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

Chapter 204: A Bird In A Cage, Thought You Were Made For Me

[FROLO]

The door to a restaurant in the lower city district opened, and through it came three men and two women, all marked up with ink as if there was a competition for who had the most ink on them.

Some had silver teeth, while others had missing teeth and broken jaws. One had a face that looked like it had barely survived its ninetieth stroke.

Inside the restaurant, seven customers sat at three tables. The other twelve tables were empty like they always had been. And it wasn’t because they had been deemed so. The business was that bad.

No one came to these sides anymore.

No one walked through the door like it was worth it anymore. The food may have been good once upon a time. But the blood stains, the gunshot holes, and the katana swipes across the walls told a different story.

The sound of bones being crushed in the distance sounded normal for this restaurant and the customers who had gotten used to minding their businesses.

"You’re late," the receptionist said to the five who had just walked in.

He was a man in his mid-fifties with a scarred face; you’d think he spent his entire life playing with knives and ink. He was huge and looked like he could bend a whole person into a little ball of fur and kick the mess that formed into the stance with ease.

"Traffic," one of the men said, as if it were enough explanation for how they had gotten to this time.

And like clockwork, they pulled out their phones, wallets, their guns, and blades and handed them over to the receptionist, who didn’t even smile at them.

"Find better excuses," the receptionist said as the five walked in, armed with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

They walked deeper into the restaurant, past an old strip curtain that held more history than the walls did, given the way it still had dried blood stains that no one bothered to clean up.

Meanwhile, the receptionist looked at the seven customers who had been eating as if it were time for them to leave.

They didn’t wait for him to speak a word. Instead, they just walked out, like their lives were far more important.

And when the last of them stepped out, the receptionist locked the restaurant door, not bothering to close the curtains as he too went far into the restaurant and past the strip curtains.

"Looks like traffic was hell," the butcher behind the first curtain door shouted over the crushing bones. She was shoving a leg into the grinder, the blood sputtering a mess that she took pleasure in judging by the way she was covered from head to toe in shredded body parts.

The receptionist didn’t say a word.

Instead, he offered a curt smile as he walked deeper into the restaurant.

The second strip curtain came, and behind it was a group of thirty men and women in nothing but their underwear and bras.

They didn’t have any protective gear on them, save for the spatula they were using to stir the mixtures on the chemical setup.

Others were patching white powder into small brown bags, while others stood with guns and blades. Through it all, the cameras had stayed.

The cameras that were not at the front of the restaurant or even in the butcher’s setting.

Again, the receptionist walked further, not offering this batch a smile as he did with the butcher. And then the third strip curtain came.

Behind it was a dusty hall filled with nothing but old wood and containers that had been used for ages.

The smell of cigars filled the air as everyone held a cigar in one hand, while the other hand held a military-grade automated rifle hung over their shoulders that could decide so many fates in seconds.

"What color is the sky?" one of the men there asked the receptionist.

"Sandy," the receptionist said, and the men stepped aside, allowing him to go past the final curtain strip. One that covered a huge vault-like door.

The receptionist keyed in the code, and when the door opened, he walked in, the sound of the huge door closing behind him one that many were used to.

Behind the door, the receptionist walked into a room of thirty men and women who looked restless as hell. It wasn’t that hard to tell why; after all, the entire city was restless.

"He knows," was the first thing the receptionist said to the group of suited men and women who were tattooed to the bone.

"The message at the Senate..." one of the men in the room said as they all sat down now that the receptionist was here.

At the head of the table was a face that many were familiar with beyond these walls. Beyond the confines of a lower district that meant nothing to most legislators.

"We’ve been watching him for decades now. He was bound to know," a woman in a bob cut said as she scratched her nails across the table like a routine, seeing as her seat was in front of a really dented on the table.

"That Romanov omega... is he that important?" another asked boredly, like they were trying to get confirmation of the wine thing that had cost them time and resources.

"One thing I am sure of is that Romanov omega matters differently than his son," the man at the head of the table said.

"Still, I don’t think the message was for us," another said, as if offering insights into something else altogether.

But history...

History never lied.

"How many of ours died in the explosion?" the man at the head of the table asked, as if he didn’t know.

"All twelve who were in session. Only sixteen are left, but because they were not in the building at the time," the receptionist said, and the room suddenly chilled.

They had known this was bound for the longest time.

Maybe it was insane.

Maybe it was that far of a stretch.

But what the hell, right?

"Then we move forward. We can mourn our losses after we win. Because if he knows... If he suspects. Then we are dead anyway.

"We just have to make sure to hit him hard enough before he kills us all," the man at the head of the table said, and the people in the room agreed.

It was a suicide mission the moment they had come together against the devil of Frolo himself. Yet they still stayed committed.

"We have a way in. Senator Aleksandr," the receptionist said, and everyone turned to him like that was the most dangerous of things.

"He can ask the right questions," the receptionist insisted, and the man at the head of the table let out a laugh.

"This is beyond a mere senator. His questions won’t stop Sergei," he said.

"Then what will?" another asked, as the silence settled across the room.

"Something like Vitya," he said coldly.

"That leaves us with the Romanov omega. If we’re going to die, the devil has to bleed too," a woman said, like it was the most reasonable of choices.

"Sergei doesn’t care for the Romanov omega like you all think," the woman from before said, still scratching her nails.

"He lives for the Romanov omega. I have seen it," the man at the head of the table said.

"Looks like we got ourselves a go-ahead," the receptionist chuckled darkly, and everyone in the room joined in.

All except the man at the head of the table.

"Katya Romanov," he whispered like a prayer.