiting for something. Anything.

And now here he was, seeing him again.

"Did the senator see someone?" the media asked as they followed the alpha’s line of sight.

There was no one other than them here. Yet the alpha walked ahead, right past the group of reporters before stopping at the one place no one knew what to say to him anymore. Because this was not right.

The alpha looked like he had lost his mind after being held in remand for one day. Was he delusional? Maybe. Was he trying to dig shit that wasn’t there? Maybe.

But what the media didn’t see was the slight twitch on Aleksandr’s face as his eyes still wandered in the back.

Meanwhile, in Moskowsky Basement One, the Myrtle watched in excitement as the unexpected happened.

"He looks like he is seeing a ghost," Elara laughed as Alek still looked hopeful and terrified at the same time. It wasn’t daily that this happened to him anyway.

"I would react the same way if I saw *that* face," Reeves sighed, like he understood a few things about timelines and pasts that needed to stay as pasts.

"Maybe he lost his mind from losing his seat," Rastenkin mocked, like he did not know what he had sent out there to fuck with Alek’s mind.

"I call dibs on the next prosthetic," Meera said, zooming in on Aleksandr, who was still shocked.

He was still ignoring the media, and frankly, if it wasn’t for the fact that Leon came out of the police station and walked him to his car, the alpha would have stayed rooted to the spot.

Not because he wanted to stay at the police station.

But because he had seen someone he knew he had lost. But was that true, or was it just what he had been made to think?

"Look at his shaking hands," Elara added excitedly, like that was the ultimate goal of the day. But then they hadn’t even begun yet, because the moment Alek and Leon got into the car, with their associates following, their car blew up.

The one with Alek and Leon.

Right in front of the police station.

"Looks like karma came soon," Rastenkin added as he crossed off car bombing from his list of potential tests for Aleksandr.

"Did we just—" Meera asked, shocked that this had happened.

The plan had been to make Aleksandr feel like he was losing his mind by bringing the most valuable aspect of his past to life. But the explosion? It seemed a little too soon even for them, right?

"The car is fitted with airbags. Aleksandr and Leon are both alphas. The bomb was not bad enough to kill them both. They will survive. You’ll see," Rastenkin said right as Irina and Yaroslav walked in, looking like they had been suffering the entire morning.

Gods, it had been a hard day for them already.

"You guys look like you need to be hydrated," Reeves snickered, and Yaroslav glared at him before he plopped onto the couch.

They had changed the seats in Basement One’s briefing room because the classroom setting was awkward as hell and made them feel like they were about to be dragged back into algebra and calculus.

"They had strong bones," Yaroslav grumbled.

"And there were too many who refused to get knocked out," Irina added tiredly.

"Next time maybe allow us to use our guns, please," Yaroslav groaned as he stared at his dirty clothes like he couldn’t believe he had been having a really good morning and then the mission brief came, and now he was a mess because they had business to attend to.

"You sound like my little Sergio the first time I sent him shopping. He came back grumbling about guns yet still managed to finish the mission in time," Rastenkin said, like he was remembering very thoughtful moments of Sergei’s very existence.

"Father? Complaining?" Yaroslav snorted like it was the most absurd of things.

He knew his father, and the man had the stamina that could drown so many people at the same time; there was a reason he was the devil of Frolo. Yet Rastenkin was talking about Sergei like the alpha was just another kid.

Maybe?

Maybe not?

"They kept getting worse. Your father would whine and complete missions in shorter spans every time. I realized it was because he wanted to have more time complaining to me about how terrible I was to him.

"He’d intentionally complete missions so fast on days I was with him. Whenever he was with Anya, he’d be a good warrior and take his set time. Your father terrorized me more than I terrorized him," Rastenkin chuckled.

The old man’s eyes softened like he remembered the endless times Sergei had come home grumbling because of the mission and how he was under-equipped.

"Can I ever match him?" Yaroslav asked quietly.

Rastenkin laughed.

"Goodness, no, kid. You could never match your father, because you’re not your father. Sergio was born with a thousand loose screws in his head. Honestly, if I wasn’t an adult, I think he would have shot me in my sleep countless times- that mischievous, angry kid.

"He was too dangerous. You are the good version of him. All the good parts of the little shit that played rock, paper, scissors with me at dawn just so he couldn’t go for morning training," Rastenkin huffed.

"Father was mischievous?" Yaroslav asked, interested.

"Oh, you don’t know half of it. Little Sergio was a menace growing up. Whenever he had missions, he would wake up late. Whenever he didn’t have missions, he would wake up early and play terrible guitar at four in the fucking morning.

"...Said he was singing to the gods to take me so I would stop making him smile and interact with other kids from the nearby orphanage. I was teaching that little shit kindness, and he was using it as a motivator to terrorize me," the old man groaned before adding:

"Sit with me, my grandson; I have more embarrassing stories about your father."