slow, soft and sweet— he kisses you like he has all the time in the world and nothing can take this moment away from him. he kisses you like he is trying to take a bite out of you and consume you whole so you would always be with him. his hands move around you slowly. not because he wants to tease you, he has no intention of that, thats far from what he wants to do, he just wants to feel every inch of you; every dip, every scar, every stretch mark, every single thing. he wants to feel the bumps under his fingertips as his tongue collides with yours. the kiss wasn’t just a kiss, it was the beginning of something more sinister, something more wicked.
because the two of you together were sin, and the two of you apart were destruction.
megumi fushiguro, james cook, yuta, daisuke kambe, bucky barnes, caleb (lads), cardan greenbrier, dante russo, adrian chase, jason todd, connor kent, tim drake, geto suguru, alexsander kirigan, sirius black, frank castle, your man 🪽
word count: idk
warnings: possible character death implied kind + talks abt the mafia
pairings: roman davenport x luca russo
summary: they have a nice talk then roman disappears then bad things happen
pov: luca russo
previous chapters: chapters
IMPORTANT: both mmcs belong to ana huang.
ps. this is NAWT proof read and yes the end was basically copied from tgb but like wtv
I loved dating Roman Davenport.
Yep. You heard me. Dating. For almost 3 months now.
It still felt surreal to say out loud. Surreal, but absolutely fucking amazing too, because somehow this impossibly beautiful, permanently grumpy man had looked at me and decided, against all reason and common sense, that I was somebody he wanted to build a little life with. He was my boyfriend. Somebody I got to hug and laugh with and tell pointless stories to at two in the morning, somebody I got to share pieces of myself with until, little by little, our lives started weaving together.
He was mine.
Unfortunately, we lived apart.
Roman's...job (I guess you could call it?) took him everywhere, and even when it didn't, he insisted on spending most of his time in that godforsaken building because he needed to keep an eye on his people and make sure everything was running smoothly. And, of course, there was Morana, whom he absolutely refused to admit he loved despite the fact that every single person around him could see straight through the act.
The longest we'd been apart was a week. A full week.
And I learned very quickly that I was absolutely terrible at long distance.
On day one, I managed to act like a normal, well-adjusted human being and called him once in the morning and once before bed. By day two, I'd started sending him completely meaningless texts and a concerning paragraph explaining why I thought at least half the animals in Central Park were government spies. Days three and four somehow evolved into me sending him pictures of things that reminded me of him for absolutely no reason whatsoever. A crow sitting on a fence. A particularly dramatic cloud. A motorcycle that was vaguely the same shade of black as his. By days five and six, I had completely lost the plot. I was sending him voice notes, pictures of Yves, updates on what I'd eaten for lunch, and detailed complaints about strangers who had mildly inconvenienced me.
Then, finally, day seven rolled around and I got him back.
Turns out I was completely, hopelessly, embarrassingly attached to the cute little fucker.
But being with Roman had done something else, too. It had helped me understand him. Not just the version everybody else saw, but the person underneath all of that.
His mental conditions especially started making more sense the longer we were together, because I realised that his mind wasn't cruel to other people nearly as often as it was cruel to him. The first time I saw him having a really bad episode, I didn't know what to do. I'd only known him for so long before then, and seeing somebody who always looked so composed suddenly overwhelmed by his own thoughts was terrifying, not because he scared me, but because I could see how much he was hurting.
Since then, I'd seen it happen a couple more times.
The mania ones hit hardest. The ones where his mind raced. They were always the hardest to watch because he looked like he was trying to outrun something only he could see, getting frustrated with himself because he couldn't seem to quiet the noise in his own head. The quieter days hurt too, though, because that was when he withdrew into himself and convinced himself he was a burden, or that he was somehow too broken for anybody to stay.
At first, I thought I needed to fix it. Then I realised that wasn't what he needed. Most of the time, Roman didn't need perfect words or clever advice. He just needed somebody who stayed. So I'd sit beside him, even if he insisted he was fine. I'd make sure he ate something, or got some sleep, or simply had somebody there while the storm in his head settled down. I'd let him know, over and over again if I had to, that he wasn't facing it by himself anymore.
I think the days when his mind wasn’t trying to convince him that the world was ending were my favourite.
Not because I loved him any less on the bad days, because I didn’t, but because the good days let me see the version of Roman that I was pretty sure almost nobody else got to know. The quiet, awkward one who never really knew what to do with himself when he was happy, the one who followed me around my apartment pretending he wasn’t, the one who would stand in the kitchen with his arms folded while I cooked and somehow act like he wasn’t waiting for the exact moment I looked away so he could steal a piece of half-cooked pasta straight out of the pot.
And he always did it.
Every. Single. Time.
I’d hear the lid move behind me, spin around, and there he’d be, holding one pathetic little piece of spaghetti between his fingers like he’d been caught stealing state secrets instead of uncooked dinner.
The idiot.
Then there was the day he decided he wanted to make dinner himself.
I came into the kitchen because it had gone suspiciously quiet, which, in my experience, usually meant either Roman had fallen asleep somewhere or something had gone wrong.
He was standing over the pot with the box of spaghetti beside him.
The spaghetti...which was in pieces.
Little broken pieces.
I actually just stood there.
He looked at me. He looked down. Then back up.
I’m not joking when I say I think my soul left my body for a second.
I had to sit down.
He should’ve been grateful nobody from my family had seen that, because I’m almost certain one of my relatives would’ve materialised out of thin air just to slap him.
But those quiet evenings were my favourite.
Or those nights at his place where we'd sit on the roof with our legs dangling over New York, the two of us sewn together by Roman's ancient pair of wired headphones while we listened to something one of us wanted the other to hear. Usually, it was me introducing him to stuff, because Roman had absolutely zero ball knowledge when it came to good music, which I found deeply concerning.
It was kind of sad.
