tsarina

The rest of the world faded away around them; it was just Alexander and Tatiana. They could have been two stars, spinning in orbit around the moon, dancing along the cosmos towards each other. The sight of her in that dress, soft pink and glittering with each movement of her hips, had been enough to nearly send him to his knees. It reminded him of evenings they’d spent draped in finery after expensive dinners or time spent with his most trusted colleagues. Her in a small pink dress, kitten heels dangling from her dainty feet as he set her on top of his kitchen counter and pressed himself inside of her; nights when he had tediously undone every single bow, lacing, ribbon, and adornment of whatever dress she wore in favor of feeling her bare skin slide against his own.

He let her tug his jacket off, slinging the piece of clothing over a chair positioned in the corner of the room as their lips assaulted each other; feverish, frantic, desperate. Is this how it felt to be a man begging for water? A man deprived of half his senses at any given moment? Tatiana knew that he loved her–that was what mattered; that was what he intended to show her in the small amount of time they had to spend with each other this evening.

Alex was going to fuck her, until the very imprint of her being bore marks of him.

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Idris was very much out of his league at an event like this. He was a simple man with simple tastes and this all seemed very lavish and a little over the top. But if this was the party that the Golightly girl wanted, so be it. Clearly, her father adored her and Idris could understand that. He was taking pictures for his daughters because Katie had been so furious that he’d gotten an invite but didn’t bring her. Though that fury at lasted about ten seconds before she was begging that he get selfies with as many people as he could. He had to figure out how to take a selfie first.

Idris was snapping pictures of the petting zoo which really seemed to be too much at a black-tie event and then he stepped outside. He was already exhausted and he had only been there a few hours. Either he was getting old or wasn’t up to socializing the cities elites. He was, after all, just some kid from Brooklyn. It was there in the garden that he saw a flash of pink tulle and blonde curls. It was the smile and then the tiny little sigh that identified her for him. 

He ran down the stairs into the garden and took a couple steps towards her and then stopped. Would she want to see him? Was she even allowed to be here? What if he got her trouble. What if he got in trouble? “Tatiana?” He asked, just loud enough to hear, his tone strong but the word was still very much a question. “Réalta beag, what…What are you doing here? Are you alright?”

It was supposedly the party of the century, and yet Tatiana would have gladly been anywhere else in the world if it meant that she wasn’t alone. She had never been meant for solitude - up until now, she had been bright and beaming and filled to the brim with sunshine and smiles, but ever since she had been taken away from the Irish and brought back home, something inside of her had been irrevocably torn apart. Dimitri and Viktor were her brothers, of course, and the rest of the Bratva was her family as well, but - Alexander and so much of the Irish mafia had become to mean the world to her, and she was every bit as lost without them as she had been without the Russians during her first few weeks of being kidnapped. She was torn between the two families and hated the amount of tension between them to begin with; was it really so much to ask for both of them to set aside their differences and work together instead of on opposing sides?

She was drawn out of her reverie by the sound of a voice - low, soothing, and a little gravelly, it was one that she would have recognized anywhere. It reminded her of hot cocoa and soda bread before bed; it reminded her of warm hugs and a comforting shoulder to cry on whenever she missed her older brothers far too much to bear. It was...Idris, the owner of Flanagan’s Tavern, and the man who might as well have been Tatiana’s surrogate father during her time spent with the Irish. “Papa medved'!” One of many favored petnames for him tumbled breathlessly past her lips as she very clumsily spun around in shock to face him; there, on the moonlit cobblestone path, was the bear-like gentleman in question, full beard, kind eyes, and all. 

It didn’t matter that they were alone - the walkway could have been filled entirely with other partygoers, and that still wouldn’t have stopped Tatiana from rushing forward and flinging herself at the older Irishman, tiny little arms winding helplessly around his midsection as she buried her face in the reassuring warmth of his chest. He smelled like stout and old-fashioned cologne, and it reminded her of home. “Tatia - Tatia being much better now,” she said weakly into the jacket of his suit; a glossy sheen of tears washed over her crystalline blue eyes and she sniffled softly, looking up at the man that had all but raised her while she had been away with a tentative smile. “I coming look for old friends tonight, and I finding you first. Has - has been such long time, da?”

Do you choose me? It was one fatal question that would set everything in motion for them for the remainder of the evening. Alexander Barrett had given his entire heart and soul to a woman with sweet blonde ringlets and a smile that could light up half of Manhattan. She had been soft and tender where he was hard and gruff; had soothed the despair that prowled inside of him like a caged animal, ready to be let loose and wreak havoc on the world. He had heard, once, that love made fools of men–perhaps that was true, but it was also divine. A celestial, perfect thing, that he found himself wanting to protect and nurture, even if everything else in his life was rotten to the core. 

When she confirmed that she chose him–that she would always choose him–something inside of Alex fluttered its wings and took flight. If there was hope that she hadn’t been tainted by whatever lies her brothers had told her since they’d stormed in and collected her from him, then there was hope for them to last through all of this. The War for Diamonds, the newcomers trying to make an impression on the mean streets of New York, and his feud with her older brother. They had made it this long–though he was driven sick and mad with wanting, Alex knew he could hold out for her for the rest of eternity. She was his, and he was hers; they belonged together, like the light and dark side of the moon, and it was only when they were together that he felt himself grow whole. A shudder ripped through him as she recounted the endless nights she’d spent touching herself, frustrated that she couldn’t reach completion at the same volume as she’d been able to when they were together. He understood, perhaps more than she really even knew, the sense of loss and waves of helplessness and irritation that came with being sexually frustrated all the fucking time.

“Come with me,” he murmured, squeezing her hand lightly and leading them through the shadows of the garden. The goat she’d played with earlier bleeted goodbye as they ducked inside the sprawling grounds of the Garden Hotel, and Alexander glanced up and down the empty corridor, trying to decide the best course of action to take. There were rooms and floors scattered all over the hotel–it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a room for themselves to hole up in for as long as they could manage to, right? Alex slipped his way down the hallway, hiding Tatiana behind a collection of topiary near the lounge of the hotel as he mussed up his hair, loosened his tie slightly and cock-eyed it, and then rounded the corner, all but staggering up to the front desk, wide-eyed as he heaved himself against the front counter, his fingers gripping the edge of the surface as he sought out the gaze of the current attendant.

“Please, you’ve got to help, there’s an–issue with the petting zoo,” he exclaimed breathlessly, pointing at a door opposite the frame he was having Tatiana hide underneath. “One of the goats headbutted Howard Golightly into one of the statues–there’s blood everywhere. He’s saying he plans on suing the hotel; it’s an absolute nightmare out there!” The attendant paled, reaching with trembling fingers for the phone that would alert security. Alex was quick to intervene, swiping the receiver with a shaking hand and gesturing wildly. “What the fuck are you doing?! We don’t have time to wait, that’s Howard Golightly out there!”

“Yes, sir, of course sir–thank you for bringing this to our attention,” the attendant squeaked at last, pushing back from the desk and all but running around the desk and making her way down the hallway Alex had pointed to. She already had her walkie pulled out of the waistband of her skirt and was breathing into it frantically. “Diego, meet me outside. No, Diego, not for a midnight rendezvous, the birthday girl’s father is being mauled by barnyard animals!” As she rounded the corner, Alex’s face wiped clean of any signs of distress or concern, rolling his eyes as he slid over the desk and searched the receptionist’s greeting area.

