the forgotten prince.

‘oh no, old friend. i think starling’s around somewhere waiting for the fourth dance she promised me.’ olyvar could’ve held it in but he was practically itching to say it since the second he’d seen the other. he wasn’t full of disgust, he liked to think himself above their petty drama, wanting to leave it behind. probably because he still wasn’t over losing, so no matter how hard olyvar tried, he couldn’t leave it behind. not while dimitri lived and breathed. that was even more dramatic, olyvar wouldn’t ever dare do anything severe against his old school friend, bad as he wanted to right now. ‘why would i seduce a fiancée you don’t even like? bit problematic, dimitri. you never will grow up, will you?’

he rolled his eyes, not liking being under his observation– and for what reason? he hadn’t done anything to warrant this pest’s attention. ‘could’ve kept it to yourself, valentina. i’ve had plenty of conversation, none of which i care to discuss with you. i did have a rather nice one with your brother, though. maybe a peters’, valentina reunion isn’t as far off as you think. it just won’t be you and i.’ he scoffed loudly, stepping in closer to glare at the other when he called himself king. ‘oh stupid, immature dimitri. kings do something to deserve their crowns, they don’t complain and whine until it’s placed on their heads. if i am common folk, i’m glad to be it. don’t bother sullying yourself with us again.’

At the mention of Arielle, Dimitri’s nostrils flared and he felt his fingers twitching as he resisted the urge to curl his hand into a fist and pummel it into Olyvar’s snotty face. It shouldn’t have bothered him, he supposed, that Olyvar had taken an interest in his best friend; except, it did. Peters was a bit of a whore, truth be told; there was no telling how many knickers and boxer briefs he had managed to slip under,and the thought of him getting close enough to Arielle to creep beneath her defenses sent a shock of irritation flaring through him.

That was all it was, right? Just concern on behalf of his best friend and absolutely no jealousy in any way, shape, or form.

“Lucky for the both of us, Arielle has higher quality taste than to sully herself with the likes of a Peters,” he murmured, a dark, wry smirk slipping across his features. “Something about bad luck and all that. Peters always seem to end up dead, one way or another.”

“For all you know, my brother could have viewed you as a charity case,” he said, rolling his eyes skyward and scoffing at the comment. He’d have to speak with Viktor later--whatever his brother felt in regards to Olyvar, there was no way the Peters boy would make a good associate of any kind. He was too unpredictable; too unruly to trust. “Stupid and immature? If I recall correctly, Peters--which I do, by the way, because I don’t spend most of my time fucking anything with a sexual organ--I was near the top of our class. Right alongside you; not quite sure how you managed that, exactly. Nepotism? Sleeping with the instructors? I suppose we’ll never know.”

@dimitrivalentina· / haHAhaHAhaHA plEASe KILL mE

If there was a God, he would let this night end with her getting information she needed about the diamonds and she got to go home with Raymond to get lucky. Then Audric, Nathan, and herself could go home happy, without a care in the world. Well… Audric did have to worry about that whole divorce-but-not-actual-divorce thing. She kept her word, she hadn’t told Nathan anything about that, so hopefully, there would be no issues concerning that shit show. Now the only thing she had to do was stop brooding in the ladies room and go out to join her date. 

Avery slid out of the ladies room, scanning the room to find Raymond again, ready to go rejoin him when she, for the second time in the past two weeks, nearly ran straight into Dimitri Valentina.

God, Avery decided, was dead. 

“Oh fuck me,” Avery muttered, under her breath, before she could stop herself.

Well at least this time her brain didn’t completely melt into a puddle of goo as she panicked about seeing someone she knew in high school like it did last time, though this time she could talk about the gecko from the car insurance commercials and make him think she was absolutely insane. What had she said last time? Mumbled something about mathematics and Paris and and how she couldn’t decide what she wanted to study - Also, probably shouldn’t have said she was going back soon. Stupid. Lies were hard to control, and now she just got caught in one. But he didn’t need to know that, maybe she changed her mind and was just being a rich spoiled brat and not going back to school or something. At least she was dressed appropriately this time. Her mother should be proud, she looked like the little rich girl she once was, pretty in pink even. 

Had he seen her with Raymond? Were any of his friends here - did he even have friends? Had they seen her with Raymond? The stain that had been on her dress had almost lifted completely, so she looked fine, but had any of them seen her with Raymond? What about his clown car family - Nope. This was not going to be a repeat of last time. Nope. She wasn’t panicking. If Avery kept telling herself she was the definition of calm, she wouldn’t freak out.