So far, I'd only managed to get him hooked on sombr, because he vibed hard with we never dated, and I'd slipped a few Conan Gray songs into the playlist too. He also liked escapism by RAYE and 070 Shake, which basically confirmed my suspicion that underneath the scary face and all the tattoos, my boyfriend loved sad people music.
I'd work on fixing his music taste later.
Also, unfortunately, I still had nightmares. I still had therapy.
I still had moments where something stupid, a smell, a sound, a scream that wasn’t roman’s, would drag me somewhere I didn’t want to go, back into memories I tried to forget. But the difference now was that I didn’t have to claw my own way back out every time. Roman always noticed. Sometimes before I did.
He’d pull me onto the couch and put on one of those movies I loved and he thought were absolutely ridiculous, or make me hot chocolate that somehow always tasted slightly different because he never measured anything, or just sit there beside me until my breathing settled down.
And sometimes I was the clingy one.
Actually, most of the time I was the clingy one.
I’d practically glue myself to him for entire evenings, following him from room to room until he finally gave up and accepted that whatever he was doing was now a 2 person activity. Sometimes he’d be lying in bed reading, completely absorbed in one of his books, and I’d just crawl over and flop down on top of him with my head against his chest, peeking up at him from underneath the pages. He never complained. He’d shift the book a little so I could still see his face if I wanted to, then one hand would find my hair almost automatically, his fingers running through it slowly while he kept reading like this was the most normal thing in the world.
With me.
With Yves.
With Josie, who had somehow managed to reduce one of the most dangerous men in New York into a human climbing frame.
With Morana.
Actually, speaking of her, we'd gotten to know each other a lot better over the last few months, mostly because she kept showing up whenever I was at the building and immediately deciding that whatever I was doing was now her business too.
She was...a lot.
She had this energy about her that made it feel like she'd walk into a room and immediately become the centre of it without even trying. She was loud and hilarious and had absolutely no filter, and I don't think I'd ever met somebody who could switch so effortlessly between threatening to stab somebody and then going out shopping because, apparently, her wardrobe was "a humanitarian crisis."
One afternoon we'd ended up getting coffee together while Roman was working, and somewhere between her insulting my shoes and stealing half my pastry, she'd admitted that she didn't actually want to stay in the Brotherhood forever.
She wanted out eventually.
She wanted more.
She wanted parties and runways and fashion shows and stupidly expensive clothes, she wanted fame and drinks and red carpets and everything. Roman had apparently offered to just give her the money to leave and start over about a thousand times, but she'd refused every single one.
She wanted to earn it.
She wanted to build something that was hers.
Honestly, I couldn't even argue with that.
There was something kind of incredible about watching a 22 year old assassin talk about how she’d gotten scouted by modelling agencies so many times with the exact same passion most people talked about falling in love.
Right now, it was raining like hell outside, and somewhere in the last twenty minutes the rain had started turning into snow, the little white flakes spinning through the air before disappearing against the wet black streets below. It was the middle of November, and New York had reached that weird point where the whole city looked cold enough to break.
We were at my place because Roman hadn't been over in a while. And Roman wasn't with me.
He was outside on the balcony, the hood of his hoodie pulled over his head and his headphones tucked over his ears, leaning against the railing while he looked out over the city. I couldn't hear what he was listening to from inside, but considering I'd spent the last three months aggressively educating him on what constituted good music, I was choosing to believe it was one of my playlists.
Contrary to what I'd yapped about earlier, I did actually leave Roman alone when he wanted to be alone.
It took me a while to understand (and an even longer while to stop taking it personally) that as much as Roman needed somebody beside him, he also needed to be alone every now and then, to just sit with his thoughts and let his mind settle. At first I'd always wonder if I'd done something wrong, if I'd annoyed him or said something stupid, but eventually I realised it had nothing to do with me.
It was just introvert bullshit. Very dramatic, very mysterious, introvert bullshit. But I respected it anyway.
I poured some hot chocolate into two mugs and wandered over to the door, giving the glass two little knocks. Roman looked over his shoulder. I held one of the mugs up. His eyes dropped to it for a second, then back to me, and after a moment he pulled one side of his headphones off.
"...For me?"
I blinked.
"No, baby, I made two mugs because I thought it'd be fun to drink both."
He stared at me.
"...That's fair."
I laughed so hard I nearly spilled the hot chocolate.
He took the mug from my hands and had a sip, and after a second he let out this tiny little hum of approval that most people probably wouldn't have even noticed.
I did.
I'd gotten pretty good at translating Roman by now.
That little noise was basically the Roman Davenport equivalent of awarding me three Michelin stars and declaring me the greatest chef to ever walk the Earth.
"It's really good," he said after a moment.
"Thanks."
He took another sip, both hands wrapped around the mug because it was freezing outside, and I watched him over the rim of mine while the snow slowly settled in his hair where his hood had slipped back. He didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he did and just didn't care. Roman had a habit of forgetting about little things like the weather once he got lost in his own head.
For a little while, we just stood there, our shoulders brushing every now and then whenever one of us shifted.
Then he held the mug out towards me. I frowned. "What?"
"Try it."
"Roman, I made it."
"Try it anyway."
I took a sip.
"...It tastes exactly the same."
"No."
"No?"
"It cooled down."
I looked at him for a second before I started laughing.
"You dragged me into the freezing cold to tell me my hot chocolate got cold?"
"I didn't drag you anywhere."
"Right, sorry. You stood out here looking mysterious until I voluntarily followed you."
He didn't answer. He just looked back out over the city again, but I caught the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth. I bumped his shoulder with mine.
"You know, normal people say things."
"I am saying things."
"No, you're saying three words every five minutes and expecting me to piece together the rest through divine intervention."
"You manage."
"I do manage," I admitted, taking my mug back from him. "It's kind of concerning how good I've gotten at understanding you."
“Really??”
"Now I just assume you thought the cocoa would taste better if I had some too."
He looked down at his own mug.
"...It did."
