The Alchemists

"I can't wait to see Mommy..." said Altair when they had finished lunch and he was ready to sleep in his flatbed seat. "I'm glad we finally go straight to Romania. It's weird ... How all flights are canceled."

The boy's words immediately stunned Nicolae. He was so busy with his own thoughts that he did not even delve further into the weirdness of what happened today. Altair was right. The cancellation of all flights to Italy today was quite strange.

He could overlook one, two ... even three canceled flights... but five? And if he was not mistaken, there were a total of 15 flights going to Italy today and all of them were canceled.

Lest this is just a prankster or someone who had bad intentions. But who was the culprit?

More importantly... who was the target? Was that person one of the passengers going the plane to Italy ... or perhaps ... Nicolae himself?

The man frowned, trying to think of anyone who might want to disrupt his trip.

Hmm ... He would try to investigate this later when he was not busy. What's important now is that they could arrive in Targu Mures safely.

After making sure Altair and Vega were sleeping, he opened his tablet and used the plane wifi to find out what really happened.

"Hmm ... all the canceled flights have now been restored. What really happened? Does this have something to do with me?" Nicolae murmured to himself in puzzlement. From the data he found, he concluded that someone hacked all flights scheduled to leave Changi airport and canceled the flights to Italy.

Hmm ...

Ah, damn it!

He just remembered that ten years ago Alaric set up a huge bounty for anyone who could find Wolf. It's been a long time, and there were not that many people chasing Wolf anymore. Nevertheless, he still found some bounty hunters trying to find his tracks every now and then.

What if this incident was caused by one of those hackers? That means, someone managed to track him all the way to Singapore and now Romania ... ugh ...

So far, Nicolae had been lucky because he had a lot of friends who were kind enough to help cover his tracks. Nicolae hardly felt any trouble throughout the years. But, if this incident was really caused by the bounty announcement from ten years ago, then he might be running out of luck. Both he and Alaric forgot about that bounty after they were reunited and none of them thought about canceling it.

Nicolae could only sigh. He made a mental note to ask Alaric to cancel the bounty to avoid more problems in the future. He also had to remove all his tracks as Nicolae Sorin. He couldn't risk getting exposed as Wolf with this identity.

Hmm ... Nicolae thought hard about how he should end his current identity so he could really disappear and get a new identity.

Ahh well .. he would think about it later. He already had too much on his plate.

Finally, Nicolae chose to take sleeping pills so that he could rest on the journey. When he woke up, his mind was still busy thinking about various things that made him depressed. 

While still at Changi airport, he did make the decision to fly directly to Romania with Altair and Vega. However, there was still some doubt in Nicolae's mind, whether he would really be able to behave normally and look fine in front of Aleksis or not.

What made him quite uneasy was the fact that he must immediately return Altair and Vega to their biological parents. He was very fond of the two children. And he understood that he could only visit them often at their parents' residence if he could get rid of his romantic feelings for Aleksis.

Another thing that also disturbed his mind was his memory of Marie's face. Nicolae had said goodbye to the girl via SMS, but Marie had not replied to his message until the last moment when Nicolae finally boarded the plane.

He didn't know whether Marie was too busy to reply to his message, or the girl intentionally didn't reply since Nicolae's text clearly told her that he had no intention of returning to Singapore soon and that he expected Marie to continue her life and not think about him.

Nicolae hoped that it was the latter. It would be good for Marie to forget about him and did not expect much, especially because Nicolae would 'end' his identity as Nicolae Sorin.

He could only hope that the girl would be fine. Maybe someday he would look for news about Marie to find out how she was doing. But in the meantime, he will try to forget about her.

***

When Nicolae, Altair, and Vega landed at the Bucharest airport, Alaric's private plane was already waiting to take them to Targu Mures. From Targu Mures airport, the three of them immediately headed to Alaric's castle on the hilltop.

They arrived when the deer hunting activity just ended. Nicolae's c.h.e.s.t began to feel light when he saw Aleksis at the courtyard. His heart was still feeling some pain, but it was not as bad as before ... He could even smile, seeing Alaric holding Aleksis intimately.

But if it's Alaric, Nicolae could give them his blessings. His brother was the only person he would trust to make Aleksis happy.

"Mommy.... !!!" the twins exclaimed in unison when they saw Aleksis and Alaric coming and ran toward them excitedly.

Aleksis immediately turned around and found Altair and Vega hugging her tightly. Ahhh .. she really missed her firstborns. With teary eyes, she crouched down and embraced them lovingly.