“Valentina,” Avery said, pleasantly, despite cursing under her breath just a second ago. She even flashed him a smile. “Fancy running into you again,” Where was Raymond - or Kat? Kat was here. She could hide her. Or Audric. Fuck. She’d even take Nathan. Her gaze flickered down to his plaid suit, before glancing around. 

“You look decent. I didn’t know you were coming.” 

The party had erupted into chaos around him, and somehow--some way--Dimitri had managed to lose Arielle in the crowd. He couldn’t be sure just yet what was going on, but to the best of his knowledge, something about a fight breaking out regarding the diamonds. Shit. Arielle looked all the parts of a civilian, so maybe she’d be safe, but there was no guarantee. Not when it came to the mob. He’d whipped out his phone, frantically texting her in an effort to locate his best friend as he rounded a corner in the hallway and nearly bumped into--Avery Cross, of all the people in the world. He blinked, staggering back as she exited the ladies’ room in an effort not to run smack dab into her as he glanced up from his phone. This was--what? The second time they had nearly run into each other in the matter of a few weeks? After not having seen each other for years? 

And wasn’t she supposed to be back in Europe by now?

“As much as I enjoy the pleasantries, Cross, and the accurate compliments of my physical state,” Dimitri began, pressing “send” on his message to Avery and glancing over his shoulder at the abandoned hallway behind him. No one had followed him out here--not yet, at least. He might not have been as involved in the mob as someone like his brother, the current reigning Pakhan, was, but he was still a sitting duck. A duck who had no business being here; a duck who was missing his date. His friend. “We have a bit of a situation going on.”

Without explaining anything, he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her down the hall, away from the vulnerable openness of the corridor and just around the corner, so that they were concealed from the main drag of the hallway. He glanced around the corner, and then fumbled around on the inside of coat for the gun he’d brought with him tonight. A small revolver, gifted to him by his father when he was younger. Truly, it was usually just for show.

“I take it you don’t have a weapon hidden in that dress of yours?” he commented with a nod towards her, securing his gun to his holster and draping his suit jacket over it once more. “Here’s the thing, Cross. Shit has hit the fan out there.”

☼ @dimitrivalentina ☼

       Pardon Soleil and his lack of knowledge about the… well - about everything that was going on in the Corsican organization. He didn’t know who was who, or who disliked who for what reasons. And, because he was so uninvolved (for the most part) even within his own organization, he didn’t know who was who outside of the Corsicans even more than usual. Anyone at this party could be anyone at all - they could tell him that they were anyone at all, and he’d believe them. Perhaps this wasn’t the best crowd to be so gullible in, but he could only blame his own lack of involvement for being so.

     That’s why he was almost eager to strike up conversations with as many people as he could throughout the night. Why he’d been complimenting almost everyone he came across on their appearance - it was a good way to start a conversation, and, from there, build a relationship, whether professional or personal. “That is a very nice suit,” he pointed out to the man whom he’d ended up beside. “Not my taste, exactly, but it looks very good on you.”

Dimitri glanced down at his blue checkered suit when a young man, unbeknownst to him personally, sidled up alongside him. He blinked and then glanced at the stranger in question, a slight upturning of his lips the first response to the stranger’s compliment of sorts. 

“I could say the same about your own,” he answered smoothly in kind, nodding his head towards the blue-and-floral suit he was decked out in for the evening. It was a show-stopping piece, to suffice, but not up to Dimitri’s personal tastes in the slightest. He doubted he could have pulled florals off himself, the more he thought about it. He brought his glass of white wine to his lips, taking a sip and eyeing the other man over the rim of his glass. “I can’t say I’ve seen you around before, though--are you new to the area?”

by god, he hated the past. he hated these events because they reminded him of the past. there was the happy past, seeing the friends he hadn’t seen in years– if they were even to be considered friends, then there was the sad past, which had anything to do with the losses he’d dealt with. the sympathy of his parents, his sister, his esteemed grandparents or anything in the middle. he had to stay quiet and accept their sympathy but god it fueled his rage. and then there was dimitri valentina. 

the sole cause of his current headache, from the moment he’d stepped foot in this party, this man had been a discomfort. it’d been years… maybe 10? 11? time flew, his anger, his hatred did not fade. he could remember it like yesterday, the feeling of losing, the look on his stupid face. if words were spoken, he couldn’t remember then but he remembered the look in his eyes; the loss of pride, it was the worst one he’d had. perhaps a bad year, in teenage adolescence but he never was able to get over it. never was able to swallow his pride and even just move on. 

he barely contained his discomfort as the other grew closer, his shoulders tensing as he gripped his glass tighter and stood afraid of breaking it. he couldn’t handle that embarrassment now. olyvar’s eyes followed behind dimitri to where his betrothed stood and he smiled sweetly before casting them back on his old schoolmate and the smile faded in seconds. ‘congratulations, then. may some deity help her not claw her eyes out to the mere thought of waking up to your face in the morning. did you need something, valentina? other than petty insults and childish games? is your life so boring you’ve come to rile me up?’ he scoffed in disgust, holding his tone steady even if his eyes only saw red, ‘go on, what have you got to say?’ 