The words came out so quietly that I almost missed them. I didn't say anything after that. I just smiled into my hot chocolate while the snow drifted down around us, and after another minute or so Roman reached up, pulled one side of his headphones off, and held it out towards me without even looking.
I slipped it over my ear.
The Exit by conan gray was playing, one he'd claimed was "alright, I guess" before accidentally listening to it enough times that he knew all the words.
"I thought you said you didn't like this one."
"I don't."
"Roman."
"It's...fine."
I looked at him. He kept his eyes fixed on the skyline.
"You made a playlist, didn't you?"
Silence.
“Baby.”
A longer silence.
Then, without even a hint of embarrassment, he muttered,
"You put too many songs in the one you made me."
I think my heart actually melted a little. "So your solution was to make your own?"
"The good ones are easier to find now."
I stared at him. "You are officially the cutest person I've ever met."
That finally got him to look at me.
"Don't call me cute."
"Why not?"
He smirked. “I have a reputation."
I snorted. "Oh yeah? The scary assassin reputation?"
"Yes."
"The same guy that's currently standing in the New York chill, sharing headphones and hot chocolate with his boyfriend because he made a playlist?"
His ears turned the faintest shade of pink.
"Shut up."
I bumped his shoulder again.
"Make me."
He looked at me for a long second, completely unimpressed, before quietly taking my mug out of my hands and holding it with his own so I wouldn't spill it while I laughed.
Honestly, I don't think either of us noticed he'd done it. It just sort of happened and somehow that made me happier than anything else.
“So, uh, I’m going out tonight,” he said.
I immediately perked up, my eyebrows shooting up so quickly they practically disappeared into my hairline.
“Where?”
He looked away for a second, taking a sip of his hot chocolate before answering.
“Uh... Brotherhood stuff. I might stay at mine tonight then.”
I blinked.
“Can I come?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate, not even a second of thought, not even the courtesy of pretending to consider it.
“Why?”
Roman sighed softly and stared into his mug for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice had gone completely flat and detached, like he was discussing grocery shopping instead of something that was clearly bothering him.
“Look, I’ve managed to keep you away from danger so far, don’t make me risk it. Sure, people know you’re my boyfriend but that puts a huge target on your back. Just stay here. I’ll send you a text if I'm not that tired afterwards.”
Have I mentioned he could be really annoying sometimes?
“Roman,” I said, exasperated, straightening up properly. “I’m your boyfriend. We've been dating for, like, almost four months now. You can't keep me out of your business forever.”
His expression changed almost immediately. It was just the slightest tightening of his jaw, the faintest crease appearing between his eyebrows as he looked away from me and out towards the snow gathering on the balcony.
“Luca...” He exhaled slowly, sounding exhausted already. “Look, I know it’s unfair, I know. But I really don't want you getting hurt again. I can't survive a second time. It fucking broke you. Do you think I'd really risk that happening again?”
My mouth slowly fell into a thin line.
Not because I was angry. Honestly, I didn't even know what I was.
Because one part of my brain was immediately screaming that this was unfair. We were dating, for fuck's sake. I knew he was dangerous. I knew about the Brotherhood. I knew his life was complicated and messy and occasionally involved disappearing for hours without explanation. He couldn't keep me tucked away from an entire half of his existence forever.
But the other part of me understood exactly where he was coming from. Because he wasn't saying this to punish me. He wasn't saying it because he didn't trust me. He was scared. And that made it infinitely harder to argue.
Because the thing about Roman was that he remembered everything. Every nightmare I'd had. Every zone out episode. Every time I'd frozen while we were fucking or gone quiet because something had reminded me of that basement. He remembered every bad day with horrifying accuracy and carried them around with him like little ghosts.
And apparently, despite all of my progress, despite the fact I was doing better now, he was still terrified of seeing me become that version of myself again.
I sighed.
“Can you at least tell me what kind of gathering this is?” I asked eventually, deciding I was willing to take literally any scrap of information he was prepared to throw my way.
Roman looked at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
“It's a... ceremony.”
I stared at him. A ceremony. Very fucking vague.
He kept looking at me, though, and after a few seconds something in his expression softened. It was subtle, so subtle that somebody who didn't know him probably wouldn't have noticed, but I did. I'd gotten good at noticing.
He took my mug from my hands, then handed it back again a second later after adjusting his grip on it for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
“Listen,” he said quietly. “I have to go back home and get ready and then head out, okay? But when I'm done, I'll call... maybe we can watch a movie or something. Yeah?”
I looked at him. He looked...tired. Distracted. Like his mind had already left the balcony and was halfway to wherever he needed to be.
“Okay,” I said.
Some of the tension left his shoulders.
“Okay,” he repeated softly.
He took a small step backwards towards the door.
“I gotta go, though.” Then he paused for a fraction of a second and added, almost absent-mindedly, “Love you.”
And then he left.
The door clicked shut behind him, I didn't move. I just stood there, holding my mug and staring at the door.
Because that...That was another thing currently eating away at my sanity.
We hadn't said I love you.
Well, we had, technically. We'd said love you before hanging up the phone sometimes or when one of us was half-asleep. We'd used the word love casually in sentences and jokes and teasing comments. It existed between us comfortably enough.
But neither of us had ever looked at the other and actually said, I love you.
Not seriously, not in a way that meant I am completely and entirely in love with you and I need you to know that.
But I shouldn't have been complaining. God knew I'd had opportunities. Plenty of them.
There had been nights where he'd been reading in bed while I used his chest as a pillow, one hand absent-mindedly stroking through my hair for an hour straight. There had been mornings where he'd made me breakfast because I'd had a nightmare. There had been moments on rooftops and balconies and in kitchens and in the quiet spaces between conversations where I had looked at him and felt my chest get so painfully full of love that I thought I might explode.
And every single time, I'd chickened out.
Because I just...I wasn't sure. I knew he cared about me.
I knew that.
I knew he'd protect me with everything he had and that he'd hold me after diassaocisating and let me steal his too-small-for-me hoodies and somehow put up with me talking for 40 minutes straight about something stupid.