“Fucking idiot,” he muttered as he scoured through the papers and files for the receptionist’s key card. Excellent–left behind. He used the small card to swipe and sign into her system, using his elbow to knock open a drawer underneath the keyboard that held room cards, stacked and sorted neatly for him. He swiped one from the drawer and closed it, quickly maneuvering his way through the system to assign the key card to a vacant room. First floor, easy access in and out. Security was on duty tonight, but Alex wasn’t worried about them coming after him; he’d kept his face shielded and knew everyone on duty was paying close attention to entrances, exits, and the throes of the party. Not some poor sap trying to check in. Sliding the key into the breast pocket of his shirt, Alex made his way over to Tatiana again, withdrawing his revolver from his holster and loading it. The gun made a satisfying click sound, and as he grabbed Tatiana’s hand once more, he led them through the spacious hallways of the Garden in search of their room.

He could have used his particular brand of influence to win the attendant over, reflecting back to the gun cradled in his hand, but the less attention Alex drew to himself, the better for all involved. He rounded each corner with his weapon pressed tight against his thigh and Tatiana’s hand clutched in the other. At the first sight of danger, he’d throw her behind him and would cock, aim, and shoot. But to his amazement, the halls were vacant. Everyone likely enjoying the party, he supposed, as he approached their door and used the key card to let themselves in. Making sure the safety was on his revolver, Alex set it down on the TV stand just inside the sprawling, opulent room and went about attaching the deadbolt to the door. The plush living chair came next, pressed up against the door and propped right underneath the handle. It wouldn’t keep a determined person from busting in, but it would–at the very least–give him time to protect and hide her before anyone came in to assault them.

At last, when he felt they were safe, he turned to face her, his eyes softening once more as he moved across the space that separated them and took her face in his hands, kissing her with soft, slow, deep yearning. His teeth scraped across her lower lip, nipping for an invitation for her to part her lips for him.

“You’re alright?” he murmured between kisses, staggering towards her. There was a hunger that had opened inside of him, threatening to consume everything in its path as he kissed her with a deeper, more fervent energy. He stepped forward, her tiny body moving backwards for him, as his lips kissed a hot trail from the corner of her mouth down along the sweeping slope of her jaw and the delicate curve of her throat; just where her neck met her shoulder. “Tell me you’re alright, I can’t–think straight. One of the single consuming thoughts, these past months, is how it would feel–how it would be–to be buried inside of you again.”

Tatiana would have gone absolutely anywhere with Alex right now. Home, back to the Bronx and away from the makeshift prison she had been trapped in by the Bratva, halfway across the world and to another continent - he could have said jump, and in her broken English, Tatiana would have replied, ‘how much high?’, because that was how desperately she wanted him to whisk her away with him for the night. She knew, though, that they didn’t have long - Bunny Golightly’s birthday gala was swarming with a volatile mixture of NYPD and mafia members, and that included both of her older brothers, as well as her aunt and uncle who would have been livid to find out that she had snuck out of the compound despite their very strict orders for her to stay home and stay put. She was determined, though, to make the most of what very little time they had with one another, and so when Alex took hold of one of her tiny hands with his much larger one and told her to follow after him, Tatiana didn’t hesitate at all before nodding her head eagerly in agreement. She waved a forlong goodbye at the baby goat that she had been playing with, and when it bleated at her in response, she came incredibly close to asking Alex if they could bring it with them; the only reason she didn’t was due to the fact that she knew that what they were about to do wasn’t at all suitable for young and impressionable goat babies. 

She needn’t have worried about just how, exactly, her big man planned on procuring a room for them. He mussed his hair and yanked on his tie - all the while making Tatiana want to kiss him for how adorably disheveled he then looked - and he brought them both over to the front desk before putting on the performance of a lifetime, leaving the young tsarina as wide-eyed and surprised as the receptionist as he convinced them both that Howard Golightly really was being mauled by barnyard animals. “Wow,” she exclaimed beneath her breath in shock, blinking up at Alex with her startled doe-eyes as the front desk’s contents were left entirely at their mercy, and she let out a scandalized little squeak when Alexander wasted no time in rifling through them. O - oh! This was so exciting! She clapped her small hands together delightedly when Alex managed to find a key that would work for them, stumbling excitedly over her feet as he dragged her down the nearest corridor once more. They were so close to being alone with one another - so close to having privacy - and her heartbeat was racing hummingbird-fast because of it. She needed him.

“E - eeeeep!” she couldn’t help but squeak when her big man pulled out his gun, her owlish blue eyes widening even further as she drank in the sight of the revolver he was now brandishing, but she thanked all of the mini muffin gods and deities in existence that he didn’t need to use it. No...mercifully, the room he had claimed for the two of them was left unguarded, and Tatiana trembled helplessly with anticipation as he finally brought them inside of it. He put away his gun - shiny, scary thing that it was to the young princess - and made sure that the door was securely locked and guarded before making his way towards her once more, and it was then that Tatiana was fully able to look at him in all of his darkly handsome glory. The lights in the opulent hotel suite were soft and romantic, but she could see him far more clearly than she had been able to outside in the garden, and with his tousled hair and his tie askew, Tatiana had never been more in love with him than she was right now. He came back towards her, and the hardened, calculating expression that had been on his face outside in the hallway softened almost instantly, and Tatiana melted as he took hold of her babydoll face in his strong, weathered hands, her much tinier ones coming up to clutch shakily at his broad shoulders as he knelt to kiss her again.

“Shura,” her favored pet name for him tumbled past her lips in a relieved and shaky little sigh, and she whimpered as he nipped at the pouty swell of her bottom lip, eagerly opening her mouth to grant him all the access that he needed. His tongue, hot and seeking and always in control of her, was almost too big for her little baby mouth; she let out another small mew as she kept her lips parted to accommodate the length of it. With her small frame pressed snugly up against his, Alex staggered back towards the luxurious plush bed in the middle of the room, and Tatiana went right along with him, feverishly shoving his suit jacket down and off of his shoulders in the process. “Tatia better than ever, big man, practically being in heaven,” she promised him breathlessly,  tilting her head back and squeezing her eyes shut as he began to kiss all the way down the exposed and vulnerable length of her delicate neck. He went down to the bare curve of her shoulder, too, and even though she knew that she should have pleaded with him not to leave bite marks or bruises, all she could think of was having him lay claim to her the way that he had done so many times in the past. “Please - Shura, please - !” 

She pulled away from him just barely, and only so that she could frantically reach for the gossamer skirt of her ballgown, tugging at it helplessly in an attempt to take it off before looking up at him helplessly for his assistance. “I wearing this for you, honey bear, but right now, I just wanting it gone,” she whimpered frefully; it had taken her, Anya, and Emmaline to get it on her in the first place, and even underneath it she was wearing a strapless corset. She was burning up all over with rosy heat, and if she wasn’t able to feel her bare skin pressed against Alex’s and soon, she was certain that she would break down entirely. “Off - take off, popochka, please.”

Saria – in a simple phrase – was more stressed than a hooker in church. The pastries she’d brought from across the street were doing even better than expected. So well, in fact, she’d had to send one of the staff members in The Garden’s kitchen back to the bakery to pick up several more crates of strawberries that Saria had had to quickly, elegantly, and perfectly dip in chocolate and brush with gold leaf while Evie watched the tables. When she’d come back a half hour later, the other girl was gone – leaving an unmanned table with people squawking about how there weren’t enough of said elegant and perfect gold leafed chocolate strawberries. Maybe a hooker in church wasn’t enough to match her rising stress levels. Especially when she saw that the multi-teared stand that had once been filled to the edges with lacy pink cakes was nearly vacant of its sweet and fluffy occupants.  

