Contract Marriage: Married to My Ex-Husband's Alpha Stepfather [BL]

Chapter 202: Amongst The Flowers Without Names

[FROLO]

The city remembered.

Of course they did.

The Senate building was buzzing with life, as the security officials did their best to hide the fact that there was an actual dead body at the gates of the Senate building.

But then they didn’t even need to speculate about who had sent the body. They didn’t need to ask that many questions because the body came with answers.

Maybe there were answers.

Maybe there were more questions.

But there was an obvious signature on the body. The one that people knew belonged to one person only.

Sergei Moskowsky.

He was declaring open war on the Senate.

Or maybe on one particular senator. It made no sense, really, but when had Sergei Moskowsky done things randomly?

The man was no saint, but he always had a motive.

Perhaps that was why the letter on the body was scarier than the dead body itself.

"There are tears this city cannot survive; pray hard they are not shed on your account,or the city will drown," the letter on the body read, like it was a mantra someone was practicing.

Like it was about to raise harder questions.

As if the letter wasn’t enough, the head from months before was touched on again. The head that had been sent to the senator resurfaced.

The photos. The marks on it. The scars.

They matched it all on this new body.

The only difference? Gender.

The head at Senator Aleksandr’s house was that of a male.

But this body...

This was a woman.

A woman in her mid-thirties. A woman dressed in black, her long hair cut and placed on her chest. Her legs were broken and folded like they were useless to her.

Her hands had bones poking through the skin. And her windpipe was outside her body. It was a difficult sight to process. But it sent the message all right.

Because as crazy as Frolo had deemed the devil of Frolo, they knew this was one message that no one would ignore.

The only question was why the madman was targeting the Senate at large.

"The head at senator Aleksandr’s was the fifth body with evidence of his doing," a senator said in shock. They were being targeted.

The only one that had been loud enough was the head at Senator Aleksandr’s house. Because the senator was good enough to report the incident.

Because Senator Aleksandr was a transparent senator. A man with nothing to hide. And a head was not exactly the kind of thing that could be hidden.

"What does Sergei want?" another senator asked, as if this were the most absurd of things. They had all made sure to never cross the barbarian.

They still remembered the myth that became the devil of Frolo. Not because Sergei was just some telltale story they had to live through. But because they had been there back then.

They had witnessed the horror.

They had seen the transition that had an entire city questioning its own legitimacy.

And now...

The powerful. Again.

"No one has ever been able to answer that question," another said as the police tried to move the body.

But it couldn’t move.

They were never going to be able to move it.

Not with ease anyway.

"Everyone step back!!!" one of the officers who was examining the body said, and no one stiffened. They did step back.

The senators who were not sure what this meant.

The civilians who had seen the body on their social platforms before the Senate session was over.

The police who only came to ensure law and order here.

There was no way to understand what this was. Even if they had a feeling about who could have done this.

"Call the bomb squad!" another shouted, making the people around to step back even further. It was one thing to stand and watch the chaos unfold before them.

But it was another to be collateral damage in a body that was about to be mutilated by explosives.

Life had been quiet, and they had almost forgotten what it was like to live with the actual devil among them.

"The timer is at seven minutes. There is no time!"

"We have to contain the blast!"

"Everyone step back!"

Chaos.

Absolute chaos.

Everyone was moving in some direction. Trying to understand while trying to keep themselves safe. But it was just not easy. Because the crowds had gotten even larger.

The fact that no one had actual proof that this was done by the devil of Frolo, only assuming that it was what his signature had always been.

But maybe this time things would be different, no?

"A dead female body dumped at the Senate with a disfigured face and so many broken parts. No one has the guts to say the name of the perpetrator...

"But the whispers never lie," a newsroom reported like it was normal for bodies to be dumped like that. Like they were always rigged to explode so easily.

It was the kind of shit that horrified people. Maybe because at the end of the day, no one was that audacious.

Meanwhile, inside Moskowsky, the executive floor was functioning as usual. The meetings were being chaired by the chairman as if there was nothing wrong.

The shareholder meeting was particularly ongoing.

Senator Aleksandr was present.

Within Moskowsky.

Within the walls of the most dangerous yet the safest building in the city.

It was ironic, really, how much of a fire had been lit and how no one knew what to do. Yet even those whose phones hadn’t stopped vibrating stayed focused on the shareholder meeting.

After all, Sergei was in this meeting.

Getting out of a meeting Sergei was in, even just to answer a call, was pure suicide. No one in their right mind would even try to use their phones during such meetings.

But the concern was there.

Because there had never been that many messages chiming on their phones at the same time. Ever.

"The next agenda is the expansion of the new satellite branch," Chairman Romanov said, and soon the shareholders got into it too. They had worry written over their faces. But they were barely two hours into the three-hour meeting.

And patience, this time, was not a choice.

It was the line between life and death.

Perhaps that was why even the mighty senator, the politician who suspected something had gone so wrong beyond these walls, had willed himself to stay unbothered.

Maybe because if he stayed unbothered, no one would understand the anxiety that was in the room. It was way better than being anxious in a meeting with Sergei.

The city DID remember.

The executives knew better than to up and go. Because the last time someone had tried to get out of a meeting Sergei Moskowsky was in, lives had been lost.

The people in the room had all died.

The only one left standing?

Sergei.

Sergei Moskowsky.

Maybe history didn’t need to repeat itself, right?

"I think it’s too soon to focus on a satellite branch that doesn’t bring in more profit," a shareholder spoke.

Sergei laughed quietly.

Yaroslav, who was in the meeting, looked at his father, the way the man was smiling throughout the entire meeting. The way the man looked excited for something no one understood.

Even he knew there was more to this.

Especially when Sergei didn’t threaten anyone the whole meeting, regardless of their opinions.

The meeting ended half an hour later than it was supposed to. Not because the chairman ended it late. But because Sergei Moskowsky had questions about things no one understood, really.

Some were asked about the shares they were silently selling away.

Others were asked about their faith in the current chairman since he’d been running the company for two years now.

Others were questioned about their backdoor deals to try to get ahead of things that they were not entitled to.

But even with all the questions, the shareholders knew the truth. There was no weight to the Q&A session Sergei was putting them through.

They were all clean.

And this...

This entire meeting...

Was a test.

Of patience, maybe.

Of sanity, perhaps.

Of memories and the long history in Frolo...

Certainly.

"Thank you for coming," Sergei closed the meeting.

Everyone was free.

To use their phones. To do whatever they wanted.

Only that when they turned their phones on...

The Frolo Senate building had been blown to bits.