But loving me?
Being in love with me?
I didn't know.
And now he'd casually thrown a love you over his shoulder while leaving for some mysterious Brotherhood ceremony and disappeared before I could even process it.
I looked down at my mug. Then back at the door. Then back at my mug again.
I was going to lose my fucking mind.
Also, just for confirmation, I did love him. So fucking much. Though, to be fair, I'd only realised it last week.
We'd been lying on the floor of his living room after having the fuck fest of our lives, too comfortable to bother moving, the city humming quietly outside while we existed in our own little pocket of silence. Roman had been tracing absent-minded patterns against the carpet with his fingertips before he turned his head to look at me, those sage-green eyes softer than I'd ever seen them, and after hesitating for just a second too long, he'd asked, almost so quietly I could've convinced myself I'd imagined it,
“Are you, uhm... around? For Christmas?”
It wasn't a big question. To anyone else, it probably would've sounded ordinary. But Roman didn't ask ordinary questions.
Every word he spoke was chosen carefully, held in his mouth for a while before he decided it was safe enough to let it exist, and somehow that tiny, hesitant question held more hope than a thousand love letters ever could. He wasn't asking about Christmas.
He was asking if, when he pictured the winter, I could be in it too.
And when I looked into those impossibly gentle sage green eyes, I realised something that made my chest ache in the nicest way imaginable.
Somewhere along the line, without either of us noticing, he'd become my favourite place.
Not his apartment.
Not his arms.
Just...him.
The sound of his voice after a long day. The little crease between his eyebrows whenever he was concentrating. The way his hand always found mine without thinking about it. The quiet moments where we didn't need to speak because simply existing beside each other somehow felt like enough.
I loved the extraordinary parts of him, of course.
But I loved the ordinary ones even more.
I loved the version of Roman Davenport that the rest of the world never got to meet.
And as I laid there looking at him, I remembered thinking that if someone had offered me every beautiful thing the world had to give in exchange for never hearing him ask another shy little question like that again...
I would've turned them down without a second thought.
Because I didn't want a grand life anymore.
I just wanted one with him in it.
Anyway.
Enough yearning and standing in my kitchen like the world's most pathetic Hallmark protagonist.
I had a mystery to solve.
Roman Davenport thought he was being slick. He thought he could hit me with the incredibly informative explanation of "Brotherhood stuff" followed by an even more incredibly informative "it's a ceremony," and disappear into the night and expect me to just...accept that.
Absolutely not.
Curiosity had been one of my defining personality traits since birth. My mother probably popped me out and I immediately started asking where we were going.
Which meant a plan was already beginning to bloom inside my head, growing bigger and more questionable by the second, and like every spectacularly terrible idea I'd ever had, it depended almost entirely on one very specific person.
One very important young woman with an untamable halo of brown curls, enough confidence to tell the devil he was being dramatic, and an attitude sharp enough to go head to head with Roman's without either of them backing down.
Morana Caldwell.
If anybody was going to accidentally - or intentionally, depending on how much she liked the chaos that day - tell me what the hell was going on tonight, it was her.
So, I dialled her number.
By the third ring, she picked up, and before I even had the chance to say hello, her voice came through the speaker with enough confidence to make it sound like she'd been expecting my call all along.
“Hello, dearest and most probable future brother-in-law.”
I snorted, shaking my head as I wandered aimlessly into the living room.
“Woah, calm down. For someone who claims to despise Roman so much, you seem awfully determined to remind me that I'm dating your best friend.”
“He's not my best friend, and we're not friends,” she corrected immediately, sounding genuinely offended by the accusation.
Yeah. Right.
They were about as convincing as Roman pretending he didn't enjoy cuddling. Those two bickered with enough commitment to fool anyone who didn't know them, but I'd seen the way Morana quietly checked whether he'd eaten after disappearing for three days, and the way Roman always somehow knew when she needed picking up after a job without her ever asking.
They weren't friends. They were siblings who'd forgotten they weren't actually related.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” I laughed. “Anyway... I need to chitchat.”
There was a pause. A you definitely want something pause.
“Oh?” she hummed, amusement dripping from every syllable. “And does this delightful little chitchat happen to involve my emotionally constipated roommate, or have you suddenly decided you enjoy my sparkling personality?”
“Well...”
“It involves Roman.”
“It might involve Roman.”
“So it definitely involves Roman.”
I sighed dramatically.
“I hate how quickly you figured that out.”
“Luca,” she said with a laugh, “you've called me exactly 2 times since we met, including now, and the first time was to see if my number worked. You're about as subtle as a marching band.”
“…That's a little hurtful.”
“And yet true. Now, shoot.”
“So…” I started, trying very hard to sound casual and absolutely not like I was fishing for information, “I’ve been made aware that there’s some sort of special ceremony happening today?”
“Luca.”
“What?”
“You are so bad at pretending you’re not trying to get information.”
I frowned, even though she couldn't see me.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You called me out of nowhere, started with a suspiciously sweet greeting, and now you’re bringing up a mysterious ceremony that Roman definitely didn’t explain properly.”
I opened my mouth. Then closed it. Because, unfortunately, she was right.
“Okay, first of all, I object to the word suspiciously. I’m always sweet.”
“Sure.”
“I am.”
“Luca.”
“Fine, maybe not always.”
She laughed quietly on the other end of the phone, and I could practically picture her rolling her eyes.
“So Roman told you about the ceremony?”
“Technically.”
“What does technically mean?”
“It means he told me there was Brotherhood stuff happening and that he might stay at his place afterwards, and when I asked what kind of gathering it was, he looked at me like I’d asked him to reveal state secrets and said it was a ceremony.”
Morana was quiet for a second.
Then I heard her sigh.
“That man.”
“Exactly.”
“He really does think giving people the tiniest amount of information possible counts as communicating.”
“THANK YOU.”
“I didn’t say you were right.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I really did.”
“Anyway,” I said, ignoring that, “what is it?”
