Chapter 274: Memories of A Fairly Sane Bond

[FROLO]

Pissed was an understatement.

Raging was not even close to what Alek was feeling at the moment.

The entire city was mocking him, asking him questions that he could not answer with a straight face.

As if that wasn’t enough, there was footage of him coming from his meeting with Kenzo. How he was limping back to his car. How he was moving in from a restaurant that was part of the lower district, and that too without the senatorial protective detail.

The cameras around that area had also been busted because everyone knew the lower district was basically the operational area of the bratva. Their headquarters, if it was ever possible to phrase it like that. And the senator had been seen there.

Willingly going in.

Willingly walking too.

It was the kind of evidence that he would not even fight, and yet he knew that he had to try to save his reputation.

So, he released a press statement.

Didn’t go out to the people, just posted a statement on social media challenging Sergei Moskowsky to provide evidence that he had seen Aleksandr being part of the bratva instead of his sabbatical.

"If Mr. Moskowsky believes that I work or associate with the bratva, let him come out and confirm it with evidence instead of throwing harmful jabs at me. I will not defend myself.

"Because by now I know everyone has already gotten a copy of what could be perceived as evidence. We know how the Moskowskys work. Time will tell if I really work with the bratva or if it is Mr. Moskowsky who sent them after me."

It was a stupid statement.

A very dangerous yet bold one.

Alek knew it was a long shot. He knew that it was the worst possible thing he could do to his career.

Because Sergei Moskowsky didn’t care about him. Sergei Moskowsky couldn’t give two shits about the senator; he wasn’t even interested in interacting with him. But it was a gamble that the good senator was making.

Maybe because a part of him was not just challenging the mad barbarian.

He was challenging the barbarian’s affection for Katya.

He was using it to clear his name in the way that only Sergei Moskowsky could ever understand.

It was a game now.

A game of love and hate and power that was so twisted and involved two alphas who had no regard for each other. Alek was still pissed about the call earlier in the studio, but he knew better than to believe anything Sergei Moskowsky did.

He trusted Katya, an ironic conclusion he had come to after messing with the bratva.

He knew so well that if Katya had agreed to whatever the fuck Sergei had been showing Alek, Katya would have left him a long time ago. That Katya would not even have had to stay and try to fight for their relationship.

And even better, that Sergei would still be acting like the only man in love with Katya.

That was the solace Alek needed at the moment.

Perhaps he was a little too late to the trusting Katya phase of life, but maybe it was better to be late than to never trust the omega whom he should have relied on instead of staking everything in the name of jealousy, right?

Expectedly, the media camped outside Moskowsky Holdings, waiting for any statement from Sergei.

It was interesting, really, how things were happening out there while inside the company, Katya was in his office, working with a smile on his face like he had had the best morning ever.

And when Sergei stepped out of the company, he didn’t even pass the reporters or ignore them.

The alpha stopped, for that statement they wanted so badly.

"Mr. Moskowsky, the senator says that you made allegations and that there is no evidence tying him to the bratva. Do you have anything to say to that?" one of the reporters asked, and Sergei just laughed.

"The senate was bombed months ago, and the senator just happened to be inside Moskowsky Holdings, the most secure building in the realm. He was the only senator missing from the Senate hearing that day.

"A senate sitting that he suggested be scheduled on that particular day. The same day that we were having a board meeting at Moskowsky. Then he pulled out of the board weeks later? Come on, should I spell everything for you lot?

"I thought you went to journalism school, or did you waste your parents’ resources to come ask stupid questions?" Sergei said calmly, again referring to the media questions as stupid for the second time of the day.

The man was brutal with his statements, and by now it was becoming difficult to tell where observation ended and accusation began. But one thing was certain. The coincidences were a little too much even for a good senator.

The fact that the senator had been the one to suggest that date for the hearing just didn’t make Aleksandr’s already destroyed reputation any better. It was like the world was finally seeing the versions of Alek they had never known, and it was all Sergei’s doing.

Well, Alek had challenged him, and Sergei had responded so calmly, so composed, as if he was not dragging the man down to the pits of hell.

The saddest part of all this was that Alek was thinking it was because of Katya, when in truth Sergei had let Katya go. He had left the omega free to do whatever the hell he wanted.

Whatever this was now, it had grown beyond the omega at its center. It was a war between two powerful men who had chosen to stop pretending they could coexist. Which made this a high-stakes gamble.

Because Sergei Moskowsky never went after people. He never fought anyone he didn’t think needed to be fought, which didn’t make any of this any easier.

"Mr. Moskowsky, one last question... There are rumors that you have a beloved. Is your partner someone we know?" another reporter asked, and Sergei stared at him like this was the most interesting part of his day.

If Alek wanted to be jealous, if Aleksandr wanted to be insecure about a relationship that Katya had respected so much, then Sergei would give him something to worry about.

He was a menace, and he knew it, but just like he had told Katya, Aleksandr had started this, not him.

"Yes, I do have a beloved. And yes, you know him," Sergei said confidently, like a man who had the best morning today.

Well, he did.

Katya had willingly chosen him.

Katya had asked him not to die.

Katya had basically given him a reason to live even more.

This was the best day of his life, and Sergei wasn’t going to hide how happy he was right now.

"There are speculations that your new beloved is Chairman Romanov, and that is why the senator pulled out of the Moskowsky board. Could you confirm or deny?" another asked.

"Chairman Romanov is the senator’s boyfriend. My relationship with him is purely professional. You lot have been speculating the same thing for two years now.

"Do you not get tired of stressing the senator out?" Sergei laughed like he didn’t still have the citrus scent clinging to him like the greatest taste of his little happiness.

"But—"

"If he were mine, you all wouldn’t have survived after what you guys put him through over the years. You’d all be dead," Sergei said with a smile on his face before adding:

"Please excuse me, I have to go to my next appointment. I hope you all have a fantastic day," Sergei said before Volkov drove off, unfazed by the fact that his boss had just threatened a group of journalists indirectly over the man he had been smiling at the entire morning about.

They were really treading on thin ice with this barbarian.

"Turn the radio up, Volkov," Sergei said, making Volkov step on the brakes, hard, instead.

"What?" the man wondered.

Sergei loved silence.

He never liked being interrupted by anyone or anything, not even the radio.

"Frequency 105.3," he added instead, and when Volkov didn’t say anything or even move, Sergei let out a light laugh.

"It’s Solnyshka’s favorite radio station."

"Right..." Volkov said as he turned the radio on.

"He said he wasn’t selfless enough to let me go. And told me not to die, so be careful on the road. I can’t go back to him broken," Sergei said, like the world was suddenly all rainbows and sunshine.

’We’re fucked,’ was all Volkov could think of as he drove off with the radio playing.