Chapter 311: Here In The Dark, Help Wears Steel

[ROMANOV]

"Mr. Ro—"

"Move, and I take your head," Andre warned while Masha rushed to her husband, struggling to wake him up.

Alek, who was considering his options, knew that the man was older and he’d be hurt if he stayed unconscious for long.

So stupidly, he tried to fight Andre. To push Andre off of him.

But Andre...

He was stronger. Faster. Better.

The Katana pressed against Aleksandr’s neck, while Andre smiled at him as if daring the senator to keep going. To keep trying.

"It’s been nine days since I last spilled proper blood, Petrov. Go on. Keep fighting. I dare you," Andre said, not mincing his words.

He looked so done, yet at the same time, he was waiting to see if the senator had functional brain cells or not. Well, either way, he didn’t quite give a shit because right now, he needed to remind himself that Katya still probably needed this man alive.

"Oh, thank goodness," Alek breathed when Masha managed to bring her husband back to life. Alek watched as Svet walked the couple to the lounge carefully.

And Andre watched tiredly as they settled.

Once he was sure they were not going to hear what he had to say, he turned to the senator.

"You’re not the only one with eyes, Aleksandr. A scratch on Romanov and your precious Bratva will be the least of your problems," Andre warned, his voice cold before he pulled the Katana from Aleksandr’s neck.

But he made sure to leave a mark, a simple swipe of the skin that had the senator holding his neck from the pinch.

"You’re crazy. How the fuck am I the problem when that barbarian is literally holding a contract over little Rose’s head?" Alek huffed, and Andre grabbed him by the arm, dropping his Katana down before he walked the senator outside the house.

"You still don’t get it, do you?" Andre growled properly once they were outside and a little far from the house.

"No, you’re the one who doesn’t get this. Sergei used a contract to trap his son’s ex-husband. What kind of a father does that?!" Alek boomed, and Andre seemed to have reached his limits because he swung at Aleksandr’s jaw, hard.

Hell, he could swear he heard a crack of the man’s jaw in the process.

"You used Romanov’s miscarriage, you piece of shit," Andre growled, taking a second swing at Alek, but Alek blocked him.

And soon enough, two angry alphas were taking swings at each other. Hitting each other like they both needed the pain more than what they were even fighting over.

It was stupid.

It was crazy.

But at the same time, this was the first time Andre was actually fighting someone who had hurt Katya... During the day.

Most of the time, he was always eliminating them in the night like a proper graduate of the Frolo madness.

"You don’t deserve him!" Andre said, and Alek laughed at that, his lips bruised and his face matching Andre’s.

They were both bloody as hell.

"Tell me something, Andre. Are you sure you’re taking swings at me because you care about Katya, or is it because you have feelings for the pretty little omega everyone’s dying to get a taste of...

"... and he sees you as his good friend, huh?" Alek sneered, swinging at Andre even harder.

For a moment, Andre didn’t fight back.

He let Alek hit him.

"You—" Andre began, not even finishing his words because he ran a frustrated hand down his face. Pushing the senator off of him for a moment. But Aleksandr was angry too.

So, he hit Andre.

And Andre just rolled on the grass, trying to escape the senator’s hits.

But Alek followed him. Swinging angrily still.

"I love him. I have loved him longer than you both knew him, and you’re here not even focusing on what matters!!" Aleksandr said, and Andre kept trying to get away.

Anyone seeing this madness would simply assume that the senator had won. That Andre was running away, and fuck if that wasn’t what the alpha was proving to everyone.

"Stop being a coward and fight me!! You want to protect our friend, and you can’t even fight to save his dignity! You. Didn’t. Protect. Him. From. Sergei’s fucking contract!!!" Alek raged like this was all he had left.

He loved Katya... right?

He had made that decision to save Katya.

But now Katya was nowhere to be seen, and his friend, who was apparently in love with him, was here yapping about something else instead of hunting Sergei.

"So, you’ve been an insecure little bitch from the very beginning, huh?" Andre laughed, no longer trying to escape Alek. It was like he had reached his wits’ end, too, and wanted this to be over.

"What?" Aleksandr asked like he had been caught off guard.

"You hurt Romanov with your words, but your focus the whole time has just been the contract. Deflecting and accusing me of falling in love with my best friend," Andre laughed, the mockery in his voice obvious.

