the devil within

@adricnaamaro· 

Brunette wasn’t a color Johnathan had expected to see on Adriana, but it suited her. Although she was with the Rutherfords – with family who would protect her – she looked so out of place that Johnathan eventually took pity on her and brought her a stiff drink. Fuck knows she needed it. “You came out of hiding, I see. I like your hair.”

"You say hiding, I say busy,” Adriana reached out for the drink, alcohol and some lines being two of the things that were helping to maintain her mood and keep her from thinking too much about the fact she was surrounded by people who, if given the choice, would probably break her neck. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the locker room psyching yourself up or something?”

It was hard to discern why Lara was so tense (he certainly didn’t remember it being this bad last time) but that didn’t mean Spencer couldn’t find entertainment in watching her rip some poor bastard to shreds for attempting to sit in the seat beside hers. None of them knew why she kept it empty for the entirety of the night. Judging by the look on her face, though, the guy would be demoted to the main floor for his overstep. 

The chief whip looked away from the woman for just long enough to notice another balcony member approach. Though the dim lightning made identifying the person a task–particularly in his already drunken haze–he offered out a cigar all the same.

“One of the privileged few, are we?”

“What would I have to pay to see you down there in the ring? I’m willing to negotiate a number, if necessary.”

While Adriana may have only been half joking, the thought of Spencer participating in any sort of fight that wasn’t a 2 am pub brawl was sort of humorous. Then again, knowing what the men who stepped into Lara’s ring looked like once they stepped out, if they stepped out...

“If I’d known you were going to nearly murder your opponent, I would have asked Lara to pair you with that French cunt’s husband.”

For being a politician, Silas was doing a significantly poor job in retaining how much he didn’t want to talk to anyone at that point of the night. Between the untouched drink in one hand and the other continuously kneading his sinuses, the MP was barely realizing how agitated he was until someone behind him slammed their drink down to the floor with a resounding shatter. He saw the crystals glide out all around him, even feeling a few bounce against his back, well frightening people around them, while some pieces had gotten high enough to stab and stay in his forearm. The menial drama behind him, which he knew was related to the mob wars in his city, disappeared as he all but launched himself toward the bathrooms. He hadn’t gotten far.

The Underground’s staff was quick. Even quicker it seemed with getting him to sit in a middling area between the balcony and the stage level where the same member tweezed out what bits were in his arm. Patiently he sat, trying his absolute damnedest to think about nothing else but the fights, and less about the morality.

With the new distance, he took in the view. It was all starting to come together; the divisions, the people, the names, the faces. He wasn’t sure how it had taken Rachael’s honesty and Elene’s death to open the floodgates of his awareness when it seemed so self-evident out there among the seats but he was grateful. Full of self-hatred but grateful. 

He couldn’t hate all of this, he supposed, as much as he had the first time. Just the once, on this disappointing day, he thought he could probably enjoy watching terrible people fight other terrible people for just a little bit of fame in their circles.

What a bunch of fucking road-accidents.

With that, the iota of ease that settled over the MPs disgust remained in this: the true winner here was Lara. For having manipulated and profited on the pride of raging cunts.

“That looks like it hurt.”

It didn’t matter how Svetlana felt about Lara Rutherford when all of her attention was focused on the fight club and her friends in that ring. The list of match ups delivered an unspoken, subtle slight that didn’t go unnoticed by anyone; they certainly revealed just what Lara thought of the alliance between her family and the Russians. Sveta chose to ignore it and instead enjoy her night. It promised to be a spectacle, after all. 

The room was cleverly split between French and Russians to avoid any bloodshed outside the ring. Naturally, obvious looks and cackled insults were exchanged rather loudly to poke and prod. Psychological warfare, if you will; whether it was successful or not would prove later in the ring. Despite the eon-old animosity between the two factions, they shared the ecstatic anticipation for the first fight. Sveta felt it, too. 

She didn’t plan to leave the other Russians’ much this evening, but when she did, it was to move her legs, watch people. Take a good look at her enemies. Talking wasn’t of much interest to her when, quite frankly, she had absolutely no interest, but when she caught someone looking back at her, she found herself asking, “You been to one of these before?”