“Luca…”
“Please.”
“You’re doing the voice.”
“What voice?”
“The one where you sound like a very determined golden retriever who has discovered a locked door.”
I gasped.
“Thats incredibly specific.”
“Because it’s accurate.”
“Wow. Rude.”
“Accurate and rude are not mutually exclusive.”
I tried not to laugh and I failed.
“Okay, so are you going to tell me or are you going to let me sit here and dramatically suffer?”
“You’re already being dramatic.”
“Yes, but now I’d be dramatically informed.”
Morana sighed again.
And I knew I had her.
“So you want to know what the ceremony is.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah.”
“Luca…”
Immediately, my joking faded, because there was something different in her voice now. It was weirdly careful.
“It’s not just a Brotherhood thing,” she finally said. “Not really.”
I stayed silent, letting her continue.
“The Brotherhood is connected to a lot of people. A lot of powerful people. The kind of people who don’t need to announce they have power because everyone already knows.”
A small chill ran through me.
“And the ceremony is…”
“It’s a meeting.”
I frowned.
“A meeting?”
“A meeting between families.”
The way she said the word families made it sound nothing like the way normal people used it.
Not warmth or Sunday dinners or childhood memories.
These were names.
Legacies.
Organizations built on reputation and fear.
“What kind of families?”
Morana was quiet for a second before answering.
“The Allisters. The Caines. A group coming in from Brazil. A representative from the Bianchi family is supposed to be there too.”
I stopped moving, because even I knew enough to understand that those names weren’t being thrown around casually.
These weren’t random people meeting for drinks. These were people who carried histories behind them. People whose names meant something.
“So basically…” I started slowly, “this is a crime meeting.”
Morana didn’t correct me.
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“That’s never a good sentence.”
“No, it usually isn’t.”
She sighed.
“Think about it like this. These families have been around for years. Decades. They have businesses, connections, influence. Some of them have legitimate power, some of them have power that exists in the shadows, and most of them have both. The ceremony is where certain things are discussed, where alliances are maintained, where everyone reminds each other who they are dealing with.”
The room suddenly felt quieter. There was something unsettling about realising that Roman’s world wasn’t just dangerous because of the things he personally did. It was dangerous because he existed inside something much bigger. Something old that had survived because people protected it. Because people feared it.
“And Roman has to be there?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Morana didn’t hesitate. “Because Roman is one of the people they pay attention to.”
That answer landed harder than I expected. I knew Roman was respected and I knew people feared him, but there was a difference between knowing someone was dangerous and realising there were rooms full of dangerous people where his presence actually mattered.
“He hates that, doesn’t he?”
Morana laughed quietly.
“Oh, he hates almost everything.”
“Fair.”
“But yes. He hates being seen as important because he knows what comes with that.”
“And what comes with it?”
“Expectations.”
Her voice softened.
“People think Roman is cold because he doesn’t care. They’re wrong. He cares too much, and that’s why he’s careful.”
I looked down at my phone.
Because suddenly I understood why he hadn’t told me, not fully, but enough. Roman wasn’t keeping me away because he thought I was incapable. He was just keeping me away because in his mind, loving me meant making sure the darkest parts of his world never touched me.
Which was very Roman.
UGH.
“So,” I said after a moment, trying to bring back some of the lighter mood, “you’re telling me my boyfriend is secretly attending terrifying mafia meetings while I’m sitting at home drinking cold hot chocolate?”
Morana hummed.
“When you say it like that, it sounds dramatic.”
“It is dramatic.”
“It’s also accurate.”
“Great. Love that for me.”
“You chose him.”
I sighed.
“I know.”
And the worst part was, I really did.
“So... what exactly am I supposed to do then?” I asked, trying, and failing, to keep the hopeful edge out of my voice. “Can you, like...sneak me in, or-”
“NO.”
The answer came so fast and so loudly that I instinctively pulled the phone a few inches away from my ear.
“Jeez,” I muttered with a sheepish laugh that disappeared almost as quickly as it'd come. “Sorry.”
My shoulders slumped, and I found myself absentmindedly staring out into the distance as the disappointment settled in my chest a little heavier than I'd expected. It wasn't even that I desperately wanted to attend some terrifying gathering of organised criminals (I absolutely did not) but I hated the feeling of standing outside a door that seemed determined to stay locked.
Morana sighed, and when she spoke again, the firmness in her voice hadn't disappeared, but it had softened around the edges.
“Luca, listen to me, okay? This isn't me being dramatic, and it isn't Roman being overprotective just for the sake of it. This is a really big deal, and it's dangerous enough that the only people Roman is bringing with him are me and the two heads of the defence section. Meetings like this can turn ugly without warning, and if they do, nobody gets time to react before everything goes to shit. I know you're frustrated, but if you were there and something happened, you could get hurt, and neither of us is willing to take that risk.”
I stayed quiet.
“I promise I'm not trying to keep you out just because it's easier,” she continued. “It's genuinely because we'd rather have you annoyed at us than caught in the middle of something you should never have had to see in the first place. If I get the chance, I'll take a few pictures before everything starts and show you later, but that's honestly the best I can do. So... just trust me. Trust Roman on this one.”
I let out a long sigh through my nose.
“…Fine.”
“Thank you.”
There was a small pause before her voice brightened ever so slightly, like she was deliberately trying to steer us away from a conversation that had become heavier than either of us wanted.
“In the meantime,” she said, “maybe spend your evening figuring out what you're getting Roman for Christmas.”
My eyebrows knitted together. “…How do you know we're spending Christmas together?”
“Don't sound so offended,” she laughed. “I only know because he told me he isn't staying with my mum and I this year. He normally does. But I don’t care. I got tickets for me and mom to go to London for 5 days anyways.”
She said it lightly, almost carelessly, but there was something underneath it that caught my attention, a tiny thread of disappointment she'd buried so quickly that I probably wasn't supposed to hear it at all.
“Oh,” I said quietly. “...Okay.”
