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armpirate · 3 months

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OMGG!!! The only one was so amazing just wanna say thank u again 💗

Also can u pls also make a part story of them when YN gets pregnet and jk reaction?!!! 😬 also have them smut like they say sex with while pregnet are more better than it was , idk how far its true but well its up to u how it will ended up , well dont mind my requset just do what u like, even if u didnt want its okay ✌

MASTERLIST

Full story

pairing: TheOnlyOne!JK x fem!reader || Mafia

w.c.: 3.6k

Warnings: mention of vomit, smut, dirty talk, pregnancy sex, voyeurism, female masturbation

Aprox. time of reading: 16 minutes

The environment was too heavy. The loud voices around the table, the fake laughs, the momentary shouts to give more emphasis to what they were saying... and certainly the way your stomach felt like you had been rolling on yourself for hours didn't help. Your husband's hand never left your thigh under the table, aware of the way your frown was slightly furrowed and your lips twisted in disgust.

"Doll, are you okay?" Jungkook asked for the third time that night, leaning over you to whisper in your ear.

"Yeah, I don't know" you shook your head, gulping thick. "I think I might be getting sick or something. It's okay" you patted his hand, caressing the tattoos on his fingers.

Jungkook smiled, taking your answer before he laid a kiss on your exposed shoulder and joined one of the conversations back.

It was so weird.

For a few days, you had been feeling queasy, losing appetite over food you'd have lost your mind over months back, feeling dizzy at random moments of the day -especially in the morning. It was shocking how your stamina seemed to last less, to the point that you'd fall asleep in places you would've never thought of. It wasn't like being in the hotel was the most entertaining thing for you, but it certainly wasn't as boring for you to end up sleeping on Jungkook's desk while you worked on some documents.

As much as you had tried to find that little thing that might've made your stomach upset, and influenced the way your body was working, you couldn't find anything out of usual.

"Earth calling Y/n" Jin joked, bringing you back to the conversation. "Are we so boring for you to ignore us?" he he reproached, pointing at you with the fork.

"I don't even know why you're surprised. She married Jungkook, at the end of the day" you heard Yoongi tease him back, licking his lips before he gave a sip of his drink filled with wine.

Jungkook's grip on your thigh tightened, drawing your eyes on him just so you could assure him for the fourth time that night that you were okay. Your soft smile was all he needed to relax again, and move back to allow the waiters to serve the food in front of you.

You didn't know if it was the way the fish was cooked, but you felt disgusted by its odor as soon as the plate was settled ahead of you.

"Y/n, are you okay? You look a bit pale" dared to ask, giving you a concerned look.

"Yes, I'm okay. It's just..." the sentence was interrupted by a gag reflex that you managed to stop before it was too obvious. Although you could only hold on to the noise from it, because the uncomfortable feeling stayed there for a second until you felt your stomach preparing for the second one "I'm sorry".

The chair squeaking under you, at the sudden movement to drag it away from the table to run away from there, made everyone look up to you. Until then, most of the people around the oval table were minding their business, but you made sure that attention would fall on Jungkook after your dramatic exit.

There wasn't anything as distressing as feeling the bile going up your throat until you were forced to take it out, kneeling in front of a toilet in the nearest restroom to the private room you all were in. For a few seconds, you dealt with your bangs and some locks making their way in front of your face, while you tried to keep the balance, until someone else got in charge of them. You'd recognize that gentle touch anywhere else, as he picked the hair that was bothering you with one hand and comforted you with the other on your back.

One last gag, one last spit, and you thought you were done. Your breathing was a bit faster from the effort, your eyes felt teary and you didn't want to imagine how bad you probably looked at that moment.

He handed you some paper, so you could clean your mouth as he flushed the toilet and waited for you to recover. He was squatting next to you, giving you that worried look that you recognized. Only one dangerous word from you, and he'd be setting the whole place on fire.

"Don't give me those eyes" you warned him, sighing as you sat on the top of the toilet.

"What eyes?" his tone sounded exhausting, and his body language was giving away how frustrated he actually was when he tilted his head.