This was the last place Adriana felt like being.

The yacht had been a close second, but at least the guest list had been more selective.

She hadn’t even intended on venturing off of the balcony, especially not after looking down at the crowd and seeing all of them for what they were: caged, crazed, blood hungry animals. And while her irritation for the guests laid mainly with the French in attendance, it wasn’t as if she were jumping for joy at having to share breathing space the Vorshevsky’s and Kurylenko’s either. But it was Lara’s birthday and after everything that they and the rest of the Rutherford family had been through over the last few months, Adriana would be damned if she missed out on something as important as this.

Her only intention had been to step outside for a cigarette, though when Adriana noted the familiar blonde, even if she was a Vorshevsky, the now brunette only shrugged at her question.

“Once or twice,” Adriana brought the cigarette to her lips, taking a long drag before ashing as far away from her own dress as she could. “Never did quite get used to the sound of another person’s bone breaking.”

16TH OF JUNE, 1991

"It’s important that we come to visit every year, my love,” Amada gripped a three year old Adriana tightly in her arms as she stared at the grave marker in front of her. “Every year. You understand?”

As a three year old, Adriana, of course, didn’t understand. How could she? It was an impossible situation for such a young mind to grasp; not just the concept of death, but the death of a parent? Especially a parent as genuinely wonderful, hardworking, and attentive as Adriana’s father had been. 

Still, when her mother asked if she understood, Adriana nodded.

17TH OF JUNE, 2001

“I don’t even understand why we have to be here,” Adriana huffed loudly, face twisted into a God awful pout as her arms crossed over her chest. “This is so dumb.”

Like any teenager, especially a teenager with a social life as jam packed as Adriana’s, taking time away to fly to London to deliver flowers to a gravestone wasn’t exactly on her list of priorities. And definitely not when it happened to fall on what was supposed to be the very first weekend of summer vacation.

She and Lara had been in the midst of planning when Amada had overheard their conversation and reminded Adriana of her prior engagement.

“Adriana Leya Amaro,” the full name, the dreaded fucking full name, “if you do not stop acting like a spoiled, whining brat, you won’t have to worry about a summer vacation because you won’t have one.”

Hearing the tone of her mother’s voice without the threat of losing her summer plans would have been enough, but the thought of spending three months locked inside while her friends were out enjoying themselves forced the tiny blonde to put her attitude away.

Pulling up to the cemetery, the shift in atmosphere was immediate, Amada thanking the driver before picking up the bouquet of flowers she had brought before ushering Adriana out of the car. The walk to her father’s grave was familiar, one the pair had taken year, after year, after year. Adriana watched in silence as her mother placed the flowers in front of the grave, clearly trying to hold back to tears as she whispered a prayer quietly under her breath.

“Do you have anything to say?” Amada turned to look at her only daughter, urging her forward. Adriana stepped up, staring down at her father’s grave as she tried to think of anything to say.

What was she supposed to do? Pour her heart out? Cry? Say nothing?

“Um,” Adriana paused, looking up at her mother before her gaze shifted back down towards the ground. “Uh, Happy Father’s Day.”

20TH OF JUNE, 2010

“I can’t hear you, Ma, hold on,” Adriana pressed her phone as close to her ear as she could, weaving through the back dressing room at Vixen towards the private bathroom reserved only for the dancers. “Alright, I’m sorry, I can hear now. What did you say?”

“Where are you, Adriana?” Amada shouted, loud enough that Adriana had to yank the phone away from her ear. “You know how important today is.”

Father’s Day.

“Mom, I told you I had to work,” Despite being almost twenty-three years old, when it came to her mother, Adriana would always be a little girl. “There was nothing I could do.”

Technically, there was something Adriana could have done. Cecelia had been more than willing to give the Vixen time off, especially after Adriana had explained why.

