Chapter 437: You’re In The Wind, I’m In The Water

[FROLO]

The bench at the former Hercules headquarters had found a new resident. A man who looked nothing like what the city had been seeing.

The three-piece suits had been replaced by cargo pants and tank tops.

The long hair that had been slicked back was replaced by near baldness.

The warm covers that had been a norm for the man had been replaced by nothing.

If not for Rastenkin occasionally sneaking back into the lounge to cover Sergei with a fluffy blanket, the alpha would simply spend his nights cold on the bench.

He could have gone home.

He could have found a hotel.

Hell, he could have slept in another bed instead of suffering by lying on the cold metallic bench every time he had to rest or even sleep.

But the bed was too cold without Katya there. Home no longer felt like home. Just a hollow reminder of what used to be there.

The penthouses were unoccupied, and while Sergei usually found comfort inside Katya’s penthouse, it hurt way too much to stay in there.

At least here on the cold benches with nothing but memories of the man he loved, he was reminded that Katya was having it worse somewhere.

It had been a week.

A week since Sergei had last seen Katya.

A week since he’d touched and kissed his beloved.

A week since he’d taken Pelmeni to the love of his life.

And in that week, Sergei had found out where they were holding Katya.

Not any of the military bases, not even the presidential palace.

An old mill south of Frolo.

He knew they were torturing him. That they were hurting the man he loved for associating with him. And while Sergei could storm there and rescue Katya... It would be too easy.

Maybe he was insane for leaving his beloved to suffer for long, but lines had been crossed, and Sergei was not going to pretend they hadn’t been.

He wasn’t going to just grab someone and kill them to save the love of his life. No.

He’d wait.

Each day, he learned something new about the captors of the man he loved. Things that made it even clearer that Frolo... had to burn.

And Sergei, he could have begged them not to touch his beloved, especially since Sergei felt all of Katya’s pain through the mate bond mark they shared.

He knew it was deliberately done.

To lure him out.

To bring him back into the open.

Because for the whole week, no one had seen Sergei except for the six he was walking with.

No one.

Not Anya, not Irina, not the Romanov camp, and not even Yaroslav himself.

No one.

And the city, of course, had whispers of their own by the third week of Sergei’s disappearance, for the public eye and the underworld, too.

"He was bested by the government. That’s why he disappeared."

"Never thought that there would come a day when Sergei Moskowsky was tamed."

"The government should have done this earlier. That way we’d still be having senators."

None of that bothered Sergei.

Not even Mr. Romanov’s checkup calls that he didn’t pick up.

Sergei... had dissociated.

If anything, his routine had been the same throughout the weeks.

Wake up on his cold chair, clean up, go with his six operatives to the place many called the Psych Ward, train for the battles coming, come back to their operational HQ, sleep on the bench, repeat.

The Psych Ward was not a hospital or a literal psych ward.

It was a place with a system Sergei had developed for human targets. People who betrayed Sergei in any form. The Psych Ward was the training ground for the Myrtles and the sniper secretaries too.

They would go in and have human targets. But instead of shooting the humans, they would miss.

It was the training manual.

Do not shoot the target. Miss the target by one to two inches max.

If the target was the head, the bullet had to miss the head by those specifications. If it was the lung, the bullet had to pass right beneath the arm, close enough but not to kill.

And that was something harder than if they’d been told to shoot the head or lung.

Over the years, it got coined the name Psych Ward among Sergei’s operatives. Because that place was worse than hell.

If an operative failed more than thrice, Sergei simply shot them in the head and had their body incinerated in the crematorium that was on site.

It was that wild.

Today was no different from the other days.

Sergei was seated in the last row of the thirteen-seater van they usually used to go to the Psych ward, as always. He was staring out the window, eyes blank and devoid of any soul.

He looked like he was just waking up because he had to wake up.

He had mosquito bites all over him, not that he cared one bit.

And like every other day, the alpha hadn’t eaten. Rastenkin would run him an IV with nutrients for the sake of everyone later.

The man hadn’t spoken a word since the night they’d left Yaroslav and the Hercules team had been dissolved. And his routine had been the same.

Half the journey he’d sit next to one window and look outside through it. The other half he’d change seats and sit next to the other window and keep his eyes on it.

He never complained if there were emergency brakes or bumps that had him nearly hurled forward. He never said a word to them, even to give them the operational manual.

His team was worried about him, but not even Rastenkin, the man who knew Sergei better than all of them there, dared to speak to Sergei to convince him to eat or say something.

Because even he knew.

Sergei only spoke where necessary. And clearly, he didn’t think there was anything necessary to say today.

Then again halfway there, Sergei didn’t change seats; instead, he tapped the van, and it stopped.

Then he got off.

Without any weapons on him.

Instinctively, Rastenkin checked the date to see if it was anything to do with Vitya or Katya. There was none.

"I have matters to attend to. Head to the Psych Ward without me," Sergei said once he was off the van.

His operatives stared at him skeptically, but they knew better than to defy orders. So begrudgingly, they drove to their usual destination, occasionally looking out the window to see if Sergei came with them still.

But there was nothing.

The alpha stayed rooted until the van was out of sight.

Then he left the spot.

Thing is...

As the city would learn the hard way, again... he was Sergei.

When he was done, Sergei came back to the spot where he had been dropped off by his people.

Covered in blood from head to toe.

Holding a severed arm.

It had only been three hours.

Expectedly he was early to the spot because the van came forty-five minutes later, picked him up wordlessly, and they drove back to the former Hercules HQ.

"Run the fingerprints and clean out the Ministry of Defense’s major financial accounts," he said, giving Elara the severed arm, before he went to take a shower, only to come back and sleep on his bench in silence.

But outside these walls.

The city had just been reintroduced.

The government’s Chief accountant had been admitted to the hospital, without an arm.

An ’S’ carved on her forehead with a penknife.

The monster was back.

And even the moon goddess wouldn’t save them from him.