"The eyes of someone who's about to kill somebody"

"Good, because I want to kill somebody" he replied. "You've been feeling bad all night. Or, let's better say, you've done well at pretending you were fine until now" he clicked his tongue. "What did you eat? Did you drink or eat something out of home? Did any of the food you ate this week taste weird?" he started asking, placing a hand subtly on your knee.

"I promise I'm okay" you insisted.

But that sentence most probably translated into something else in his brain. Jungkook stood up, extending his hand in front of you to help you get up.

Taking a deep breath, you got up from the place where you were sitting, feeling his fingers intertwining yours as he walked you outside. But instead of turning left to go back to the private area, he turned right, walking towards the exit. "Jungkook, the dinner..." you tried to stop him.

"Fuck the dinner" he huffed, "I'm taking you to the hospital".

It didn't matter how many times you insisted you were okay, his paranoia was winning the argument against you, and the slightest chance of you being poisoned some time in the week made all of his alarms blast at full volume in his head.

Jungkook insisted on you getting checked the first time you fell asleep next to him during one of the meetings. The next time was when you tripped on your feet when you went dizzy for a second. And that night was the last straw he needed to put a stop to your stubbornness.

You hated hospitals. The smell, the feeling of never being okay... you just couldn't stand being in those places. And the fact that you were dragged to one had you fuming all the way there, even if Jungkook tried to convince you that it was something you needed. It didn't matter how hard you wanted to stay mad, one look into his sparkly rounded eyes as he whispered that he'd feel relieved if he saw everything was okay and you were fumbled.

The doctor's first words after you got your tests done got you and Jungkook looking at each other, confused.

"When was the last time you had your period?" he asked, looking at you over his pasty squared glasses.

You pressed your lips together, trying to remember, and realizing you should've had your period two weeks back. It wasn't like your period was regular, but you never had delays of more than a week.

"A month ago" you whispered, with your voice lowering with every letter you pronounced.

"Everything is fine with your body, mrs. Jeon" he scoffed. "Really fine, actually".

As he handed you the papers with all of the results, you were sure your knowledge in Korean was deceiving you, inviting Jungkook to read them himself when he was aware of the shocked expression on your face.

"Positive" he whispered.

"Hmm. Yeah, it seems like that food that didn't sit well is actually a baby" the doctor joked. "Congratulations" he celebrated for the two of you, "or I'm sorry, I don't know".

You walked out first, bowing to him as you tried your best to walk on those heels when you were barely able to keep up with the weight of your own body. Jungkook read the results as he walked behind you, unbelieving of what his eyes were seeing.

"Y/n" he called you.

The tears in your eyes started rolling down your cheeks as you turned to him, being the only way to make that pressure on your chest feel a bit lighter. He hugged you tight, wrapping his arms around your body while you held onto his waist and hid your face on his chest.

"Shh" he tried to calm you down, moving his fingers through your locks.

"I'm pregnant" you whispered within hiccups. "We're going to have a kid".

If it weren't because, after three years of marriage, he knew you so well, he'd have thought that was bad news for you. Jungkook smiled against your temple, hugging you tighter and encouraging you to sob a bit louder.

Getting pregnant was an idea you got rid from throughout the years, it stopped being a topic of discussion between you two after several arguments where you felt insecure and undeserving of him, while he fought to show you the opposite. You had gone through different therapies, only to end up with the same disappointment every time. So seeing that "Positive" in your results was the closest you had ever been to witnessing a miracle.

"We're pregnant" you moved back, repeating it while looking him in the eyes.

"I know" Jungkook nodded, moving the locks away from your face and wiping the tears away as he stared into your bright eyes.

He had known you for quite some time, but he swore he hadn't seen the way his universe reflected in your eyes as clearly as it did that night.

