Chapter 431: I Came In Peace, Will Leave In Peace

* Single Chapter update

[FROLO]

Alek felt it before he saw.

The hairs at the back of his neck stood stiff, his heart beating so fast his legs had gone numb. He was so close to falling. So close to peeing himself.

His head was aching so badly; his hands were sweaty, he was shaking, and his lips were trembling.

Alek had never even been this nervous in any space.

He was a politician.

A well-trained politician.

He had stood in front of more people than the ones here. He had dealt with crazy people on different scales, but gods, was it a long day for him.

What the fuck was he supposed to do with this?

Worse, Rastenkin was here.

Rastenkin.

The one with the one button that could blow up Joram’s mother. The one who made life a little too hard for everyone who interacted with him. The one who didn’t give a shit whether Alek lived or died because he had other priorities.

Alek was losing his mind just being around the man and everyone here.

"Do you think we can make a lot of money when we pimp you, as you insinuated to our friend?" Andre asked casually, like he wasn’t already stressing the alpha out.

Alek was probably not going to survive this, especially if his fate was left in the hands of the duo that was determined to show him a different, colorful life from the one he was used to.

At the moment, Andre had his machine gun pressed on Alek’s crotch while Svet was playing with a thin copper string around Aleksandr’s neck.

One wrong move and the alpha would never be able to speak again, not that Svet cared that much about Aleksandr.

She was smiling at how the color almost matched Aleksandr’s skin on the neck, especially after the ambush.

She was excited. Happy.

"I didn’t want to pimp him," Alek defended, like that was supposed to change the minds of the psychos holding him.

The fact that the rest of the crew were just seated out there like the world was suddenly a beautiful place drove Alek crazy. Because this was not what life was supposed to be like.

This was not what he had signed up for.

Life was crazy enough as it was, without these people coming at him.

"A functional kidney costs enough to buy us the latest League of Legends game pack. I say we cut one out and send it to the hospital inside this base. Then we can buy me that shit.

"After all, I am the youngest, don’t you think?" Yaroslav bargained, looking at Alek through his sniper rifle.

Yaro was lying above a building in the base, with Volkov, Rahim, and Reeves stationed on different rooftops.

It was nothing for them to worry about. Just a regular Tuesday, while Irina, Elara and Meera manned the gates enthusiastically. They had been cleaning their weapons every ten minutes like they really wanted to use them.

"Anya will kill us if we sell a kidney to buy you a video game. Explaining that we were hungry will save our lives more than the games," Rastenkin argued, and they all agreed, while Aleksandr was sitting there horrified to the core.

He knew they were crazy.

He had been told that a thousand times.

But sitting here with them, he knew there was a lot he was set to learn about this team.

On one hand, he was glad he had seen their faces and could go after them once they released him; on the other hand, this team only had each other.

They didn’t have family that could be leveraged.

They didn’t care about any business because they could always, always start over. It was not so much of a task for them.

And they didn’t care that they were terrorizing the man seated here.

"Should we record a video and send it to your president? And that Chief Zhenya Levin? Maybe he will see us terrorizing you and release it to the public, like you created fake videos of Romanov and released them, right?" Svet suggested.

Everybody on comms burst out laughing at Alek, who stiffened instantly, the copper string around his neck tightening and skin breaking.

Oh, but the scent of blood was encouraging for the Hercules team.

"Anyone vote on strangling him?" Svet asked, bored to the core.

They had been waiting here for hours, and no one had heard anything from Sergei or Katya. The government itself had not acknowledged anything about the mess that had been made, but they had to stay focused on the plan.

They had to make sure everything went as they had been commanded to.

The last time they failed Sergei, they had endured hours of torture, and that was the kind of shit no one on the Hercules team wanted to endure again.

"Unanimous votes say strangle him," Rastenkin chuckled, coming over to where Alek was seated nervously.

He saw the way the alpha was weak. How his body was shaking as he had been through the worst of the worst.

Yet the worst hadn’t even begun yet.

The entire operation had begun because of Aleksandr, and these people knew better than to think Aleksandr was going to go down easy.

Which made Alek the perfect opponent for them.

Because each day Aleksandr would come up with a stupid idea, and the Hercules would have fun throwing it in his face no matter where he was.

