[FROLO]
The club was cleared out when the night ended for Katya and his Vladimir. There wasn’t even the slightest sign that people had been murdered here.
The Moskowsky cleaners had come and cleared the crime scene and took all the footage that was there, leaving only selective footage.
The bartender only got one look from Sergei, and that was enough to get the man blabbing about how he would not tell a lot about what had happened there. It was sorted.
Meanwhile, Katya was still asleep, his head resting on the bar casually, unaware of the massacre that had just happened in his name.
But that was the point.
He didn’t need to know every little thing that his boyfriend’s crew did to save him or make him happy.
All he had to do was live his life.
Be happy.
Experience life through normal eyes, even if there was a chance that normal for him was already rewritten by the barbarian he was always hanging around.
But even that was okay too because at the end of the day, he would always be just Katya.
Katya Romanov.
No titles, no nothing.
Just an omega who wanted to live his life without any worries, and who had a team of psychos actively working to make sure his life was a lot smoother.
"Solnyshka... we have to go home now," Sergei said when daybreak began, and Katya grumbled softly.
"It’s morning already," Sergei said softly, not once rushing his omega.
If Katya wanted to stay in here, then they would stay. This place would be closed for the day, and there was nothing anyone could say to Sergei about it.
"Vladimirr... your head isn’t so bad when you’re bald," Katya mumbled sleepily, and Sergei chuckled softly.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yup. It feels... feels like a rebirth... maybe you’ll grow it out someday... no pressure. I’ll still love you even if you’re forever bald," Katya mumbled, turning his head to the other side, and Sergei stared hopelessly.
He was down so bad for this omega, and he wasn’t sure he would ever live life again without Katya. But that was okay, because at the end of the day the only thing that would matter always was Katya.
"Alright, we’re going home," Sergei said before adding, "the bar needs to open again, my beautiful."
"You left them a tip, right?" Katya said softly, and Sergei looked at the tired bartender.
The man looked like he was about to fall from exhaustion.
Oh, how that man had seen the kind of shit he had never thought he would see in his life right now.
"Yup. Already tipped him. Now let’s go, before his boss comes after him for being too lazy to kick us out," Sergei said in earnest, and Katya chuckled.
Then he sat up, eyes closed lazily as he raised his hands, like he was waiting for Sergei to say or do something.
And the alpha simply pulled him into a hug before he carried Katya out, leaving the bartender an extra tip for the night.
Then they walked right outside, to the city that was bustling with life again.
Of course the city saw them, because Sergei, for some reason, had forgotten to drive them here, or maybe it was because after the party at Romanov Steel these two had simply romanced around the city.
Of course there was the option to take a cab, but Sergei didn’t.
Instead, he shifted Katya to his back and piggybacked his omega back home. It was a walk that had people staring, some too shocked to say a word, while others saw a man who was so in love he didn’t care for much.
The walk back wasn’t as long, but it was one that had the entire city bustling with life again.
The rumor mills were alive again as the city grappled with the fact that this was the first public sighting of Katya for the first time since the kidnapping.
They couldn’t get to Katya at work for obvious reasons, but to see Sergei carrying his omega back home like a regular couple was just something that raised so many questions again.
Because the city had been taught the version of Sergei that no one had ever fully understood. The city had been forced to believe that the man was something else altogether.
Yet they were simply seeing a man with his boyfriend.
"The Katserg couple were spotted this morning walking back home, or rather, Mr. Moskowsky was walking home with him carrying his boyfriend on his back and his boyfriend’s shoes in both hands."
"He looked content with the life he is living at the moment."
"That man only wanted his omega; now that he got him back, he is not bothered by anything."
"But there are videos from the club they just left. Videos of people fighting with katanas. What are the odds that they were right over the Romanov omega?"
"If it was about the Romanov omega, there is a very high chance Sergei would have just joined himself. That was probably just the usual altercations between criminal organizations."
The morning gossip segments were hot with the happenings of the night and the possibility that they were related to the Katserg couple, but of course there was no proof of that.
Because the footage that had been released a little too conveniently only showed Sergei and Katya at the bar, in their own world, while the club was in chaos and people got into different situations.
Maybe the city was changing, but was it?
Was it when everything was slowly coming to the one pressure point no one was ready for yet?
The city had learned by now that going after Katya and Yaroslav was like inviting danger to their homes, and any sane person would not do that willingly.
And while it was already costing everything, there were people who still believed in something else.
Because for them the war was never about Sergei’s loved ones.
They were about Sergei.
The devil of Frolo.
And since the distinction had been made so evident and the cost of going after the people Sergei loved so clear, the war had transitioned.
It wasn’t just about getting to Sergei through his loved ones anymore. They had tried that and failed spectacularly.
They would go after Sergei.
Sergei the man.
The alpha who didn’t give a shit whether he was the target or not.
The man who murdered people like it was just a regular day in Frolo.
It was interesting, really, how the targets refused to surrender to Sergei when, in truth, they had tried once upon a time and had failed spectacularly.
Would they win this time, now that they had joined hands?
Would it ever make sense now that Latif, Alek, and the government were working together to go against Sergei Moskowsky, the man with nothing that could be leveraged anymore?
The man who didn’t shy away from failures and who knew that life had a cycle that had to be respected?
Would it be easy for them, or was this just the genesis of the worst of cycles in Frolo?
Because now they would be dealing with the Devil.
Not the husband. Not the father or the boyfriend.
They would be going after the Devil of Frolo.
Oh, gods help them all, right?
"We are set to begin," Taylor Blackwater said as she smiled at the footage of Sergei carrying Katya from the club.