You were lying in the middle of your bed, looking up at him as he joined you in your bedroom after taking a shower and changing his suit for some comfortable clothes. You managed to deal with some of the shared responsibility that came along with Bangtan, until your belly started to grow enough to make it impossible for you to barely move. For your safety, and his mental peace, Jungkook came up with the idea of you staying at home -with him only leaving whenever he was actually needed somewhere. But, most of the time, it was Jungkook orbiting around you and pleasing your needs before you could even be vocal about them.

That day, he had to take a morning trip to Seoul, forcing him to spend most of his day outside -which translated in him being present through texts or video calls several times throughout the day, until he managed to go back home.

He sat behind you, extending his legs around your hips so you were almost trapped in his body when his chest rested on your back and his chin on your shoulder.

"How are my two precious treasures doing?" his voice sounded muffled against your skin, with the vibrations tickling on your skin and making your body squirm with a giggle.

"Treasure number one is okay" you assured about yourself, "While treasure number two keeps making it clear he wants to be as a restless ass as his father" you joked.

"That's my boy" he cheered, receiving a playful jab on his stomach from you.

Still smiling, Jungkook leaned to kiss the curve of your shoulder over one of his oversized t-shirt, slowly moving up to your neck. You know he didn't do it with any intention of taking it further, they were more like caring pecks, but your body reacted to them as if he had dug through one of the most erogenous corners in your body.

"What?" he inquired, looking at you over your shoulder.

"Nothing" you tried to shrug it off, caressing his hands that almost covered your whole belly.

"Is it because I did..." he gave another kiss, making sure his lips would be in contact with your skin as he reached the collar of his t-shirt "this?".

"Kook" you warned him.

You didn't know if it were going crazy, or if it was because Jungkook had barely touched you that way ever since the belly started growing a significant amount, that made him be concerned of the slightest move you could make -which translated in more than two months going no further than some make out sessions that always left you over the edge. And while you appreciated how caring he was, it was driving you insane the distance he set for you two.

"Don't start something you won't finish" you asked him, tilting your head.

"Hmm, who said I won't finish it?" he challenged, rubbing his lips over the arch of your ear. After dropping a kiss on the sensitive skin behind it, he whispered "I know I said I would try to keep my hands to myself, but I can't do it anymore".

He moved his legs under yours, hooking your knees with his to pull them apart.

"How bad do you want me?" you teased, encouraged by the way his hands advanced over your inner thighs at a slow pace.

"Well, you have no idea of the many times I've ended up jerking off in the bathroom after seeing you naked, I think that should...".

A loud chuckle interrupted him, having you pushing him and kicking his arm "It'd have been enough just saying that you want me bad".

"I want you so bad, baby" he purred against your lips.

Shutting the moan that was coming out of your mouth at the sudden touch of his cold fingers with your folds, Jungkook linked your lips together. Your hips reacted automatically to his touch, grinding against his digits when they found their way to your clit, and that gentle rub made you ascend to the seventh heaven, squirming at every small touch he was giving you. Thatconstant sway of hips was also pushing him to the limit, feeling your ass pressing against his hard dick every time you tried to reach for tighter fictions against his fingerprints.

"You're so wet" he mumbled against your lips, tracing your lips with his tongue before he kissed you again. "How did I even think going without fucking you for months?".

"Because you're a dumbass" you gasped, back arching at the sudden throb in your core.

"Are you going to cum so fast?" his mocking tone only added fuel to the fire that was starting in your lower stomach, and that had you pulling the sheets underneath your feet away.

"Kook, please" the barely powerful fear of him leaving you hanging had you begging before you had to, making him scoff.

"I got you, babe" he assured, lowering his left hand from your neck to one of your breasts, softly pressing the palm of his hands against the hard nipple. "Cum for me, hmm? Get yourself ready, because you'll be coming on my cock next".

His lewd words were the final push you needed to let yourself go, embracing that desperate feeling that you were craving so much for the past few weeks, losing any type of control all over your body and letting the pleasure speak by itself when your back arched against his chest in sync with a whine.

You still thought Jungkook was messing with you, and that he'd help you clean yourself and change clothes as he helped you stand up and started undressing you. But his fingers moved over your skin as if he wanted to set you on fire again, rubbing the reverse of his digits every time he tried to pull one of the fabrics away.