“They needed me—,”

“Don’t you dare, Adriana,” her mother’s voice came through the speaker again, while her volume may have been lower, the hurt in her voice radiated. “Don’t you dare lie to me. Not ever, but especially not today.”

“Mom, I didn’t—,”

“Not another word, Adriana,” this time Amada shouted, the pain behind her words felt like a knife to the dancer’s chest, suddenly wishing she could turn back time and accept Cecelia’s offer for the days off. “We’ll talk when I’m back in Porto Velho. I have never been more disappointed in you and your father would be, too.”

Click.

21ST OF JUNE, 2020

It was two grave markers now.

Like the promises they had made to each other on their wedding day, Jair and Amada Amaro would spend their lives, and whatever eternal afterlife was waiting for them, together.

“I remember you made me promise that I would visit every year,” the former Vixen’s gaze fell on her mother’s plot, noting the giant arrangement of flowers that were planted around it. “I know I didn’t keep my promise, but I will this time.”

It had been years since the last time Adriana had been to visit her father’s grave. The yearly tradition, despite Amara continuing it, had been left by the wayside by the former Vixen. It was after the first year Adriana missed that Amara had stopped asking her to come, something the dancer hadn’t realized she should have been bothered by until now.

“I promise, every year, I’ll be here,” she swiped at the tears that flowed down her cheeks, bending down to place the new bouquet in front of her father’s gravestone, the same way her mother had for so many years. “I’m so sorry I missed all those years. I am so, so sorry.”

After everything that had happened since the start of the new year, Adriana had done her best to remain as far away from any kind of attention or spotlight, which would have been a foreign fucking concept a year ago. Too much had happened, too much for Adriana to not at least try and be better. To try and be the person her parents had wanted her to be.

After all that’d happened, to be paired with a Rutherford could’ve seemed a kick in the teeth.

Though he didn’t pretend to understand the extent of the mob wars that’d now plagued three cities he’d, at some point, called home, he did wonder how much dragged on due to misplaced frustrations. It would’ve been easy to be angry at her, at Lara, at Damon, purely because of those they called family; the curse of an affiliation they’d never chosen.

But Adriana had no say in what they did. She hadn’t been there with a gun.

The woman might’ve had plenty of reasons to dislike him–most of them, he suspected, blind loyalty to his ex-fiancée–but she didn’t have a single excuse to want that. Amir had seen her as a sister once; knew that no matter how hard she tried, she was not the kind of person Lara was. But still, she had been dragged into this, just the same as him. She had suffered at Sisyphos with the others. None of them came out of affiliations like theirs unscathed.

Amir didn’t want to see her uncomfortable. Not after everything.

“I promise I’ll only throw a minor tantrum if you want to ask Damon for a less shit partner.”

@adricnaamaro​

“A date to his school dance?” 

If she was being honest, it was the first thing that had made her genuinely smile all night. Despite Felix being the only actual child Adriana told everyone she liked, the notion that out of all the things the ten year old boy could have wished for, he spent one of them on her was sweet. 

The sound of Amir’s voice pulled Adriana from her own thoughts, realizing almost instantly that this was the first time she had even seen him since New Year’s Eve. As much disdain as Adriana had for the French, it was difficult for her to put Amir in that same light. Even after his break-up with Lara when the businessman had been public enemy number one, Adriana had preferred to simply avoid seeing him rather than cause any sort of scene. His words weren’t aggressive or even angry, which offered Adriana a bit of relief given the rage even she thought he was well within his rights to be feeling towards her.

“Really, you should be begging me to stick around,” the former Vixen looked down at her card again. “I mean, we just got our wish requests and already can mark one down as fulfilled.” And while Adriana could definitely find some way to get her hands on a yacht for a day, she figured that might be more up her partner’s ally. “Unless you expect me to carry this entire team on my back...”

“You’d be surprised the humbug people you can find at events like these. People that show up only because they feel like their image will suffer if they don’t at least make an appearance and really could give less of a crap. I see things like that all the time.” She said with a shrug of one shoulder. She grabbed a glass of champagne that was floating around and took a sip her eyes wandering over the party guests in their attire.