“So,” she continued before the silence could linger, “find him something good while you wait. This whole shitshow should be over by around ten-thirty, maybe eleven if everyone behaves themselves, and then either he or I will call you from the hospital and you can come pick us up.”
I blinked.
“…Why would you be calling me from a hospital?”
“Because somebody always ends up there.”
Then the line went dead.
After waiting, and waiting, and waiting and waiting….my phone finally rang.
ROMAN.
“Baby?”
“Luca.”
He sounded...broken. Anguished. Tired. Exhausted. Scared.
What happened?
I could hear faint screams in the background, glass shattering, gunshots-
“Things went south,” Roman's rasp cut through the chaos. “I'm okay, but Morana's stuck and-”
“You're going back for her.”
A beat of silence.
“…I have to, moya dushka.”
I froze.
“You... you gave me a nickname...”
A quiet, breathless chuckle reached me through the speaker, somehow surviving all the noise around him.
“Better late than never.”
“Listen here, you little shit,” I said, my voice already cracking despite how hard I was trying to keep it together. “You are going to be okay, okay? And when you get back, I'm making you all the hot cocoa and pasta in the world, and you're going to complain about the marshmallows like you always do, and you and Morana are both going to get out of there okay and it’ll all be fine and we’ll all be-”
“I love you, Luca.”
What.
The.
Fuck.
“I think...” he whispered, the words almost disappearing beneath another burst of shouting somewhere behind him, “I think I have for a long time. Longer than I knew how to admit to myself. I just...I needed you to hear it.”
My eyes burned.
“Roman...”
“You walked into my life and somehow made it feel... lighter,” he continued, his voice trembling in a way I'd never heard before. “You made me laugh when I didn't think I could. You made ordinary days feel worth surviving just so I could see the next one with you. Every time you smile at me, every time you ramble about something I know absolutely nothing about, every time you fall asleep on top of me because I'm your favourite mattress...” He let out another tiny laugh. “...I remember what it feels like to live instead of exist.”
I covered my mouth with my hand, tears spilling over before I could stop them.
“Don't cry,” he murmured.
“You're literally in the middle of a shooting!”
“I know.”
“So don't tell me not to cry!”
Another soft laugh.
“I just...wanted you to know that I'm yours, dushka, just as much as you're mine. Thank you...for making me happier than I ever thought I was allowed to be. I need you to know what. To remember that if I-”
“Don’t. You. Dare! You tell me all of this when you get home,” I said immediately, wiping furiously at my face. “Not over the phone. You hear me? You get Morana, you both get out of there, and then you come home and tell me again!”
A pause. I could hear him running.
“Alright,” he said, his voice rough with exhaustion, “I'll tell you again later. As many times as you want.”
“You better.”
“I will.”
Another crash erupted somewhere behind him, followed by overlapping voices shouting orders that dissolved into static before I could make out a single word.
“Roman...?”
“I have to go.”
“Be careful.”
“I always-”
BANG!!
The gunshot cracked through the phone so violently that I instinctively yanked it away from my ear. Glass exploded somewhere nearby, people were screaming over one another, more shots rang out in quick succession, and for a split second all I could hear was the deafening chaos swallowing everything else.
“Roman!”
My own voice sounded tiny against the noise.
“Roman, answer me!”
There was a burst of static, footsteps pounding across what sounded like broken glass, someone shouting his name in the distance, that I recognised as Morana.
one where reader goes out with her friends and doesnt tell dante and comes back super late lol
i smell smut coming from this scenario 🤯
Where Were You?
reqested?: yes
pairing(s): dante russo x afab!reader
genre: smut
warning(s): the tiniest kai cameo (i mean tiniest, but i still love him), mentions of alcohol consumption, finger sucking, unprotected sex (you know what im going to say here, but i'll say it louder for the people in the back: WRAP IT BEFORE YOU TAP IT), doggy, backshots, oral (f recieving), slight breeding kink, (light) fingering, rough sex, overstimulation, reader cant orgasm from just penetration, hair pulling
summary: 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭𝘴 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘵, 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦...
word count:
a/n: i am so so so very sorry i disappeared off the face of the earth for like two months, i apologise, i was so busy in my real life that i have had little to no time at all to write. i promise to be more on track for a while because ive had many requests. i also would like to start writing for avatar characters because since fire and ash came out ive been in my avatar phase again (tiktok gave me a massive spoiler and i was very angry, but we roll). but have a very happy new years (even though its like one and a bit months in), i hope this year is the most amazing for you and you get everything you want! i cant thank you all enough for the love and support my small blog has been getting, i love you all so much and take care! remember to eat and drink something, love yas, mwah! -Cilla
it was a good night, to say the least. you had left not long before dante returned home from work. you knew he wouldn’t be happy, but you deserved to have fun, besides, he would have wanted to pay for the night out anyways.
dante was confused when he got home. you didn’t tell him where you had gone, you hadn’t even given him a heads up to let him know you were going out. he had tried to text you, but you only gave a small response, offering him no explanation to where you actually had gone. he was not happy at all.
he was even more unhappy when you stumbled through the door, obviously tipsy (you had managed to sober up a little in the bar before you came home). he downed the rest of his whiskey and slammed it down on the coaster before rounding the corner to greet you, except he didn’t greet you as you did him, no, he stood there silently.
watching, waiting for you to notice him in your alcohol-fueled haze. and when you noticed his silhouette standing in the distance, he still didn’t say anything. you squinted as though you were trying to make out who it was that was stood only a few steps in front of you.
“dan?” you whisper-yelled, dante forced himself to keep his composure, which was a lot harder around you. his mask began to crumble as he held back a smile, he forced it down and kept his frown. (bars) “is that you?” you say loudly this time.
“who else would it be?” his gruff voice rang out, you let your coat fall to the floor in a clump, you frown.