Honestly, who had even let Peters in the front door? Olyvar was an absolute mess, in Dimitri’s humble and absolutely unbiased opinion, and had no place being surrounded by the elite of society. If Dimitri had been more of a spoiled brat, perhaps he would have used his family’s influence with the mafia to wipe the blot of Olyvar Peters’ existence from the face of the Earth. It would have been so easy to get rid of a thorn in his side with his family’s connections, but something had always stopped him from making the call. Perhaps it was realizing it was little more than innate pettiness, or perhaps he’d never fully wanted to bother with taking up the task of dealing with Olyvar to begin with.

But the fact of the matter is, he was here and assassination was beginning to look ripe for the taking once more.

“Would you like a crack at her, then?” Dimitri purred, his brows arching high on his forehead as he witnessed the sly grin that slipped across Olyvar’s features. His fingers tightened on his own glass, almost reflexively, and he wondered how unsettled and unkempt Olyvar would be doused in alcohol and with glass smashed in his face. How one person had maintained such an infuriating existence for nearly thirty years without having the absolute shit beat out of him was beyond Dimitri.

“What? Old school friends can’t reunite?” Dimitri challenged, sipping at the contents of his glass and eyeing Olyvar over the rim of it. “Consider it an act of charity, Peters; I knew no one else would bother to deign speaking to you. Even kings sully themselves with the common folk every now and again. If I didn’t worry about contracting a disease, I’d let you anoint my ring as a show of appreciation for my attention.”

There were three things souring Dimitri Valentina’s mood for the evening. The first being that he was still betrothed, and to an absolute she-witch at that, despite his best efforts to convince his elder brother that political marriages were a thing of the Ottoman Empire and, therefore, decidedly in the past. Dimitri’s second grievance dealt with the supposed open bar situated at the Garden Hotel, and the lack of knowledge the tender seemed to have on slavic drinks. He’d nearly tossed his glass across the room when the bartender had given him a blank, disinterested look after Dimitri had ordered a Tolstoy Tang. A who? the man had asked, and the urge to rip every single gaudy drape from the room and smother the imbecile with it grew bright and stinging.

The third grievance Dimitri had for the evening came in the form of the pouty-lipped, smug-faced bastard he’d spotted across the room upon entering the establishment. Olyvar Peters or, as Dimitri privately preferred to call him, that puffer fish-faced motherfucker. Excusing himself momentarily from Arielle’s presence, Dimitri made his way across the room to where Olyvar was standing, his sub-par single malt whiskey dangling from his fingertips in a crystal glass.

“Well, well, well,” he began smoothly, lifting the crystal glass to his lips and taking a sip. “Look what the cat dragged in. A rat.”

DIMITRI VALENTINA ☾ GOLIGHTLY GALA

“You know, like the bear.” Avery said, faintly. Prevent fires. Why was she thinking about that stupid bear - the commercial only you can prevent forest fires. Like that was at all helpful in this situation. She could pretend that she wasn’t the charming Avery Cross from childhood, but she’d already called him Dimitri and clearly recognized her. Though she was sure charming had been sarcasm. Avery was always teenage rebellion, angst, and biting vulgarity rolled into one, and frequently liked to scandalize the old women in their tight knit social circle. 

Worse went worst when he pointed at the extraordinarily expensive hotel behind her. Telling her she could get out of the rain that way by staying in the lounge. She was pretty sure even the hefty amount of cash she had on her wouldn’t be enough to cover a room for a night, let alone any longer than that. Avery was blanking, and she was blanking hard. Her mother had yet to find out what she was doing to earn a living while being cut off from Daddy’s endless supply of of money, and she wanted to keep it that way. She wracked her brain, begging it to work like it normally did. 