“Sweet baby Jesus.” A pig in a butcher shop – that seemed like a better string of words. 

Saria hurried up to the table, setting down two perfectly balanced trays of the strawberries down on the velvety table. She’d gone into a sort of one track mind. She had tunnel vision consisting of confectionary nightmares, but she was proving more capable in juggling the task than she’d originally anticipated. Maybe she didn’t need help. Maybe this was proof that one day, she’d have her own bakery. She had this – she had this. “I’m sorry, ya’ll! I’ll have more cakes out faster than ya’ll can finish off these strawberries. They’re fresher than fresh and taste like the best thing you’ll ever have.” She chirped, sing song, when a woman complained about the lack of lacy pink cake. The woman looked at the strawberries, seemingly satisfied with that response.. But Saria had a feeling – based on the gaudy black feather boa wrapped around her thin shoulders – that the older woman was only mildly pleased with her because of the champagne flute she finished off before narrowing in on the fruit. 

Saria was off again in a moment, tightening the bow of her apron and setting her eyebrows in a determined furrow.  It quickly vanished into a look of desperation when the cook – a burly man who was more or less her boss for the night – told her he’d sent the pink cakes into the garden, rather than to the desert table. When she asked why on earth, he simply shrugged and told her it was her problem, not his, more than a little peeved that he hadn’t been trusted with the making of the deserts. Saria zoomed out of the kitchen, choosing to slip through a back door instead of trying to tread through the vast amounts of party guests sipping from expensive crystal. She could handle a few trays of sweets, but she didn’t trust herself around breakable glass and large crowds. The blonde nearly missed the turn, her work shoes skirting on the cobblestone walk way as she back tracked back a few paces and locked on the back of a guest.

“Excuse me, ma’am – have you seen someone come through here with a whole lotta cakes that look like they’re outta place? They’re supposed to be on the desert table inside, but there was a mix up, and –” Saria stopped suddenly, her sunshine-kissed, freckle-speckled cheeks going several shades paler. She knew those curls. 

“Tatiana –?!”

Tatiana remembered everything about her time spent with the Irish mafia. How terrified she had been at first, how new and unfamiliar everything had seemed, especially given the fact that she had only just arrived in America not too long ago before then - but what she remembered the most, even when she took Alexander into consideration, was the second family she had found within the rival mob. Given that she had absolutely no knowledge of her family’s business or what a crime organization really was, honestly, it had been so easy for her to make herself at home among the Irish, and when Alex had told her that she was their princess, it had felt every bit as right and as real and as perfect as her title as tsarina within the Bratva. She remembered Idris, and the way he had compared her to his daughters and taken her beneath his wing, and she remembered Owen, and the way she had sat on the basket of his bicycle as she accompanied him on his errands around town, and...perhaps most of all, she remembered Saria.

Saria, from too many broken homes to count. Saria, whose heart was made for loving and to be loved. Saria, who had welcomed her into the Irish mob with arms wide open despite not knowing anything about her. Saria - her best friend in the entire world, right up there with Viktor and Dima.

And Tatiana would recognize the sound of her voice anywhere. One moment, she had been standing on the tips of her slippered-toes to look at a blossoming flower high up (high up for her, anyway) in a tree, and the next - a frantic, twanging tone was reaching her ears, and the young princess turned around and stumbled so quickly that she nearly fell right over onto the cobblestone footpath. She was speaking so rapidly, so quickly that Tatiana couldn’t even begin to translate it into Russian in her head, but all that she could really focus on was the fact that Saria was there, close enough for her to see, close enough for her to hear, and - therefore, close enough for her to hug. “S - Sasha!” There was no helping her instinctive reaction; the moment she realized that she was less than five feet away from her closest friend, Tatiana was all but leaping from where she stood and rushing towards the slightly-taller blonde, a fretful little cry slipping past her lips as she tossed her arms frantically around her narrow shoulders. 

She smelled like vanilla frosting and freshly-baked cupcakes. She smelled like home. 

 “Sasha, Sasha, Sasha! Is being so long - I worrying about you so much - da, pozhaluysta - !” The words that escaped the tiny blonde tsarina came out fumbling and breathless and a little bit squeaky, and she didn’t even realize that she was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet like a nervous rabbit until it became quickly apparent that she was jostling poor Saria with each bunny hop. “Hello hello, hi! You not forgetting about me, nyet? Please, Sasha?” Her voice wobbled, then, and when she looked up at the elder girl, a fresh sheen of tears glimmered in her cerulean-blue eyes, and her next sentence came out in a tiny whisper. “Missing you. Missing you always.” 

She felt so small and frail nestled against him; much smaller than she had the last time they’d been together. As overwhelmed as Alex was by the very presence of the one woman alone who could set his soul on fire, he felt worry trickle its way through her mind. Was she eating enough? Sleeping enough? If she was anything him, then the answer was likely no. Alex spent most nights tossing and turning in his bed, which had once been the perfect size for him but now felt large and empty without the small, warm presence of Tatiana nestled up against him throughout the night. Most food tasted like ash on his tongue, and joy had seeped from the very fabric of his life. He became obsessed with his work; obsessed with her, in retrieving back what he felt had been stolen from him so many months ago.

She was his Tanechka. The Bronx Prince knelt to no one, bowed to nothing, but her.

Her kiss was enough to make him dizzy; weak in the knees with desire and emotion, all tangled up together. He wanted to steal her back in the night once more, Hades come to collect Persephone once more and drag her back to the Underworld she’d grown to call home. But there were too many cops, too many Russians, too many variables for them to run away together. He had long considered himself the King of New York, and she was the Queen he’d chosen to have rule by his side. Try as he might, Alex knew there was no one else for him but her. To love and cherish, as deeply and brutally as they had in the months they’d spent together, was a rare and beautiful sort of thing. The world painted him a villain, and that was fine and all, but Tatiana had looked inside to the monster that prowled in Alex’s heart, and had coaxed something almost human out of it. 

He felt something like a smile rip out of him and paint itself across his face as she tearfully complimented his Russian. It was poor, but he had been honest with her–he had practiced the language. For no one but her. The problem with Tatiana was not a problem with her at all, but rather a problem with everyone around her. They often discredited the Russian princess; they treated her like a child–because she did not speak English fluently, because she had an interest in soft things, like old Disney movies and baby animals. But Tatiana was–brilliant, in her own way. Emotionally intelligent, perceptive, kind, caring; she was the part of him that had never been allowed to nurture and grow when he was younger. She was tenderness and brilliance; thoughtfulness and openness. She could read Tolstoy and Nabokov in her native language; could tell you stories she had remembered at the drop of a hat. She was an exceedingly ridiculous and playful young woman, but he loved her. He loved every single part of her.

It was almost…overwhelming, realizing someone felt that deeply about you. Confident he might have been, but Alex didn’t know what he had done to deserve the love and adoration Tatiana had shown him, time and time again. When his breath had managed to even out once more, and he had managed to wipe the tears from her eyes, Alex felt something heavy settle between them. It was a shift in the air, something as tangible as her dress caught between his fingers, or his bulge pressed up against the warmest part of her. The soft whispers of music from the ballroom wafted out over them, filling the garden with the gentle, tinkling sound of a soft ballad, as he swayed her slightly from where she rested in his arms.