"Hold on, guys, boss is calling," Rastenkin said.

And as if they had been trained, the comms went dead silent.

"Sergio..." Rastenkin answered, only to hear what sounded like the alpha was in a road rage.

"Did you know there is a go-karting range inside the presidential palace?!" Sergei shouted, and Rastenkin sighed.

Of all the things he had been expecting, this was not it. But at the same time, he knew that Sergei Moskowsky never called. Never used phones like normal people. He only ever answered.

And if he called, he only called his son.

Yaroslav was the only one he cared enough about to be worried for, which meant that something was already happening.

"What happened?" Rastenkin asked.

Sergei laughed as someone in the background screamed for their life.

"Some soldier tried to shoot Solnyshka; now we’re go-karting together!! He’s tied up behind the kart, driving himself on the tarmac! It’s been an hour, and he is still alive... this is going to be so much fun.

"Anyway, release Aleksandr and go back to your stations. Solnyshka’s arrest has been processed; they are yet to set a court date!" Sergei shouted.

Before Rastenkin could ask any further questions, Sergei hung up, leaving everyone staring at each other and facepalming because this was slowly getting tiring.

"People seriously do not learn? Do not shoot the Romanov omega. Do not hurt the Romanov omega. But no, they just have to try and be brave;

"... now someone’s father who clocked in in the morning is being dragged at a go-karting range because he tried it," Rastenkin huffed dramatically as Andre and Svet released Aleksandr.

The alpha wasn’t sure what that meant to him; in fact, he didn’t even know if this was a trap they were setting for him. With the Hercules, as he had just learned they called themselves, there was nothing to trust.

Even kindness would come at a cost, which was not something that many leaned into with ease.

"Dude, aren’t you going home? The boss said to release you. We are packing up," Andre pointed out, and Alek stared.

Really stared.

He knew this was a trap.

With Rastenkin here, even a hello was another trap for him, and if he fell for that shit, then there was never going to be a way for him to come back out.

Maybe this was the day they really killed him, but what were the odds of that being a delayed fate today?

Back at the presidential palace, Sergei was having the time of his life.

There were days when Sergei considered life a waste of time when things were not happening like he wanted them to, but at the same time he wasn’t even bothered to fix it because what the hell.

Today had been one such day.

He had known about the potential Katya arrest earlier in the morning. Even before the lunch they had as a family that turned into him being haunted by chickens. He had known.

Because he had information too, inside every office that was worth infiltrating. And now, as he walked the roads from the presidential palace, Sergei knew that things were going to be far more interesting.

Now he was sure of one thing:

Zhenya and the president were sleeping together.

He had picked that up in the first five minutes that they were in the same room, and to say it was exciting was an understatement.

Especially given now he understood why Mr. Romanov had insisted on the contract and why he was so confident that things would work out the right way.

Sure, Zhenya wasn’t exactly vocal about it, but the way the president’s eyes lingered, like a beta who was looking for his alpha.

Someone to lean on.

Someone to rely on.

Someone who could reassure him in the middle of the war. And more than that, Sergei knew the president had slipped up because Sergei was in there.

Because Sergei’s pheromones were too powerful.

They were too overwhelming on a normal day, and someone had just tried to kill Katya again. So of course the thick rainforest had lingered in the kind of way that any low-ranking wolf would be affected by.

Oh, what a hilarious day Sergei had had.

More hilarious than the body he had dragged until there was only bones left of the man who had tried to hurt Katya.

"He is a maniac; how am I supposed to control a man like that?" President Boris asked.

The president was staring out his window in the palace, with Zhenya beside him, concerned as hell about why the fuck Sergei Moskowsky had not opposed the charges against Katya.

They had honestly expected resistance, especially after everything that had happened at the palace with the soldier, but then Sergei, of course, had not shown much to the contrary yet.

The alpha had simply told them:

"I trust the law."

And that was the most terrifying statement President Boris had ever heard in his life.

Because now, he had to prove that the law worked. That there was a functional system.

And coming from the man who had hunted down the doctors who fucked with Katya’s life and dragged them to court only to kill them one by one, there was no telling whether Sergei would wait long.

"Figure out what happened in those videos. Fast," Boris said.

Zhenya just patted the president’s shoulder before leaving.