Where was the Avery that could turn men into a puddle, riding them until they told her their deepest, darkest secrets?. Sure as hell not here. Not that she wanted to learn any of Dimitri’s deepest, darkest secrets, she just wanted to get the fuck out of here. Maybe she could flash him and run - could she out run him this early in the morning with heels on without coffee? Would he chase her? Probably not, but then he could go tell Tom Snelling or whoever the fuck else was in their tight little social group like “Hey man, remember Avery Cross? She’s supposed to be in Paris but she acted like a total fucking whack job the other day -” and then her family could find her and - well, she wanted to avoid that shit. At least she didn’t have “I’M A PART OF THE SHADOW MOB” tattoo’d on her forehead or she’d really be fucked.

“Uh-” Avery said glancing back at the hotel. “I’m not staying there, actually. I’m staying somewhere else. I was just…” Just what? “… Seeing a friend of mine that flew in from Europe last night.” Oh thank god. Her brain rebooted. Words were making sense - that seemed like a normal thing that could explain why she was coming out of a hotel. And he didn’t need to know what friend. The lie came from her far easier than the rain one - though, the angry clouds in the sky seem to indicate rain. She’d have to get home and borrow an umbrella from one of the other girls.

“You’re not staying there, are you?” Avery asked, before she could stop herself. 

"Like the bear,” Dimitri repeated slowly, blinking as he tried to funnel his way through her rather strange vein of logic. He cocked his head slightly, his brows furrowing together as a crease appeared in the middle of his forehead. Was she quite alright in the head, or had her time studying abroad done something to her sensibilities? He glanced around at the concrete jungle of Manhattan, from the neon-glowing streetlights to the people bustling to and fro, chattering on their smart phones and stuffing air pods in their ears. Finally, once his gaze had settled on Avery once more, a bemused expression had settled in his feature. “Not sure how many forest fires you’re planning on putting out in the city, Cross. I’d recommend trying the Pacific Northwest.”

She seemed unsettled by Dimitri’s presence, and try as he might to wrack his brain to figure out what, possibly, he could have done to offend the young woman this severely, his mind continued to come up blank. It was true, he wasn’t the friendliest or even the most social among the elite and wealthy families of New York, but he supposed that wasn’t too far off from the brand of being an extremely privileged, extremely bored adolescent. Avery was just young enough that he hadn’t dealt with her intimately much of the time they were growing up, but even still, Dimitri found himself merely regarding his peers with disinterest, boredom, and only vague disdain. She wouldn’t have stood out among the rest of the crowd in terms of treatment to him.

Which made him only even more curious as to what, possibly, young Miss Cross could be hiding from him.

“Visiting a friend,” he repeated, as though he were talking to a child. “And decided to leave your friend to come out in what you described as dismal weather? My, my, you must not have been very entertaining company. What part of Europe? Paris, like you, perhaps? I hope you’ve had a chance to study the Louvre, it’s my favorite centerpiece of the entire city.” He hesitated when she asked if he was staying at the hotel; such an odd question, all things considered. She knew he lived in the city--true, he could have rented a room for himself if he wanted to get away from his family, but honestly, why would he?

“Belive it or not, Cross, I was merely walking down the street like every other person you see here,” he gestured around them. “Unless, of course, you presume we’re all squeezing into the hotel. But tell me, how is Europe? What are you studying?”

@dimitrivalentina !!

She’s sin personified, clad in a little skin-tight ruby red number complete with a Paris label—a siren’s uniform if there ever was one. There’s a certain look of utter discontent that twinkles like the glimmer of a diamond in both eyes as she scans the scene ahead of her. The High Tide Lounge, for all of its hype, is virtually unimpressive to say the least. Margaux is, as always, expecting more from everything around her and she never fails to be disappointed when nothing meets her outrageously high standards. Aren’t all god’s just positively insatiable? Is not commonplace for those like her in status to crave the the absolutely impossible? Men don’t become immortal by taking only what’s been given to them. So no, Margaux is never impressed by the usual or the expected. What exactly makes this dive any better than the rooftop of the Garden Hotel? By invitation only, one can sit beside wealthy elites in the lounge and compare towering Hampton estates and trust funds over top shelf liquor. That’s a typical Tuesday afternoon for Margaux. Where the fuck is the big twist?

She’s here for a good reason. It’s time to put a face to the little princeling who’s hand supposedly belongs to her now. Margaux’s heard stories of him and they’re all just as pedestrian as one might imagine. He’s handsome, that much Margaux has been assured of. This engagement is enough of an insult, so at least he’ll be pretty to look at when he’s down on his knees by her command. A tall man leads her to the empty booth where she’s meant to wait for him, and already she’s counting this as the first slight (one that she’s not likely to forget). Who the fuck is he to make her wait for him here like some afterthought? She’s patient, yes, but she’s never been too keen on waiting for something she can’t care less about. Suddenly, she remembers the pretty little cardstock invitation and bouquet of typical red roses that had been sent to her penthouse suite a day ago and quickly makes a mental note to shred both the note and the flowers the moment she returns home. No doubt the letter and flowers had been sent to her from some nameless secretary or servant.