“dannie i missed you baby” your words were slightly slurred, you weren’t drunk, definitely not because you were still coherent. but your words were still enough for dante to raise a brow, you were never this affectionate with him. well not to his face.
you hadn’t drank that much, you knew how to hold your liquor, so you only had around five drinks. you still knew what was going on around you and was definitely not as drunk as your friends by the time you had been picked up by an uber.
dante walked fowards, looking down at you, gliding one of his hands down your upper arms to your elbows. his eyes pierced into yours in the dark, your lips were parted in such a way it had him feeling hot, he couldn’t help it. you looked all dolled up tonight and it wasn’t for him, given, he was less angry about the fact it was for your friends, but he was pissed off about the fact that you hadn’t given him a heads up to where you were going.
he cupped your elbow, his head dipping down just enough to brush his lips against your glossed ones before he decided against his actions. you chased his lips, trying to get the kiss you craved as he knelt down in front of you to pick up your coat. he stood to his full height and put your coat along with the other ‘over-priced’ ones.
then, he took your elbow again and lead you upstairs. he told you to get comfy in bed so he could bring you a drink, just because he was slightly pissed didn’t mean he wasn’t going to return back to his gentlemanly duties.
when he came back, you were washing your face, ridding yourself of the grime and dirt of the day passed. he sets the glass of water down on your bedside table and sat on the edge, waiting for you to return from the bathroom, and soon you did. you climbed into bed, dante watched as you did so, not making any move to join you just yet.
you sat with your back against the headboard, you both watched each other intensely. dante’s eyes roamed over you, you were no longer dolled up. your hair was brushed and neat, but your make up was gone and you were now wearing nothing but panties and an oversized shirt, one that you had stolen from dante when he went boxing with kai.
he saw the curve of you breast under the shirt, nipples just peaking through the thin fabric before it curved back down to your stomach, crumpling there slightly. the shirt covered your thighs when standing, but now you were laying down, the shirt barely covered your lower stomach.
he could see your panties, the covers barely brushing the parts of your upper thighs. he swallowed thickly and looked away, you only picked up the glass and started drinking from it, gulping down the water inside. dante watched as you did, his eyes flitting from the way your throat moved to the way your eyelashes touched your cheeks from the relief of the liquid.
you didn’t know he was nearing you until you felt a dip in the mattress on the side of the bed dante slept. a hand gently pried the glass from your grip and placed it on the nightstand next to you.
when you opened your eyes again, dante’s face was extremely close to yours, looking down at you with an intense lust in his eyes. you didn’t know when, but sometime when you were busy downing your water, you had managed to spill some down your chin, leading to it dribbling all the way down the column of your throat and into your shirt where it dried up.
dante traced his index finger up your throat, his finger dragging up the stream of water that had been left behind until getting to your lips. during his finger’s journey, your eyes had never left his, and his had never left yours. his thumb prodded at your lip before you allowed his index and middle fingers to slip into your mouth.
you instantly wrapped your tongue around them, relishing in the coppery taste. you closed your eyes as the taste overwhelmed all of your senses, allowing you to get lost in the sensation of his fingers pressing against your tongue, making you gag slightly. dante broke the silence when he tutted.
“keep your eyes open for me, mia cara” he pulled his fingers from your mouth. it wasn’t long before his lips crashed down against yours, making you moan into his mouth.
you arched your back into him as his tongue traced your bottom lip, silently asking for an entrance, and you would be damned if you didn’t allow him. his tongue tangled with your frantically, fighting for dominance. dante won, as he did most nights.
soon, he climbed on top of you, slipping his knee in-between your thighs and applying a bit of pressure to your clothed clit. the rough fabric rubbing into you created the best tension. you relished in the way his knee rubbed against you, not soft but not hard either.
you were instantly soaked, a wet patch forming in the middle of your shorts, beginning to seep through onto his trousers, painting them a deeper shade than they already were.
“such a dirty girl” he says, beginning to kiss down your neck, his tongue licking the skin softly before he nipped at your earlobe. “and a naughty one too, not telling me where she was going tonight” his nipping became harder, nipping the skin until he got all the way down to your collarbone and worked his way back up to your lips, but he didn’t kiss you.
he hovers above you, watching your face as he removes his knee, replacing it with his fingers, starting with his index finger, pumping it a few times before adding his index as well. the way he stretched you out on his fingers was delicious, but the way his thumb joined and pressed against your clit was even better, making you jolt with pleasure.
he started off slow, pumping his fingers and swiping his thumb over your clit softly, but he soon worked his way up to a brutal pace, curling his fingers with such intensity that he had you arching your back off the mattress in seconds. the sounds you were making were close to heaven in his eyes, making his cock harden and strain against his - more relaxed - trousers.
it was no secret this far into your relationship that you had to rely on simulation from your clit to get you closer to your edge, so dante would always focus on the nerve as if it was the thing that relied on all of his happiness. his thumb continuously swiped against your clit, occasionally circling it and occasionally pressing into it to make you jolt.
you could already feel the pleasure building in your lower stomach, becoming more and more uncomfortable, making you squirm, but dante didn’t care. he didn’t even slow his fingers, just kept doing what he was doing. your nails dug into his bicep for a bit of leverage, trying to keep yourself grounded as you tipped over the edge.
your back arched into him as you came, clamping around his fingers as he kept them moving steadily, the friction from his thumb brushing over your clit made your hips jump towards him, your nails were digging into his bicep tighter now, wanting to keep you grounded.
and when you finally came to your senses, dante’s hand had been finally been removed from your pussy and he was sucking them clean, watching your face as you came down from your complete ecstasy. he was already moving down the bed when you let out a puff of air, your chest rising in fast and hurried motions as he gently peeled your knickers down your legs and threw them off to the side somewhere.
he shifted you so you were more centred on the bed and spread your legs. the cool air nipped your pussy as you tried to close your legs from the sensation.