She was trying to shake the feeling she wasn’t safe, that none of her family was safe when she remembered Varden was not far away and would be there if anything happened. Still the girl had a point. “No kidding. If people manage to screw this up, the world really is doomed. I’m Emilia.” She offered softly.

It took damn near every ounce of restraint not to roll her eyes and scoff in the other woman’s face. People came to charity events that didn’t actually give a fuck about the charity at hand? Groundbreaking. “I’ve been doing this for awhile,” Adriana smiled, though there wasn’t much friendliness behind it. “Nothing really surprises me anymore.” Like, for example, trying to bring in the New Year and winding up in the fucking hospital. Or trying to enjoy a drink at a bar and getting your face smashed into the counter top.

“Emilia,” Adriana repeated, the grip on her champagne flute tightening. “You must have known Maya Alliot then, right? Such a shame to hear what happened to her. Hopefully she didn’t suffer.” 

Hopefully she fucking did.

With his back leaning against the pretentious walls of the Empire Hotel, Maksim was enjoying his first cigarette of the night.

It had been the first time he saw Noa since you, know, he had Aviv brutally cut off her finger. Honestly, Maksim wanted to feel bad, looking at her butchered hand, but instead of seeing a woman he once loved, all he saw was an enemy, a person who refused to help him when he was looking for Larissa’s murderer.

Yeah, he didn’t regret shit when it came to Noa.

Maksim was about to pull out his phone and shoot a text to Aviv, when he saw Adriana rush outside, muttering the same date over and over again. He was no fucking shrink, but the dancer looked rattled.

He tossed away his cigarette and walked over to her. “Are you having some ‘Memento’ moment or you’re just excited for today?” he tried to lighten the mood, “Seriously, though, you alright? Can I help?”

“Jesus fucking Christ! Has no one ever told you it’s fucking rude to sneak up on people?”

If she hadn’t been totally panicked before, the dancer definitely felt her heartbeat quicken at the sound of the slightly familiar voice. He wasn’t an enemy. Or was he? Frankly, she couldn’t fucking remember and at the moment, figuring it out wasn’t her top priority.

She closed her eyes, trying to tune out anything and everything and focus only on her breathing. While the shattering glass had been the catalyst that had driven Adriana into her current predicament, she knew deep down that her reservations about the outcome of the evening had been mounting since she’d walked in the door. The last time Adriana had been in a room with this many members of the St. Clair Organization, she’d wound up locked in a closet after getting the shit beat out of her.

At least she could take a small amount of solace in knowing that the culprit was not dead. Dumb bitch.

“Can you rewind time and make it so the French fucks in the other room had just stayed in that hell city they’re always talking about back in Massachusetts?”

Jack was startled when a random figure appeared to shout at the paparazzi, something he only ever dreamed of doing but never followed through with. After all, something like that might only make him more of a target and he thought he was doing a good job of flying under the radar with his private life. The woman’s commands were effective, though, and the cameras started to retreat as Jack stood back up again.

“Um, thank you?” Jack said. “No, no, I mean, um, definitely, thank you. I, um, I’ve never gotten used to that. So thank you. Again. Definitely.” Tying a shoe wasn’t that big of a deal, he recognized that as much as she did. But he knew that wasn’t why they were so interested - they were interested in seeing how he did it using the weight of his unresponsive left hand’s fingers only to try to keep laces in place as the other hand moved deftly around it. Tying his shoe that way was one of the first things he’d learned, and he was most comfortable doing it in a pair of sneakers he’d done this in a hundred times.

Adriana’s glare remained directed on the photographers, watching them retreat away like the rats they were. For the most part, Adriana had grown to have a relatively decent relationship with the paparazzi, most because there was rarely a time when the blonde didn’t want to be photographed. Unfortunately, the blonde’s usual ‘happy to smile and spin’ attitude towards the cameras was no where to be fucking found that evening.

Looking down as the gentleman thanked her, continuously, Adriana watched as Jack finally managed to get his shoe tied. 