It’s all for Damien, she reminds herself. It’s for him, and for their business. To belong is to serve, so she’ll swallow her pride and sink down into the booth as is expected of her. Still, she’s agreed to meet on his turf, the least he could do is arrive earlier than her and save her the embarrassment of waiting around for him like some forgotten appointment. Before he can slip away from her, Margaux waves the tall man down with a bit of annoyance wafting from the gesture. “Dry martini” there’s hints of boredom in the tone of her voice as she orders the drink because now she must suffer through having her time wasted. Within a few short moments, the tall man returns to the table carrying her single drink on a silver tray. Just as she’s taking her first sip, another figure emerges from behind the man, and her dark eyes immediately latch on to him. Finally, the Valentina boy has arrived. Let the games begin.

They could have met, he supposed, at a ritzy espresso bar or pretentious cafe in the Upper East side; they could have even met for a light lunch and drinks on the elegant rooftop bar of the Garden Hotel. But while Dimitri might have (begrudgingly) found himself agreeing to the heinous marriage arrangements his brother had set up for him, he felt his resolution firm in some respects. They would meet on his territory, at his convenience; Viktor seemed to believe aligning with the Corsicans was a wise decision, particularly after the swift rescue of Tatiana from the greedy clutches of the Irish. Dimitri, on the other hand, merely felt that his brother was grasping at straws; attempting to make a wise decision in a moment of emotional unrest and failing. Miserably.

There weren’t many things he could control in his life at present, but this, Dimitri decided, was something he could.

As Dimitri fixed the front of his jacket and smoothed his features into his normal cold and imposing indifference, he checked himself twice in the mirror at the front of the Hide Tides Lounge before making his way into the establishment. He hadn’t bothered to contact Margaux himself to set up this appointment, rather giving the order to one of his brother’s indentured servants. The assistants tended to scurry like trapped rats whenever a Valentina barked an order, and Dimitri supposed that in this respect, he was no different than the Pakhan whose reflection he often felt the rest of the world wished him to match. As he made his way through the Russian-owned bar, he noticed that a dark-headed young woman was already seated at the booth he had requested for the afternoon. He felt a kernel of irritation bloom in his chest, like a flower erupting in the throes of spring, as he approached her, weaving through the wait staff and customers who littered the bar. He showed up just as she was receiving a martini for herself; one glance at Dimitri, and the waiter bowed, his regular order already evident in the man’s gaze. Dimitri felt a flare of annoyance that she couldn’t have even bothered to wait for him before ordering herself a drink, and as he approached the booth she was seated out, he felt himself fixing a rather lifeless smile at the young woman. Margaux. That was her name. Decidedly French in every pretentious and conceivable manner.

“Ms. Olivier, I presume?” he asked with a slight nod of his head, sliding into the booth across from her. She was important, he supposed, in her own right; but he would not bow a knee to a woman who should have been curtsying for him upon entering the establishment. The waiter arrived with Dimitri’s Tolstoy Tang, a favorite cocktail that reminded him of home, and left in a flurry, promising to bring them bread to break. Dimitri paid him little mind, instead assessing the woman seated across from him. His fiance, he supposed, was the proper term for her. “A pleasure.” Anything but, contrarily.

“I didn’t keep you waiting long, I trust?”

@dimitrivalentina // closed. avery.exe is crashing.

She’s pretty good at keeping her composure in times of stress. Actually, she prided herself on that - Avery was very level headed all the time. She’s just slipped out of the hotel, a little sore but otherwise pleased because he tipped her extra and because she had news to deliver to her bosses. She was going for the coffee cart - she wanted a pick me up before she went on with the rest of her day, because honestly, she was exhausted. 

Fucking New Yorkers - Some idiot got in her way. 

“Can you move your slow, pointy ass out of my -  Dimitri?”

Composure is lost. She’s gawking at him like he has 14 heads - but it’s only because she’s suddenly fourteen, in some itchy fucking dress her mother’s forced her into with shoes that pinched her feet (but oh doesn’t she look SO pretty? the older women would laugh and pat her on the head and send her on her way) at some fucking event or gala or rich person party that she really doesn’t want to be at. Avery’s brain is in chaos mode - of fucking course she’s run into someone who knew her growing up. 