“you’re fucking dripping, mia cara” his eyes went from between your pussy to your face, watching as your eyes closed softly before opening them again, you were clearly getting more worked up by his words, your body betraying you as your hips wiggled upwards, wanting more friction.
he smirked and wasted no time in dipping down, his lips instantly finding your clit and sucking harshly, nipping as well; you immediately knew it was going to be a long night of pleasure and nothing but. your hips stuttered as he had to hold them down on the bed, needing you to stay still as he devoured your pussy like he hadn’t eaten in days.
his tongue flattened over your clit after a particularly hard nip, instantly soothing the burn it gave you. your thighs were shaking as he lifted them over his shoulders to get even deeper. your heel dug into his back as your toes curled, your back arched when your hips couldn’t move. dante’s mouth moving so fast you couldn’t comprehend what he was doing and when.
your next orgasm began in a blur, you weren’t even sure when the pleasure built up into something deep in your lower abdomen. you were close and dante knew, but he wouldn’t stop not yet, not until you had learned your lesson. the sounds that continued coming from dante were obscene and matched with his languid strokes of his tongue, almost like he was the one getting all of the pleasure (though he practically was as you caught his hips rutting against the mattress) to pull you closer and closer to the edge again.
the pleasure was so much and so little at the same time, it was so good it almost burned. you were squirming so much beneath dante, he had to hold you against his face, your juices coating his chin and mouth area, as well as his nose. he whimpered and moaned against you, the vibrations just drawing you closer and closer to the edge.
your pussy clenched around nothing as you came, hard, on his mouth. he slurped up all of the juices that gushed out of you, wanting to taste every part of you as if he hadn’t had you in decades. he rode out by continuing to lap up everything around your now tingling clit. your toes were curled and your eyes were screwed closed.
by the time your eyes were opened again, dante was wiping his mouth and looking down at you with nothing but lust and want in his eyes. you couldn’t do much but lay there and stare up at him.
he said noting as he flipped you over and forced you up onto your hands and knees. dante was on his knees behind you, he began kissing up your back until he got to the base of your neck, then he started nipping and sucking, earning whines and small noises from you.
“you’re going to learn what happens when you leave without telling anyone, mia cara” he moved off of your back, releasing some weight so it was somewhat easier for you to stay upwards. you huffed as the weight was released.
your puff of breath instantly turned into a noise of shock and pleasure as dante forced his cock into you. he groaned when you managed to take him all, as you always did.
“oh just like that, good girl” dante panted, already wanting to start moving, but he couldn’t bring himself to move before he had allowed you to adjust from the pleasurable stretch he gave you.
“oh fuck” you moaned out your pussy already clenching involuntarily around his cock, he groaned and gripped your hips tighter, enough to bruise by morning if he wasn’t careful.
your pussy soon adjusted to his thickness, you let dante know by pressing your hips further into him. his left hand instantly flew to your hair, pulling your head back so you were staring directly in front of you at the wall. you let out a small pained sound at the action, before trying to fuck yourself further onto his cock.
dante held you there as he started to plunge into you relentlessly, hitting that spot inside of you that made you feel oh-so good, but never managed to make you come, but neither of you minded. you both had your ways of making you come.
you felt good, but you didn’t feel good enough, you needed his fingers on your clit to make you come; but you knew better than anyone that dante was teasing you. he was going to make you cry with pleasure before he allowed you to get so much as close to the brink of your ecstasy.
you could practically feel the presence of dante’s smirk, he held your hair back with such ferocity that, in some places, your scalp was beginning to burn, but you were too lost in the feeling of his body moving roughly against yours to care.
his thrusts were malicious and meaningful, brushing your cervix with each stroke. the moans and sounds he was letting out were downright sinful as he continued to tear into you with an unmoving pace, not allowing you to keep up with your pleasure for long.
once dante had his fun (making sure he would get to the brink at the same time as you by fucking you relentlessly), he dragged his fingers down your spine, pressing at the right parts to make you arch your back towards the mattress.
your legs were starting to give up holding your body weight as dante’s fingers found your puffy clit again and circled it relentlessly, his pace never faltering as he pounded into you, making the headboard hit against the wall with a dull repeated thud. your mouth was in the perfect shape of an ‘o’, moaning helplessly as dante continued to make you feel good with barely any time in-between to comprehend what was going on.
“yeah?” dante mocked, staring down at you with a condescending gaze, watching as your body jolted with every ounce of pleasure he gave you. he would make sure you took it all.
your hips stuttered as the force of your overstimulation bore heavy on your body. your limbs were aching from keeping you upright for so long. the only thing that was holding you up was dante’s tight grip on your hair, only tightening with his oncoming orgasm.
his hips jutted as he got closer, his pounding dying down and instead being replaced by a deep and intimate rut, jerking the two of you forwards with each of his motions. his fingers kept their pace on your clit, rolling the nub, matching his strokes with the thrust of his hips.
you felt the coil snap in your lower stomach at the same time as his cum spurting out of his cock, dante stared down at where the two of you met, watching as you clenched around his cock, groaning at the sight. somewhere in-between bliss and the real world, you had collapsed onto your stomach, moaning into the pillow as you came before him. dante flipped you over and spread your legs again, taking in the sight of his milky white cum dripping through your folds, he gathered his cum on his fingers and pushed them into your weeping pussy.
“gotta make sure it keeps” he muttered, furrowing his brow as he concentrated on pushing his cum back into your pussy. you writhed beneath him at the overstimulation as he continued, murmuring things that were incoherent to you as you were still so far away, barely even enough time to come down after your high.
dante held your hips down, making sure you couldn’t move much as he continued to push his hot, sticky cum back inside of you. you couldn’t make out what he was saying as your face was flushed red, barely even awake. dante caught on eventually, realising what he had put you through that night.
only then did he stop, scooping you up into his arms and taking you to the bathroom. your face was pressed against his bicep - practically drooling - as he ran a bath, putting all the bath salts and soaks he knew you put in your baths from watching you over the years.
he sat back with you against him as you both waited for the bath to fill. he tucked your hair behind your ear and stared down into your eyes with an intense gaze as you stared up at him with a half-lidded one.