“You know you should really learn to tell them to ‘fuck off’ or else they’re going to walk over you,” the blonde moved to rest her hands on her hips as she let out a soft sigh. “I mean, you shouldn’t tell them to fuck off every time because that will make you look ridiculous, but sometimes the bottoms feeders need to be reminded that we are the reason they have jobs.”

Yvonne smiled at Adriana, though her eyes narrowed as she watched her friend drain the glass. Catching up with her was on her to-do list and she felt terrible about not reaching out sooner. That would have to change after that night. After all, Adriana was her sister in all but blood.

“I just got to London, to stay this time. So of course I wasn’t going to miss Damon’s big event….Or a chance to help the children, of course,” she added quickly. Nobody was here without an ulterior motive, of course, but Yvonne wasn’t going to be the first one to admit it out loud. “Thank you. You look amazing as well. I adore the flowers and beadwork.”

“Damon must be thrilled that you’re here,” Adriana smiled and nodded, tilting her head back to drain what was left of the drink before placing the empty champagne flute onto a tray. “Having everyone all together under one roof will be nice.”

Despite her efforts to sound cheery and believable, even Adriana had a difficult time believing that it would be smooth sailing with all of the Rutherford’s in one city. At the very least, the former Vixen knew they’d all be able to keep it together for at least one evening, especially after seeing how much work Damon had put into it.

“Did you find out who you’re partnered with yet?”

How’s Guildford?

Quiet.

Even after her phone call with Pavel had ended, Sveta decided to remain outside for a just a while longer. She appreciated the moment of calm; London’s night life was silent compared to what was going on inside the hotel. The party was wonderful – as Damon’s shindigs always were – but Sveta wasn’t in a hurry to get back. Last she saw Vitaly, he was hanging around Maksim and his gang. He wouldn’t need her to come back inside so fast.

The sound of the door opening behind her caught her attention, and she turned around to see who it was. Although she had never spoken personally to her, Sveta recognized the woman as the Vixen who had made TWI headlines lately. A rather charming encounter with Noa Halévy had left her with a broken nose. Sveta was about to excuse herself and go back inside when she noticed that Adriana was on the brink of losing herself.

Normally, the Vorshevsky wouldn’t have cared. She shouldn’t have cared. This was neither the time nor occassion, and Sveta wasn’t a therapist. But the way she paced, wrung her hands, muttered to herself, her eyes so distant and yet frantic–

It reminded Sveta of all the times she heard the thundering thud, thud, thud of her father’s boots down the hallway, approaching her room.

She didn’t think about it when she walked over to Adriana and grabbed her by the hands, giving them a tight squeeze. “Breathe,” she told the woman. “Just keep breathing. In and out, deep breaths.”

Her initial reaction was to jerk her hands away, not out of anger or disgust, but because Adriana had no fucking idea what was going on and the unexpected approach of the Vorshevsky woman caused her to retreat back a few steps.

“Please— just please don’t touch me right now,” the former Vixen began trying to shake her hands, grateful when the tingling feeling started to slightly subside. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just can’t be— sorry.”  

What the fuck was happening to her? This wasn’t something that Adriana knew how to deal with. The most traumatic thing the dancer had even gone through up until New Year’s had been her father dying and even those memories were foggy, at best. Now here she was, cowering in the corner on what was supposed to be a fantastic night. The woman’s words kept echoing in her mind, despite the distance Adriana had put between them: breathe, in and out. 

Keep breathing.

While the fuzziness in Adriana’s head still remained, she managed to look over at the other woman and offer, what she hoped was at least a semi-convincing smile.

“Is this something that happens to you often?” she wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t. “Helping random party goers get through their—-,” she stopped herself from continuing, unwilling to put a name to whatever the fuck was happening to her. “You can go back inside if you want. I’ll be fine.” 

Would she?   

Yvonne: Don't you dare, Damon Felix Rutherford.

Yvonne: Give me a moment to process my shock before resorting to drastic measures.

Damon: Okay but can we talk about Ben Affleck?

Gideon: @adriana Forward me his number so I can bring him next time. xo