It’d been years since she’d run into Dimitri, much less said anything substantial to him - actually, she might have said he had a pointy chin during one of these parties, but she had stolen a considerable amount of alcohol from the open bar, and there was no way he’d remember that right? And then there was the time she snuck off the balcony and climbed down and out over the large pool fence, but she still didn’t know who had seen her do that because it was apparently a lot of people - More importantly, Avery worked very hard to avoid people from her past - her parents spent most of their time in the Hamptons, only coming up to man the business when they absolutely had too, living off their millions of dollars made. She didn’t know what the fuck Dimitri Valentina was up to now, and it really wasn’t that she cared, but people couldn’t keep their fucking mouths shut.

One time her mother found a coffee shop where she frequented and showed up, and that hadn’t been pretty. Avery had been told that they covered her running away with some story about studying abroad - yeah, studying abroad for five years and definitely not a prostitute in good ol’ New York City.

She’s been staring at him too long. Or maybe not long at all. Whatever. Time isn’t real. Maybe he doesn’t know who she is and thinks she’s some whacko doing the walk of shame in a tight dress at 10 in the morning still drunk from the night before. 

“Uh -” Nope, brain machine still broke. Avery glanced up, like God was somehow going to exist and help her sorry, embarrassed ass out. “Huh - it looks like it’s going to rain - better get inside and stay dry and .. prevent… fires. Or something.”

Dimitri made his way through the bustling streets of Manhattan, not with any particular destination in mind, merely taking a stroll through the city while he allowed his mind to wander. As usual, his thoughts were hung up on a myriad of things; his upcoming nuptials to a young woman he’d never met, his sister’s return and the trauma she would likely needs months--years, even--of therapy to even begin to recover from, the loss of his parents and how his family was readjusting after his brother had been crowned Pakhan. It was impossible to wrap his mind around the fact that his life had changed so drastically in the last year, and would continue to shift and crack under his feet in the year to come. He was...increasingly unsettled by the reality of his restless life, and as he made his way through the tourist-cluttered sidewalks of the city, he let his thoughts stew.

So completely wrapped up in the wanderings of his mind, he nearly ran into a young woman as she made her way out of one of the lush hotels that dotted Manhattan. He blinked, stepping back as she began to spit vitriol at him, only pausing when--wait. Was that...?

“Avery Cross; still as charming as I remember you,” Dimitri said, reaching out with a hand to right the young woman before she could topple over. He recalled an instance at a gala when they were much younger; Dimitri, recently growing into adulthood and Avery, a distraught and angsty teenager who had sipped one too many times from the open bar and had pointedly called his features pointy. A strange clusterfuck of a memory for him to have stored away in the back of his mind, but Dimitri had later skipped into the background and assessed the symmetry of his face before deeming her words irrelevant and inconsequential. He vaguely remembered hearing something about her traveling abroad, but that could as easily have been any of the other academy children he’d grown up with. It was a very small circle, these children of wealth, privilege, and prosperity. 

“Prevent fires. In the rain.” Dimitri deadpanned, glancing at her after he’d taken a peek up at the sky above. She seemed to be in a hurry to extract herself from the conversation as fast as possible--which he could hardly blame her for, Dimitri enjoyed socializing with people about as much as a five month old infant--but he found it curious that someone he had little to no bad blood with seemed almost frantic about leaving him to his own devices. “Well, there’s a hotel right there--” he pointed behind her with an arch of his brows. “I’m assuming you’re staying, in which case I’m sure they have a lounge, bar, or bistro.”

Viktor let out a quiet sigh as his brother went about proving the point he had made. “And would that be such a terrible thing? To fill some of the vacant stores with baguettes? They could be quite delicious alongside some borscht.“ He asked mildly, his expression softening. “All I’m asking is that you be open to giving her a chance. There’s a lot you still don’t know about Ms. Olivier, and for all you know, it could be a very good match.”

Nonetheless, it had never been an easy choice to make, knowing fully well that his brother’s happiness to some extent was at stake. Viktor’s heart ached slightly, knowing how much this was tormenting him. “Dimi, I wouldn’t have gone through with this if I thought we had a choice. But this is for the sake of our family. For our father. For Tatia. As much as I hate to admit it, we can’t defend this territory without help, especially when we have a war on two fronts on the horizon.” His tone shifted then, at the mention of their sister. “Have you seen what he did to her? How can we sit by and do nothing when his people keep pushing into our territory in search of her?” 