“I thought about us attending this thing tonight. Together.” he said at last, holding her body to his own as the skirt of her ballgown swept around them in a flurry of tulle and soft glitter. He moved them gently across the shadows of the garden, quietly in tune with the romantic ballad that the orchestra played mere rooms away from where they stood. “I thought about bringing you out onto the dance floor and dancing with you until our feet were sore and your eyes were heavy with exhaustion. I thought about taking you from the floor at the end of the night, after you’d gorged yourself on cakes and fruit, into one of the suites on the top floor. I imagined undressing you and fucking you right then and there, over the side of the bed, until your legs were shaking from the force of your orgasm. I miss you, Tatiana; I miss your laugh, your touch, your sound; I miss the way your body writhed under mine, desperate for completion.”

“I can’t make all your dreams come true tonight; I’m not Prince Charming, though I wish I could be for you,” he said at last, setting he down gently on the ground, but never disentangling their limbs from one another. “But I can give us a bit of privacy. A small amount of time alone, until I’m needed; until your brother realizes you’re gone. I can buy us some time alone together. Come with me–if you want. It has always been, for me, about what you want.” He slid his hand in her own, a silent question in his eyes: do you trust me?

“I choose you. Do you choose me?”

This was exactly where Tatiana belonged - not trapped inside of the Russian compound with a security team watching her every single move, and not even with the entirety of the Irish mafia. No...she could be absolutely anywhere in the world, and so long as she was tucked safely away within the warmth of Alexander Barrett’s strong and capable arms, she would be at home. Despite the fact that she was the one and only tsarina, she often felt as if everyone within the Bratva overlooked her - she was young, small, and deemed far too innocent to so much as know that the family business existed in the first place, and because of that, she hadn’t known of any sort of rivalry or dispute when she had first been taken in by Alex so many months ago. All she knew was that she found love in the form of a Bronx Prince with striking blue eyes and a rugged, torn-apart heart that had known more pain than anyone could ever deserve, and that being without him was like being forced to go without both water and air. Her family meant the world to her - after the death of her parents, they were all that she had - but she couldn’t understand how or why they had kept such a crucial part of her heritage from her, and for so long, too. If she had known...if she had understood half as much of what it meant to be a Valentina, if they hadn’t kept her in the dark for all of her nineteen years - things would have been different. Better, even. 

But none of that mattered right now. With both her slender legs and tiny arms wound tightly around the love of her life, all she could think of was how perfectly her body melded with his. Alexander held her close, with more tenderness than he had ever shown to even his most favored weapons or either one of his dogs - and oh, oh, she wondered if they missed her as much as she missed them -  and when he began to sway them gently in time with the barely-there sound of the orchestra playing from the ballroom, Tatiana hiccuped tearfully once more, hanging on his every word as he told her that he had thought of what it would be like if they had been able to attend the Golightly gala as dates. As if, in another life, in another world, it made perfect sense for the captain of the Irish mob to call the Bratva’s tsarina his mate to hold. He spoke of missing her, of missing the way it felt to bend her over the bed and make her whole with his cock and his cum, and Tatiana couldn’t help but tremble in his embrace at the thought of it; how long had it been since they had been able to make love? How many nights had she spent crying as she fretfully rubbed at her needy, aching little cunt with her tiny fingers that were nowhere near as big or as pleasurable as her Shura’s manhood had been inside of her? 

By the time he set her faun-like legs back onto the grassy ground of the garden, Tatiana was quivering from head to toe with the flurry of emotions swirling inside of her like freshly-fallen snowflakes; she was overwhelmed with the sheer intensity of everything that she was feeling, and she couldn’t help the way that she continued to cling to Alex’s broad shoulders as if he was all that she had to anchor herself in place. He kept her pressed close up against him, thankfully, and she remained nestled into the muscular expanse of his chest; with almost a foot and a half of height separating them, he towered over her with effortless ease. She had already understood, of course, that tonight wouldn’t grant them with enough of an opportunity to run away together again, but to hear him say it out loud brought another dewy sheen of tears to Tatiana’s crystalline-blue eyes once more, and she let go of his shoulders only so that she could rub fretfully beneath her lashes with her quivering index fingers, hiccuping softly as she tried not to weep in full. “Tatia always being choose you, in - in any way possible. Da, da, pozhaluysta, even if is only for tiny little bit...” she trailed off with another hiccup, squeezing her eyes shut for a brief moment in an attempt to quell the seemingly never-ending flow of tears before finally raising her curly blonde head to look up at Alex once more, just in time for him to take hold of her hand.

“I will go anywhere with you in whole entire world, Alexander Barrett,” she said softly, shakily, and he would see it in her shining blue eyes that she meant every single word; there was a heartbreaking sort of earnestness etched into her sweet, baby-doll features, and as always, Tatiana wore her emotions on her sleeve with her own innocent brand of vulnerability. “Da, I - I have being spent so many nights wishing that you were with me in my bed, so many nights having take care of Tatia little kitty cat because you were not being there and was not same without you! Was - was never enough,” she told him fretfully, weakly, with an almost distressed little squeeze to the hand he had wrapped securely around her much smaller one. “Privacy with my big man - is best thing that I can thinking of right now. Please, please - even if it is is million miles away, Tatia will following you wherever you will go. But cannot being wait much longer,” she whimpered, then, an arched her back up against him to empathize the depths of her need for him - warm and flushed, the heat of her young and nubile little body would be more than enough for him to realize how desperately aroused she was. “Pozhaluysta, Shura. Somewhere we can having privacy.” 

So wrapped up in the conversation she was sharing with the baby goat, Tatiana hadn’t noticed his presence at first. It was almost worrying, how wrapped up she could become in her own thoughts and feelings in a world like the cutthroat jungle of New York City. He doubted that her brother would be able to provide her with the adequate sort of protection necessary to keep Tatiana safe; after all, he hadn’t been there when the Irish had swept in and collected her so long ago. He wasn’t here now, when Alex and Tatiana were alone in a quaint garden, the stars and city lights hanging over their heads. Frustration, white hot with intensity, punched through his chest, at the thought of something happening to Tatiana because her idiotic brother didn’t know how to run a fucking organization.

She stood, the small goat still clasped tightly to her chest, as her eyes widened; with disbelief, awe, sorrow, grief, he couldn’t tell. Though he knew, deep in the very depths of his soul, that what he and Tatiana had shared was real, he couldn’t help but worry about what sort of lies her brothers might have tainted her mind with in his absence. That he didn’t love her. That what they had wasn’t real. That he had never wanted her, only the idea of her. But Viktor Valentina hadn’t been there on the nights when he’d held Tatiana close when she was quaking and sobbing out of fear from the thunderstorms that swept through the city with the force of a tsunami. Viktor Valentina hadn’t been there when Tatiana had attempted to show Alex how to prepare Russian pancakes–blini, they were called–and it had ended with a flour fight and them making love on the kitchen counter. Viktor Valentina hadn’t been there when Tatiana had murmured bits of nonsense and comfort to him when he awoke from a night terror–always the same one; always of him finding his mother, despite his best efforts to get to her before the Italians did.

