It went without saying that young Emmaline Bennet…might have been in over her head at this point. Somehow she had managed to find herself separated from both Tatiana and Anya, despite the pact the three girls had made to stick together, and now she was hopelessly lost in the middle of a gala she had no business attending in the first place. All that she wanted was to find Ronan - Tatiana had hinted that the Golightly birthday party might have been a troubling front for mafia activity, and Emmaline had to concur; what other reason would her mate have to attend such an outlandish event? He - he was an assassin (a word she still had extreme difficulty saying out loud, and not just because of her stutter), and so she could only assume that his very particular skill set was needed due to some form of imminent danger, and while she knew that Ronan was more than capable of taking care of himself…she still couldn’t stomach the thought of him being in harms way at all. He might have been her protector first and foremost, and right from the moment they met come to think of it, but she liked to think that she could be a little bit of a guardian for him as well…albeit a very tiny, young, and not-so-strong one.
She had left her phone home at the compound under the assumption that she wouldn’t need it until she returned back to her shared apartment with Ronan, but now that she was lost and alone, she wished more than anything that she had a way to contact the father of her child. He would be so upset with her, of course, for disobeying his direct orders and sneaking out with the other girls, but Emmaline was more than ready to offer as many tearful apologies as he needed to forgive her just so long as it meant that he would bring her back home. This had been an awful idea - there was no sign of Christian, or Lilianna, or even Rafael or Tommy, and given that Emmaline was rather frail and vulnerable even when she wasn’t almost three months pregnant, this wasn’t a good place for her to be at all. She fretted anxiously with her small hands as she looked around for any glimpse of a familiar or friendly face, but in the process she was just shoved out of the way and pushed - manhandled, really - back towards the dancefloor. Right where she had just left because it had been too loud and scary for her to handle!
“No - please - “ Her weak voice fell on deaf ears as she was all but shoved further inside of the ballroom, and she had to protectively place a shaky hand on the barely-there curve of her baby bump just to keep herself safe. Everyone was taller than she was - everyone was bigger than she was - and Emmaline felt as if she was about to be swallowed up by the crowd. But then…somehow, over the roar of all the voices, and even over the sound of the orchestra, she heard - a voice. It was urgent, and not at all pleased, but it was low and husky and just faintly accented, and - oh! That was her daddy, her popochka, he was here, and now all that she needed to do was find him. Like a bunny rabbit following a trail of breadcrumbs, her button nose twitching as if she could somehow catch a whiff of Ronan’s scent on the air, Emmaline pushed clumsily through the crowd that had so roughly maneuvered her, and it was when she finally reached the back of the room that she came face to face with Ronan. Goodness, she had seen him dress in his suit before he had left for the evening, of course, but - now, in the setting of a party…
Tears of relief lept into her warm brown eyes at the sight of him, and it was with a broken-sounding sob that she ran to him on clumsy doe legs, nearly knocking his phone out of his weathered hands as she tossed her arms around his mid-section and buried her face helplessly in the reassuring warmth of his broad, barreled chest. Originally, when Tatiana had offered her full-reign over her closet, she had picked out the pretty blue dress solely to please Ronan, as well as the matching flowered headband, but as she clung onto him now and cried into his expensive suit jacket, she found that she no longer cared one bit about what she was wearing. No…all that mattered was that, in the middle of all her chaos, there was him. “Daddy - popochka - I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” She looked up at him, then, wide-eyed and tearful, and she let out another pitiful-sounding sob as her tiny shoulders shook with a mixture of relief, fear, and shame. “I - I know I wasn’t supposed to leave our apartment, but I was just so - so worried about you! The other girls, they - they said it would be real safe and that I’d find you right away, but then I got lost, and - and all the people were shovin’ at me, and I…I was so scared.”
She wasn’t answering. The fear was beginning to creep in, a real and tangible thing as his hands began to shake from where he gripped his phone too hard. Much tigheter, and he was almost certain he’d crack the glass across the front of the screen. But whenever he closed his eyes, all he could see was bodies, strewn across the floor; blood-soaked carpet and splatter across the walls. Mouths gaping open in horror, eyes glassy and vacant of the vivacity of life. The memories of his family haunted him still, ghosts that whispered horrible things in his memories. You could have done better; why are we dead and yet you live? Why have you wasted your life, Ronan, on anger and vengeance? Poor dear; nearly forty and he still can’t protect his family...
He blinked the haze of guilt and fear from his gaze, his mind spinning as Emmaline’s phone clicked to voicemail once more. His throat was dry, his heart hammering in his throat. But on the outside, he remained stoic, if not a little on-edge. He refused to believe anything had happened to his mate; it wasn’t possible. It was an improbable probability, and he would uproot New York from its very foundation before he allowed the sole source of joy n his life to evaporate like mist on the wind. Still, the threat of what might happen to her in his absence swam in his head, like a hive of angry bees, and he was in the middle of shutting off his phone and placing it back into his pocket when a small body barreled into him. Blinking, Ronan turned just in time to see a soft figure, clad in blue and a ribbon of sorts done up in her tight brown curls, collide against the hard planes of his body. He staggered a foot as he caught the warmth and familiarity of Emmaline in his arms, her small baby bump pressing against his own abdomen.
Thank God. Thank God thank God thank God.
She was apologizing to him, but Ronan could do little more than just try to calm his racing heart. A thousand terrible images had filtered through his mind, each more horrifying than the last, so the knowledge that she was here--that she was okay--was almost more than he could possibly bear.
“Myshka, myshka,” he breathed shakily into her hair, kissing the top of her head and rubbing her back soothingly as she rambled her apologies. She was prattling on about how ‘the girls’ had stated that it would be alright for them to sneak out, and a very new, very different sort of fear pierced his heart. He pulled her face away from his chest gently, cradling her tear-stained face in his palms and lowering his voice. If he spoke to her like they were the only two people in the room; in the city; on the entire globe, he was certain she would calm down. His thumb brushed tenderly over the arch of her cheekbone as he bent down and kissed her forehead. “It’s alright, little Russian doll, I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise. But tell me--who did you come here with? Tanechka? Anya? We need to find them--we need to find Viktor--before someone else does.” He released his hold on her cheeks in favor of sliding a hand down to brush, almost reverently, against her baby bump.
“When I asked you to remain behind at the compound, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be here with you--it’s because it is dangerous for you to be here, Emmaline; you and the baby,” he explained, his voice soft but firm. “I would have stayed home with you if I could have--I spent...every moment in your absence worrying over you. If it was not for my duty to the family, I would have left an hour ago. Two hours ago. Пойдем со мной, маленький медведь. Come with me, little bear, before you hibernate in my suit jacket for the rest of the night.” He took her hands in his, glancing around the ballroom for any sign of Tatiana or Anya. Just what in the world did the girls think they were doing by sneaking out? Tatiana was likely in danger of Irish occupation again; the sooner they could find everyone and round them up, the sooner the Pakhan could deal with them.
“Do you know where the other girls could have gone?” he asked Emmaline, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice. “We need to find them before--we just need to find them. Point me in the right direction, myshka, and I’ll get all three of you out of here.”