"Of course, how foolish of me to forget? The only way we can obtain bread is through an arranged marriage.” Dimitri deadpanned as he continued to fiddle with the glass paperweight in his hands. He knew, on some level, he was being unreasonable; his brother had the weight of the entire Bratva resting on his shoulders. It was Dimitri’s duty, as the middle child, to find a way to contribute to the family. This was meant to be his contribution, even if the thought of marrying someone he’d only heard whispers of filled him with a rolling sense of dread and nausea. He paused, running his fingers along the smooth edges of the glass before looking up at Viktor and asking-- “Did you even take me into consideration? Did you ask for someone who I might get along with, or was I just sold to the highest bidder? Vitya, I don’t--I don’t know what I’m doing.”

His fingers clenched around the paperweight once, tightly, before he set it down on Viktor’s desk delicately, with a dull thunk. He blinked away the haze crowding his mind and sat back in his chair, drawing his hands across his lap and lacing his fingers together. The conversation had turned towards discussion of the Irish prick who had stolen their sister and the mental toll that her fucked up relationship with the Irish don had taken on her mind. His fingers clenched in his lap, almost painfully so, as Dimitri ground his teeth and met Viktor’s gaze with a steely one of his own.

“She’s different,” he said finally, his voice thick with grief. “He changed something in her; she won’t eat, she won’t sleep, she hardly smiles anymore. Not because she’s home, but because she’s not with him.” He clenched his hands tighter in his lap; Dimitri had never been particularly adept at expressing himself--not in the ways that counted. He felt tightly wound, like a coil ready to snap, and as his fingers threatened to turn cherry red with force, he managed to grind out, his Russian accent slipping through more strongly than it had in months, years-- “I want to find him. I want to kill him for what he did to her. What they all did to her, these men who value guns and territories over everything else.”

Between the three Valentina siblings, Dimitri was easily the most tightly-wound, always had been. Noah worried about him at times. The news of his engagement hadn’t gone over well, that much he was aware of, and the bodyguard didn’t quite blame the younger man for reacting the way that he did. The needs of the mob were important, but what about the needs of Viktor’s own younger brother? Noah respected the pakhan and trusted him with his life but he couldn’t stop himself from questioning his most recent decision to ally with the French. “Your hair was meant to be mussed, Dima, you’re the only one out of your siblings that tries to contain it,” Noah said with a rise of his brows, fighting back the urge to snicker. It was true—Tatiana’s hair in the morning was something to behold, sometimes he wondered if during the night she had somehow managed to be replaced by a fluffy blonde poodle with that golden mop of curls on her head. 

He had to make a face at the mention of caviar—fish eggs. After all his time spent with the Russians he still wasn’t a fan of some of their more regional dishes. “And the young prince will happily devour all of that on his own. I’ll take the house ale and your thickest steak—medium rare, grilled peppers on the side,” Noah ordered shortly before handing his menu back to the waiter, without wasting time he leveled his steely blue gaze on Dimitri yet again. “Technically, I’m always on your bill. Always have been,” he said with a crook of his lips, reaching up to smooth a large hand through his hair. “Now tell me how you’ve really been doing—I heard about your engagement to the French heiress. More aptly, I’ve heard Tatiana wailing on and on about how you should be allowed to marry for ‘love’.” He rolled his eyes, but it was true—Dimitri didn’t deserve to have his free will taken away from him like this. “Are you holding up alright?

"My hair looks ridiculous if I don’t attempt to tame it; Tania and Vitya might appreciate looking like their hair’s been electrified, but I have a more decided investment in taming it; the curls get on my nerves,” he said with a sigh, continuing to push his locks into place as Noah took his seat at the table. Dimitri was extraordinarily different from both his elder and younger siblings, in all the ways that mattered, and try as he might not to allow their differences to press down on him like a leaden weight, he couldn’t help but keep a mental calculation of the ocean that separated him from the rest of the Valentina family. He was loyal to the Bratva; he loved being a Valentina. Loved Viktor, loved Tatiana, and wanted the best for all of them.

They just...didn’t want what was best for him.

“Always eating such American food,” Dimitri managed with a slightly wrinkled nose. “I often forget just how British you are--would you like some brown sauce with that? Malt vinegar, perhaps, with a dash of global colonization?” Dimitri arched his brows slightly; again, not a drop of ire or malice behind his words. His sense of humor might have been a bit drier than that of the rest of his family, but he was confident that those who meant well enough to him knew when his words were barbed and when they weren’t. He paused, his thoughts being torn from his mind as Noah redirected the conversation towards the issue of Dimitri’s engagement. Ah. That.