He felt something inside of him crumple as she called him Shura, and just like that, any fears or doubts he might have harbored over her feelings evaporated like mist on the wind. It was as though gravity was drawing him towards her, as though something unspoken and strong between them were attempting to snap the two estranged lovers into place. Alex unfolded his arms for her, reaching for Tatiana at the same moment she had abandoned the goat in favor of reaching towards him. They were like vines, tangled up in each other’s embrace, and only when they were together did Alex feel the first bright rays of sunlight warm them both. She was clumsy as she collided with him, sobbing in her desire to sever the space that separated them. Alex wrapped his arms around her delicate frame, feeling tremors wrack his frame as he lifted Tatiana up and into his embrace. He dragged them both into the shadows of the garden, out of the light and away from any watchful eyes who might attempt to intrude on their reunion. He nudged her face up to his, kissing along her tear-stained cheeks for the first time in months. Months.

He hadn’t seen his baby girl in fucking months.

“This isn’t a dream,” he said at last, resting his fingers on her soft face, already slightly puffy from crying, and wiping the remnants of tears from her face. He looked at her for a long moment, as though he were struggling to commit her very face to his memory, as one of his hands wound in her beautiful riot of blonde curls. “I never gave up on you, Tatiana. I never will.” He bent his head and kissed her, hoisting her body up and against his frame for leverage. His mouth moved against hers with an underlying urgency, his tongue brushing across each curve and arch of her mouth. He had committed every soft curve and angle of her body to memory in the time they’d spent together. In some ways, Alex felt he knew Tatiana better than he knew himself. When he pulled his mouth from hers, his face just a hairbreadth from hers as he said.

“Я люблю тебя; I love you,” he breathed at last, resting his forehead against her own. “I’ve been practicing, you know.”

In the first few days after she had been forcibly returned to the Russian compound and had been unable to so much as eat or drink anything more than a single glass of water every few hours or so, Tatiana had succumbed to more waking hallucinations than she had been able to count. They came to her like fever dreams - vivid recollections of Alexander breaking into her heavily-guarded home, armed to the teeth and guns blazing as he cut his way through as much of the Bratva as was needed just to get to her again, or even fantasies as simple as waking up and finding him there in her bed beside her, gently stroking her curls away from her face as he roused her from sleep with the press of his lips against her own and his strong, muscular body shifting on top of her much tinier one. For a little while, these daydreams - as unhealthy as they might have been - were all that she was able to cling to, and she had often found herself willing to starve for days on end just to bring them back. She was better now - sort of, she supposed - but she would never be able to forget how it had felt to miss and need someone so badly that her own body created illusionary visions just to stop itself from breaking down and collapsing entirely.

And that was exactly why Tatiana couldn’t be one-hundred percent certain that this wasn’t just another dream; that was why she needed to touch and feel Alex to know that he was real and that she wasn’t about to wake up alone and sobbing yet again. The sound of his voice was imprinted deep inside of her mind and she was able to replicate it at any given time, as was every single hardened line of his body, from the top of his head with his tousled curls to the tips of his leather-shoed feet. His touch, though, and the feel of him - she had gone without that for so long, and the only way to bring it back would be to finally experience all of it again. She came crumpling into Alex’s arms, and just like always, he caught her effortlessly, easily, as if it was second nature for him to be there when she was on the verge of falling apart, and the young princess let out another broken-sounding sob as she felt his powerful arms wrap around her tiny frame for the first time in nearly half a year. He was so warm and solid, so sturdy and reassuring that he had to be real, and as he brought her closer into his embrace, Tatiana couldn’t help herself - she koala’d her dainty little body up along the length of him the way she had always been able to do so in the past, scrambling upwards until she was able to wrap her clumsy faun legs tightly around his midsection, absolutely uncaring of the way her gossamer pink gown rode up along her creamy thighs in the process. Nothing else mattered right now - nothing but them.

With his rough, calloused hands that only ever knew how to be gentle with her, he guided her small, heart-shaped face away from his chest so that she could look up at him, her cheeks flushed and her eyes dewy and pink from all of her crying, but he didn’t seem to care as he dipped his head to kiss her tears away nevertheless. Tatiana let out a fretful hiccup of a sound, the first of many little peeping noises as he reassured her that, for the first time in forever, she wasn’t merely dreaming him into existence. “Shura - Shura - “ she whimpered helplessly, her slender arms winding their way around his neck so that she could cling to him even more, and when she felt one of his hands slip into her brilliant mane of marigold curls, she obediently tilted her head upwards for him, just in time for Alex to lean forward and claim her lips with his own. He slid his tongue, hot and seeking, into her vulnerable little mouth, and Tatiana didn’t eagerly parted her lips for him as quickly as she could, like a baby bird with the way that she was cheeping and mewing softly in his embrace. It was too much, and she was dizzy with it, frantically grabbing at fistfuls of his suit jacket with her fretful hands as she fought against the all-too natural urge to rock her hips forward and squirm up against the part of him she had missed the most. 

She couldn’t help the little whine that tumbled out of her when he broke their kiss, but as he rested his forehead against her own and told her that he loved her - in Russian, nonetheless - another tearful sound escaped the tsarina, and she hiccuped shakily as she looked up at him; with the stars and the moon shining brightly in the sky up above them, he really was every bit of the avenging angel come to whisk her away from her perceived ‘heaven’ and bring her back to where she truly wished to be: the devil’s kingdom. “Is - is being much better, yes. Popochka’s Russkiy. Tatia being much practice her English, too,” she told him softly, her doe eyes shining with unbridled, vulnerable adoration and still dewy with tears, and she tilted her head upwards just so that she could nuzzle their noses together sweetly. “Tatiana Anastasia Valentina loves her Shura Alexander Henryk Barrett Honey Bear Big Man with all of her heart, body, and - soul? Yes, all of Tatia soul is forever loving you, too,” she said it all in a breathless and determined rush; it was clear by the sound if it that the young girl had been practicing her small speech for quite some time. “You - you are being every single answered prayer. Every wish on every star. When falling asleep at night, you are first thing Tatia think of. When resting head on soft fluffy pillow at bedtime, Shura is last thing Tatia dream of before falling asleep.”

It was the first time that she had been able to leave the Russian compound in weeks aside from her sneaky trips to visit Feliks at the little kitty cat cafe, and the young tsarina was desperate to stretch her legs and explore the Garden Hotel as much as she possibly could before one of her many bodyguards realized that she was missing. She was extraordinarily grateful to Anya and Emmaline for assisting her in her brief escape from the ever-watchful eye of her older brothers and the rest of the Bratva, but she knew that new-found freedom wouldn’t be particularly longlasting - not when nearly all of the Russian mob was sure to be attending the gala in its entirety. Still, it was something, and it gave her the opportunity to look for even the smallest sign of her former Irish family; Saria, Owen, Idris...how many of them had she been forced to leave without even getting to say goodbye? How long had it been since she had been able to see them and know that they were okay, that none of them had been injured when she had been forcibly seized from their headquarters?

She loved her older brothers, and she loved the Russian Bratva. What she didn’t love was the lines in the sand that had been drawn without her knowing between them and the other people that she cared about so dearly. 

Perhaps a year ago, at a lavish event like this, she would have found herself eagerly devouring as many cupcakes from the dessert table as she could possibly fit into her tiny hands before bringing the rest of them out to share with the animals at the petting zoo, but - she had lost her appetite ever since she had returned back home to her family, and so for now she was wandering through one of the lush outdoor gardens that the hotel had to offer. It was beautiful, filled to the brim with greenery and flowers, and Tatiana couldn’t help the way that she stood up on the tips of her toes - she had never been able to walk properly in heels, and no one could see her silk slippers beneath her pretty pink princess dress anyway - to reach for a blooming blossom in one of the high-up trees. She stroked its petals gently, a small, wistful smile appearing on her cherubic face as she let out a tiny sigh - what fun were parties supposed to be, after all, when you felt so terribly alone?