Earlier, he’d sounded like a defeated man, and right now it was like the tables had turned. But had they, or was that what he wanted Alek to see?

"I told you my reason!!" Alek insisted, only for a high-powered water hose to be directed at both of them, making both men stumble on the lawn like they were light leaves on a wave.

"What the fuck?!" Alek screeched when he noticed Svetlana wasn’t even trying to power the water pressure.

"We know who you are, Petrov," Andre said amid the shouts and the water pressure.

"Tell your friend to stop being crazy and let the hose go!!" Alek shouted instead, pretending like he didn’t hear Andre.

"Oh... that??... That is just to make sure the Romanovs don’t hear what you and I talk about... You can continue screaming profanities, because if you stop;

"...this syringe goes into your heart this second," Andre said calmly, his words getting muffled by the water, but he was loud enough to reach Alek’s ears and muffled enough so the Romanovs wouldn’t hear them.

"What syr—" Alek began, only to see Andre holding Svetlana’s laser pen pack.

"Oh, for fuck’s sake, what the hell?!" the senator asked, shocked.

"Act natural, Aleksandr. Because if the Romanovs suspect anything, you die," Andre added so calmly, like there wasn’t already water in his ears. But at the same time, the angle that Svet was spraying them with was strategic.

Anyone could see that they were being drowned by a crazy woman, but Svetlana had made it so that what people saw and what was happening were different.

"You’re crazy—"

"We’re coming for you, Petrov. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But we are coming," Andre said, the syringe in his hand doing all the work for him.

"What the fuck do you want?"

"Shout at Svet if you don’t want the syringe to be used," Andre said, and the senator sighed tiredly before he shouted profanities at Svetlana, who still didn’t stop.

"We knew about the contract the day it was signed. So, you have no leverage.... The only reason you’re not dead right now is because we want a fair fight and, well, Romanov loves you.

"So go back to your Bratva, Petrov. And prepare well. Because we’re coming for you... All of us, whether Katya approves or not," Andre said calmly.

"What are you—"

"This is for my LITTLE BROTHER," Andre said, and before Alek could blink, Andre stabbed him thrice in the abdomen with his left hand, while holding the syringe with his right, distracting the senator.

"What did you ju—" Alek stumbled over his words, struggling to get up and failing at the same time because the blade was still embedded in his abdomen.

"Some of us have normal sibling relationships. Normal. Not whatever the fuck you grew up with to get you that twisted," Andre lectured like he wasn’t still holding the blade at an angle that the Romanovs wouldn’t even see.

"Don’t ever disrespect my brother by questioning his relationship with us like that. You hear me?" Andre said, like the man wasn’t already bleeding on the Romanov lawn and being drowned at the same time.

"Nghh..." Aleksandr nodded weakly.

"Oh, and before I join you in shouting profanities at Svet... If I hear from anyone that we knew about the contract from the first day, I’m gonna steal Mr. Romanov’s Katana and cut your head off your neck for real," Andre said calmly.

Then he returned the syringe to its pack and put it in his pocket, before he started shouting at Svet too.

And when Svet stopped spraying them, the woman had the nerve to shout for help.

"He got stabbed!!"

"He was going to stab me with it first! It’s fucking self-defense!" Andre insisted.

"Call the doctor!!" Masha shouted somewhere along the way while Andre leaned toward a semi-conscious, bleeding Alek:

"We’re coming for you. Prepare well... also, I gave you flesh stabs, you’re such a whiny bitch," he huffed, leaving the senator on the lawn while he walked back to the manor, and the manor staff rushed to help the senator alongside Masha.

"The next stab is mine. You’ll be doing the water hosing," Svet grumbled as an ambulance pulled into the manor, and everyone started freaking out.

"Were they just flesh stabs?" Svet asked, disappointment in her tone as they walked into the house.

"Just one... The other two, I think he’ll need more than ten stitches," Andre laughed.

"What did he say that pissed you off?"

"He accused me of being in love with Romanov."

"Fucking hell... That’s the Romanov Steel ambulance, right?"

"Yeah, but you’re not going to kill him today... We have work to do."

"What work?" Svet pouted.

"The barbarian is unreachable... our friend thinks he’s gone rogue."

"What?"

"Apparently, they went to bed together, and when Romanov woke up, his side of the bed was cold."

"Shit."