“I’m being shipped off like a common whore to settle feuds and ally new families,” Dimitri managed bitterly with a wave of his hand, reaching for the glass of wine that had been produced for him. He took a sip, trying not to let his resentment scorch his throat as he swallowed. His fingers toyed with the neck of his wine glass, lost in thought as he considered Noah’s words. “I don’t know why this is a sacrifice I need to make.”

“I wonder why?” There was no wondering. Ana exactly knew why. It wasn’t that she completely hated Dimitri. She did dislike him for real, genuine reasons, mainly that he was just Dimitri. He was proud, a proud and arrogant man that somehow clashed with Ana’s own confidence and self-assurance. He could have been just a man that Ana had slept with once and never had to see again other than in a weird passing and glimpse amongst the sea of people that made up New York City. It was just that he was her first and Ana had to live with that for the rest of her life.

Albeit, Ana had to admit, to have her first be as noncommittal as she was, was a relief. It was just the fact that he probably just saw her as just another hit when Ana really had very little to go off of. Current Ana was a different situation entirely, with way too much knowledge instilled in her from Baby. None of it was really being used, but it was sitting in there, a file waiting to be opened. Ana’s instinct was to just be as contemptuous to Dimitri before there was even a chance for him to call her out on it.

It was sound logic. Although it was probably pure gut reaction than actual proper thought at this point.

“What do you even mean?” Mild anger laced her words, but even Ana couldn’t help but pale a little at his words. He meant them, their odd relationship that seemed to only be a constant, not a one-time thing, but Ana couldn’t help but think he knew things about her. Things about her past that she never spoke about. “You have the option of bleeding out,” she replied, short and sweet to his dumb flowery language. “Why deal when you can just find another way out? Either way, you’re an issue I can deal with. It’s not like you’re so special.”

Ana made no motion toward actually understanding his reference, but the meaning wasn’t lost on her sleep-deprived brain. Playing nice wouldn’t hurt too bad, at least for a little while she had time to kill before work. At least now Ana had regained her wits and managed to take a step back. “You give yourself too much credit. My whole demeanor is solely based on the fact that I didn’t sleep much. What’s your excuse?”

Occasionally, Dimitri did have it in him to wonder what he had done to make Ana despite him with such a feverish intensity; it might have been the complete clash in their social structures. He came from a world so different from her own; the Russian Bratva had been born and bred in him, and deep down, Dimitri knew that made him different from normal New Yorkers. But while Ana Kansuya might have resented and despised Dimitri for facets of his upbringing that he simply could not help, he had chosen long ago to give into the friction between them rather than oppose or reject it. He cared very little whether people liked or disliked him, and he supposed Ana could be added to the list.

If only they hadn’t slept together. It made things unbearably awkward from time to time, whenever they ran into each other.

“You’d rather me bleed out than extract the wound yourself?” he asked with a cock of his head, his brows furrowed together in mild bemusement and concern. He knew it was awkward running into people you’d once been intimate with, and he knew that their personalities were far too strikingly different to ever mesh well properly together, but it was still interesting to watch the way Ana reacted to him; almost as though Dimitri were poisonous--a sort of ailment she couldn’t escape, no matter how fervently she tried. “I thought I was perfectly clear in what I meant; my apologies if you missed the class on ‘metaphors’ in eighth grade, but perhaps I could teach it to you one afternoon.” Deciding that sounded too much like asking to run into her again, Dimitri amended his statement. “Of course, you could always use context clues for inference. I’ll leave the extended metaphors out of the conversation for now, but really, Ana, do try to keep up. And how would you know how special I am? Despite our little hump and dump, you don’t seem to know enough about me to make such a statement.”

“My entire demeanor is based on the fact that I have little time for irritants, and yet you continue to find yourself stepping into my path--why is that, little Kansuya?” he demanded, taking a step towards her smoothly. People were milling about them on the street, a few casting wary glances in their directions as Dimitri narrowed his gaze in the younger woman’s direction. “Just what about me unraveled you so thoroughly that even the mere thought of my existence has you wanting to crawl out of your skin?”

“Sorry, I haven’t been twelve in over ten years, you might need to explain your cartoons to me.”

“Always a difficult choice, but I suppose I’d say Life is Beautiful or The Pianist, if I had to. Foreign films and dramas depicting the highs and lows of the human experience fascinate me."

“Why not make me the white boy of the year? Other white men are disappointing; best not to take a chance on them.”