The swell of the party lights were glittering; the music was adequate, he supposed, for a high society event. The ball gowns, suits, and baubles people wore hanging from their necks, fingers, and ears cost more than some of the most prestigious art pieces in the Museum of Modern Art. There was something almost enchanting about the party, reminiscent of a fairy tale. Except, of course, that Alexander couldn’t spend the evening with the person he most wanted to. It had been a difficult, rocky series of months since Tatiana had been stolen from his grasp, and while life had moved on and he had been forced to fulfill the obligations of the job he’d clawed his way up to earning, he had not moved on. Lodged deep in the core of his being, passion and lust had given way to something far deeper than he ever could have imagined.

Loved. He loved her, he supposed, in the way that flowers loved the sunlight. The way the earth loved the sky; they were like magnets, inexplicably drawn to one another. But just when it seemed as though they’d get close enough to fit, something would drive them in opposite directions. Some nights, when he woke up in a cold sweat, he swore he could still feel the imprint of her body nestled against his. It was a tedious, terrible process, this re-breaking of his heart day in and day out. And while the rest of the world thought him a monster and a villain, both titles he proudly bore after the ruthlessness he’d executed to earn his rank as Captain of the Irish mafia, she had seen something different inside of him. She had nurtured the kernel of goodness lodged deep within his heart, and he feared that, with her gone, he would never feel that again.

In desperate need of fresh air and frustrated with the lack of intelligence tonight was thus far producing for him, Alexander had stepped outside; away from the dazzling lights, the charming laughter, and the barbed words of foes and friends alike. The petting zoo out back was temporarily deprived of company; many of the partygoers who had been interested in the small animals that littered the pen out back had taken a break to eat dinner, mingle with friends, and sweep their romantic partners across the dance floor. It wasn’t quiet out here, not with the blur of city lights and sounds ringing a cacophony in his ears, but it was, strangely enough, akin to that of a lullaby to him. After growing up in the heart of New York, there was nothing so home-y as the sounds of the city.

He spotted her first, sweeping out onto the grounds like something out of a fairy tale. Her glimmering, soft pink dress trailed after her, a cloud of chiffon and silk,, her unruly blonde hair as beautifully untamed and bouncy as he had remembered. Alex felt his heart thrum an uneven staccato in his chest; the sound was sucked from the very air around him as he watched Tatiana Valentina make her way over to the petting zoo, bending down and cooing to the small animals that dwelt there. Still, Alex clung to the shadows of the garden, trying to will his racing heart to calm as she bent and murmured words of worry and nonsense to the animal she was occupied with. Helpless, Alex felt his heart tug towards her, as though they were connected to one another on some invisible string. As he glanced around the premises, ensuring that they were–in fact–alone, he moved softly through the grass and onto the cobblestone walkway of the garden path, until he was perched directly behind her.

“You always were a fan of talking to little creatures that couldn’t respond to you,” he said finally, his voice low, his tone thick and husky with a series of repressed emotions he could not quite identify. At last, he murmured the words he did not think he would ever hear himself say again. “Hello, Tanechka.”

Despite the fact that this was the first real instance that she had been able to leave the Russian compound in several months - not including her sneaky visits to the cat cafe with Feliks, of course - Tatiana couldn’t seem to find nearly as much joy as one would expect of her when she was surrounded by an infinite amount of desserts, blossoming flowers, and baby animals. If this had been a year or so ago, perhaps, then the tsarina would have been over the moon, indulging in as many cupcakes as she could fit in her squirrely little hands and sharing them with the entire petting zoo, but - so much had happened since then, and tonight, her only goal was locating one of the most painful losses she had ever endured aside from her parents: Alexander Barrett. It was the cruelest injustice that Tatiana had ever endured, being forcefully torn away from the love of her life without any proper reasoning, and she would never be able to quell the sense of betrayal she felt towards her older brothers. They had kept her so carefully sheltered, tucked away in a little nest where she was never given the chance to learn about the family business or what they fought for, and as a result, she hadn’t known to fear the Irish when she had first been taken in by them. She hadn’t known to think of them as the enemy - all she had known was that there was a beautiful man with piercing blue eyes and a rugged heart and that he had been made solely for her. 

She had only just started looking for him at the petting zoo, and thus was remaining incredibly hopeful that she would still manage to come across her hulking big man before the evening drew to a close, but so far the tiny goat she was holding a conversation with wasn’t managing to do anything more than being impossibly adorable. That was okay, though, because sometimes Tatiana wasn’t able to do anything more than that either, and she ducked her head sweetly to press a kiss right between its fuzzy little ears. “Malen'kaya koza, maybe you coming home with Tatia, yes? Is very nice where I living, and I promising not let Vitya cook you into Sunday dinner! And - oh, nyet, who being turn out the light?” A small frown graced her cherubic features as a sudden dark shadow loomed over both her and her tiny animal friend, and it was right when she looked up to see where the bothersome interruption had come from, dainty blonde brows already furrowed together indignantly, that the sound of a voice she hadn’t heard in months graced her ears. It was a low baritone, rich and deep and with an undeniable Bronx accent that would become more and more pronounced the angrier or passionate its owner happened to be feeling, and - there was only one person that it could have belonged to. Only one big man. 

There, in the garden that was nearly empty aside from the petting zoo and all of its animals, stood Alexander Barrett. He towered over both her and the small goat she was cooing to, and in his dark suit with the barely-there red accents, he looked like one of Lucifer’s avenging angels coming down from the heavens to raise hell. His beard was just the way that she had always liked it, full and just rough enough to tickle her face when she kissed him, and his hands - O Bozhe, his hands. Strong, calloused, and large enough to meet all the way around her dainty waist when he was holding onto her, Tatiana had missed the feeling of them the most. “Shura.” The Russian diminutive of his name was tumbling past her lips before she could stop herself, the sound of it shaky and fretful with disbelief as she stood on trembling faun legs to meet his gaze. The baby goat she had been playing with let out a small bleating noise as it was lifted up right along with her, and Tatiana clung to it tightly for comfort - surely she was dreaming. Surely her poor frazzled mind was coming up with fantasies to comfort itself in her time of need. 

Except - there, underneath the stars shining brightly above them, was her Alexander. She would know her big man anywhere, and this wasn’t a hallucination. Even if it was...well, even if it was, then Tatiana would be all too happy to float into the darkness. “Shura - Shura - ! “ Her voice cracked and broke, and her sweet little face crumpled as tears sprung to her doe-wide blue eyes, a choking sob escaping her as she shakily sat the goat back down into the hay before stumbling on unsteady feet towards Alex once more. “Tatia having dreams like this all the time, big man, b - but never where you are being close enough to touch,” she breathed out in a trembling rush, already hiccuping on another fretful little sob as she reached for him with her bare, glimmering arms, tossing them around his neck as she finally collided into him for the first time in what felt like an eternity of missing him, an eternity of longing for him. “O Bozhe, O Bozhe, cannot believing you are here! S - Shura...” She started to weep, then, for all that they had lost - for all that they had missed out on - and her tiny hands clutched helpfully at the front of his jacket as she buried her face in his chest; if anyone happened to catch sight of them, they would have a hard time believing that it wasn’t just a very excited baby sheep that had just nestled itself into the warmth of the Bronx Prince. “Nyet, nyet - if this is being one big dream, then not wanting wake up. N - never wanting being wake up if it means Shura going away again.”

It was like something out of a fairytale. Growing up, Tatiana’s birthdays had always been something of a family affair - she was spoiled rotten with gifts from her older brothers and parents, of course, as well as her favorite aunt and uncle and beloved bodyguard, but she had never attended an event even half as lavish and over-the-top as the one currently taking place at the esteemed Garden Hotel. She wasn’t even supposed to be there to begin with, of course, but the moment she had spotted the elegantly embossed invitation made out to the Valentina family in its entirety on Viktor’s nightstand, Tatiana had understood it for what it really was: an invitation. Ever since she had been forcefully ‘unkidnapped’ from the Irish mafia, the young tsarina had been kept under lock and key at all hours of the day, but with all hands on deck being called to attention for the Golightly gala, Tatiana had been able to sneak away with the help of a couple friends: Anya and Emmaline in particular. Together, the three girls spent the entire day locked in Tatiana’s luxurious bedroom readying themselves for the party, and when the timing was perfectly right, they left the Russian compound undetected. It was easy - almost too easy - and Tatiana privately considered thanking her ancestors’ history as spies for the role that she played in their successful espionage mission. 

While Anya and Emmaline might have assumed that the only reason Tatiana wished to attend the gala was to get away from her family for a little while and enjoy a night on the town, the young tsarina had something much more in mind for herself. As sheltered from the family business as she was, she couldn’t be certain if the party tonight would require any sort of mafia presence aside from the Russians, but...if it did, then wasn’t there a chance that Alexander would be in attendance? Wasn’t there even the slightest glimmer of hope that he would need to be there? Hope was all that Tatiana had these days, and even if her stores of it were running on empty, she would cling to it as if she had nothing else left. With that in mind, she wore the prettiest dress in her massive walk-in closet; it was a soft baby pink princess gown with a bejeweled sweetheart bodice, and she had been able to have it perfectly hemmed so that it trailed delicately after her with each dainty step that she took. Her bouncy blonde curls were left long and loose with a flower crown tucked prettily among them, and on her finger she wore her favorite piece of jewelry that hadn’t been an heirloom from her baba: a rose quartz and diamond ring from Alexander.

As tempting as it was, the petting zoo was an obvious first stop for Tatiana; the moment she had realized that an entire garden had been transformed into a miniature barnyard with all sorts of farm creatures roaming freely, she had promptly decided that her search would begin there. It was a beautiful summer night - warm, with stars shining brightly up in the sky above her - and as Tatiana knelt daintily in front of a tiny baby goat, she stroked its head gently before asking in a soft, earnest voice that was filled to the brim with longing, “Malen'kiy rebenok, have you being see big handsome man tonight? He much tall, with dark curly hair and perfect beard, and - wide shoulders. Very broad, like - erm - how you saying - mountains? Da, da - Tatia mountain man.” She scritched tenderly behind the small animal’s ears, letting out a little sigh as she took a hesitant look around the garden - so far, no sign of Alexander. “If I being give you something to smell of his, little goat friend, would you being able to use cute tiny nose to find? Maybe?” 

tatiana valentina ♡ golightly gala

no birthday party is complete without a tsarina, and so despite the fact that she had been told very firmly by both of her brothers to stay home, tatiana had paid neither of them any mind - instead, she devised a plan with two of her favorite ladies, emmaline bennet and anya olenov, to sneak out of the russian compound in favor of attending what very well might be the event of the decade. while her friends might think that her attendance is solely due to her desire to get out and enjoy herself at a glitzy ballroom gala, what tanechka wants more than anything else in the entire world is a chance to run into her forever love, her big man, her shura, and it’s catching so much as a glimpse of the irish mob boss that’s first and foremost on the young princess’ mind. 

still - there’s nothing quite like getting ready for an extravagent affair, and with the help of emmaline and anya, tatia was able to spend the entire day preparing for their new york city debut. she wears a dress fit for a princess, a sparkly pink confection of a gown that’s been specially altered to fit her 4′11 frame while highlighting her most notable assets - her soft, blossoming curves and the rather bodacious swell of her bootylicious ass. even with anya and emmaline’s assistance, there was very little that could be done for her mane of bouncy blonde curls, and so they’re left loose and full in all of their glimmering glory, with a bejweled flower crown tucked somewhere admist the chaos. on one of her small fingers is a rose quartz and diamond ring given to her by none other than @alexandervbarrett - one of the few things she has to remember him by ever since she had been returned to the russians - and she hopes that he’s able to catch its familarly gleaming hue even in the middle of a crowded ballroom. 

Feliks had had his feet up and was reading the New York Times when Tatiana found him in his office above the Russian baths in Sheepshead Bay. He hadn’t been expecting her and had been ready to admonish her for sneaking out when he saw the sad look in her eyes. Instead, he’d let Tatiana take him to a cafe and allowed his jeans and sports coat to be ruined with cat hair. It doesn’t seem to be helping Tatiana any. 

Feliks pet the smoke gray cat curled up against his thigh and smiled at Tatiana. “I’ve been okay. I’m sorry that I haven’t come by to visit you. we’ve been very busy. Therefore there has been plenty of trouble for me to get into.” He cracked a crooked smile and the young blonde. He said all this in English, his accent perfect for the Upper West Side and then switched to Russian which was still accented. Funny enough, his Russian was accented with French. “And how have you been, mon petite chou?” He didn’t mind youing French pet names when it came to this other. “Has anyone else you out long enough to go to Coney Island? Or is Greyhart keeping you locked up?” 

The tabby cat in Tatiana’s lap was gloriously pudgy and almost too big for the small girl to hold onto, but the wobbly orange creature seemed more than content to sit on her thighs and purr nevertheless. She was incredibly grateful that Feliks hadn’t admonished her for sneaking out of the Russian compound, and even more so for his company in the first place. He was one of her closest friends, a confidant she had known ever since she was a little girl, and she knew that if anyone was going to understand running away from home...well, it was almost certainly Feliks.

Feliks switched to Russian - endearingly accented with French - and Tatiana continued to speak in her favored combination of her mother tongue and English; as broken as it might have been, it was what she was the most used to after spending months with the Irish. “This is first time that Tatia being outside in days; Noah not wanting go so much as around the block without telling big brother,” she said with a tiny sigh, delicate blonde brows furrowed together in discontent as she scratched behind the ear of the cat nestled comfortably in her lap. The mention of Coney Island - where she had first met Alexander so many months ago - had her lower lip wobbling precariously, and she had to swallow back the urge to cry. “Nyet, nyet, no Coney Island. Would you wanting being go? Today?” she asked hopefully then, looking up at him from across the table and wondering if the desperation in her red-rimmed blue eyes would be too much for her to hide. “I - I buy you as many treats as you being want if you say yes!” 

She hadn’t been eating. 

Viktor had known that things would be difficult when Tatiana was brought home a short time ago. She had been in shambles when the Bratva rescued her from the Irish, a victim who knew nothing of why she had been captured in the first place before being subjected to unspeakable acts. He had understood that she was confused and hurting, and that even time wouldn’t heal all the scars of her horrific experience. It was for that reason why Viktor kept such a close eye on her progress, letting only a handful of trusted friends and family into the Oceana residences to visit, and why he had been so lenient when she started to skip her lessons. Yet despite all of his efforts and empathy, Tatiana would still go somewhere far off in the distance, away from their family, and Viktor didn’t have the faintest idea of how to reach her.

She was wasting away and it was his fault.

“Tatia…” The pakhan knocked on her door, his heart breaking just a little more at her soft-spoken reply. He wanted to respect her wishes, wanted more than anything to take her pain away, but he could not sit so idly by while she starved herself. Viktor opened the door with a faint click, the air filling with the acrid scent of something that had been burning for far too long. “Prikhodite zavtrakat’ so mnoy, ya sdelal syrniki.” Viktor hadn’t made them well, admittedly. The cheese pancakes had kept sticking to the pan and burning on the edges, but drowned in syrup and berries, they were edible enough. It was his best attempt thus far, and he couldn’t think of anything else that might appeal to his sister’s more gluttonous side in the morning.

He walked over to her, careful not to jostle the tray too much as he sat down on the empty side of her bed. “Come now, Sestra. I don’t mind if you miss your lessons, but I will not have you missing breakfact. What would Baba say?” Viktor turned to look at her, trying not to let the worry seem too evident. Tatiana was already petite as it was, and she seemed smaller and smaller each day. “She would not like you to be leaving a plate with food. You know that.” 

The absolute last thing in the world that Tatiana could think about right now was food. Once upon a time, she had taken great joy in eating as many mini muffins and sweet Russian treats as she could in one sitting, but now - with her broken heart and fractured soul - she couldn’t fathom the thought of enjoying herself like that ever again. The knocking at her bedroom door wasn’t enough to rouse her from the little nest she had made of her bed, nor was the sound of her older brother’s voice; the latter, in fact, caused her to tuck her head further into the homemade quilt she was currently cradling in her arms like a security blanket. It had been one of their mother’s, and before and now after she had been taken in by the Irish, Tatiana slept with it each and every single night. It was no longer enough to comfort her, however, and while having nightmares in the past meant crawling into Viktor’s bed in the middle of the night so that he could stroke her hair and murmur bits of Slavic nonsense in her ear, Tatiana could no longer seek him out when she needed him the most. He had - hurt her. He had taken away the greatest love that she had ever known, and for what? A decades-old feud that no one had ever bothered to explain to her?

Alexander wasn’t Italian. He wasn’t responsible for the death of their parents. So what could he have done that would have been worth any of this?

Viktor’s arrival brought along with him an all-too-familiar smell, but Tatiana’s nose didn’t perk up hopefully at the scent of it as it would have in the past. Instead, she remained firmly rooted in her huddle of quilts, blankets, and stuffed animals, even as Viktor came to sit down beside her on her bed. Syrniki...they had always been one of her favorite things to eat, cottage cheese pancakes topped with syrup and berries, and the young princess could still remember learning firsthand from their mother how to make them from scratch. Her heart broke at the realization that Viktor had forced himself to do it on his own solely just for her. “Not hungry, Vitya. Not wanting being eat anything,” she said in a small, muffled voice, little more than a tiny mess of blonde curls and pajamas as she prepared to burrow away once more, but it was his mention of their Baba that had her faltering. Reluctantly, she drew herself upright into a sitting position, and it was then that Viktor would realize just how downtrodden she really was. 

She had always been small, but the apples of her cheeks, previously so flushed and round and glowing with youth and vitality, were on the verge of being hollowed-in, and her once bright and shining eyes were dull and rimmed with red from crying for days on end. Her pride and glory, the beautiful mass of glimmering-gold curls she wore like a halo, were frizzed and matted from not being taken care of properly after her nightly bath, and even the oversized sweater she was wearing had little holes in the elbows. “Starshiy brat..." she said in a wobbly voice after a moment’s pause as she looked at the admittedly-pitiful plate of food he had put together for her; not so long ago, she would have teased him playfully for his efforts but devoured the entire stack of pancakes nevertheless, kissing him sweetly on the cheek to show her appreciation. Now, though...”If Baba was here, she would not being think any of this was okay,” she continued shakily, and her eyes squeezed shut as she once again felt an onslaught of hot, painful tears sting at the lids of them. “She would saying that everything is wrong! Please, Vitya, how am I supposing being eat when I am feeling so dead inside? Kak ya mogu zastavit' sebya khotet' sdelat' chto-nibud' voobshche?” With a broken sob, Tatiana drooped like a wilted flower onto her brother’s shoulder, her fuzzy blonde head a barely-there weight on the strong curve of it. “No food. None for Tatia. N - not until you are properly explaining to me why all of this has happened.”

Tatiana couldn’t stand the thought of being cooped up within the Russian headquarters for even a moment longer, and so while she had been especially forbidden from ever leaving on her own, the moment Noah had announced that he was going to start on his afternoon workout, she had scurried away like a little mouse before anyone could so much as say ‘Tanechka’. A little more than an hour later, after she had managed to find herself lost no less than a half-dozen time on the unfamiliar streets of New York City, she had finally made her way to the one person she wanted to see today: Feliks. He had been among the numerous people that had been there for her when she had been taken back from the Irish mafia, but due to the relentlessly close eye that had been kept upon her ever since, she hadn’t been given any time alone with him at all, and it was getting to the point that she hadn’t so much as spoken privately to him in months.

Now, though, she was seated across from him at Meow Parlor - a cat-themed cafe complete with at least twenty or so kittens roaming around the establishment. It had been one of the very first places that Tatiana had visited with her parents when they had first shown her the Big Apple so many years ago, and as a result, was incredibly near and dear to her heart. Still, even the softly-purring tabby cat in her lap couldn’t distract her from just how miserable she was, nor the eight different kinds of pastries she had laid out in front of her. “I missing you so much, big man. Is being much long time, da?” she asked quietly, attempting a small smile as she looked up across the table at Feliks; even his ocean-blue eyes weren’t quite enough to raise her spirits yet, but she was doing her best to show that she was at least grateful for the opportunity to be out of sight and out of mind of her bodyguard and all of the other security personnel that Viktor had hired to watch over her. “Have you being - well? Not getting in much trouble?”

Ever since she had been ‘rescued’ from the Irish mob, time had begun to pass differently for Tatiana - some days ended in the blink of an eye, whereas others dragged on until she was certain that she was on the brink of insanity. It had only been a few months since she had been brought back to her family, but she felt each moment as if it was an eternity; being torn away from the only man that she had ever loved and the life that she had built with him had torn apart her very soul, and as young as she was, she couldn’t help but feel as if she would never experience anything like that again. And she didn’t want to - not if it wasn’t with Alexander.

She loved her family. She loved her older brothers, her aunt and uncle, and her bodyguard as well. She had always been loyal to Russia and all that that entailed, but she had grown up with little to no knowledge of her family’s mafia background; it was only after the death of her parents that she had even learned of its existence. So how was she supposed to declare war on an entire group of people she had never so much as heard about before? How was she supposed to condemn the Irish when the man leading them just so happened to be the love of her life? And why had she been kept in the dark for so long to begin with? 

A knock at her door tore Tatiana from her melancholy thoughts, and the young princess looked weakly to the side of her plush four-poster bed to glance at the time on her corgi-shaped alarm clock. Ten am. No wonder someone was looking for her; her first lesson of the day with one of her many tutors had been scheduled for an hour ago, and she had even missed breakfast as well. “Nyet - go away,” she said dully, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her tiny arms around them so that she could rest her chin on top, a sad, petulant expression making itself known on her pixie face. “Tatia not wanting seeing anyone right now.”