"We'll be careful" his eyes looked deep into yours, as if he were promising his reflection that you'd both take it easy, rather than you. "We don't want to hurt Ujin".

You had many questions, started by that name, but you thought it was something to discuss later and keep the focus on what you two wanted to do.

Jungkook guided you back towards the bed, helping you move over the mattress until you laid on your side. He joined next to you right after, pinching your chin and kissing your forehead before he moved your legs over hip.

He had been deep diving for too long on the Internet about what were the safest sex positions, afraid that the moment of you two being unable to hold back your needs came.

Your pussy clenched at the first feeling of his tip against your folds, feeling your clit throb only at the idea of being stretched out by him again.

"If it hurts, or if it bothers you, I'll stop" he squeezed the skin under your chin, warning you.

Your lip was trapped under your upper teeth as he slowly rammed into you, stretching your walls inch by inch until you two were linked together completely, announcing it with a heavy gasp. Jungkook warned you with his eyes, announcing his movements before you nodded.

Feeling him go all the way out, to pound back into you as slowly had to be one of the most erotic thoughts you had ever felt, feeling all the hairs in your body raise whenever his tip teased its way out to then rub against the deepest spot it could reach in your guts.

His thumb kept tracing circles on your skin, holding you by your knees while his other hand was holding the curve on your neck softly, assuring himself that you were comfortable in that position, while you sneaked yours at the top of his head, playing with his hair as you felt the pleasure building up, closer to blow at any moment as his thrust sped up.

"Does it feel good?" his voice sounded raspy, yet he gave you such a gentle look that made your pussy and your heart throb at the same time.

"Yes, don't stop" you begged, pressing your palm against your clit.

"I missed so much how warm you feel around me, doll" Jungkook moaned, moving his head back for a moment before his eyes were back on yours. "You always take me so good".

With a more firm grip on your neck, he made sure your body didn't bounce too harshly for you to end up hurt, controlling the power of his thrusts. Changing the angle of his hips, he moved at the same steady pace, rubbing his tip against one particular spot that made your toes instantly curl.

You wouldn't last too long.

The touch of his hands, the sound of his groans and moans, and how his dick stretched out so well had you gripping the pillow cover beneath his head. And Jungkook loved that look on your face, that particular expression you made when you were ready to give him the world and everything he could ask for, too drunk in pleasure to think straight, giving you a tiny glimpse of how he felt around you every single day since he met you.

Your walls took him in, clenching around his length tight as if you didn't want him to leave ever again, at the same time your eyes rolled to the back and your jaw clenched with a prolonged moan. He went right after you, spilling his seed deep inside your cunt, feeling more connected to you than ever before.

As you two recovered, Jungkook stayed hugged to you, playing with your hair and smiling among shaky breaths.

"If you take so long to lay a hand on me ever again, I'll file for divorce" you joked, with a daydreaming smile curving on your face.

That wasn't what you were screaming when you two bursted inside the emergency room in the hospital, to later be dragged on a wheel chair to your room. In fact, you kept screaming how you wouldn't allow him to lay a hand on you ever again, or how unfair it was that you were the only one going through all the pain while all he did was stand there. You kept squirming once you were moved to a bed, groaning and whining at the intense pain in your lower stomach that was only preparing you for the pain you'd end up going through once Ujin decided to step into the real world and stop living peacefully inside of you.

Although it all lost sense, it all didn't matter, it was as if that pain had only been a nightmare when the nurse wrapped your baby in a towel and handed it to you, followed up close by his protective father's gaze until he was lying in your arms.

You remembered the way you cried when you were first told you were pregnant, and how you got so emotional whenever you saw him moving through that tiny television next to you, but it still didn't feel real. All those months you didn't get your hopes up, you didn't believe it'd end up with you holding your baby tight against your chest, while Jungkook snaked a hand behind your neck and his palm gently covered Ujin's head.

"His hands are so tiny" you sobbed, moving your index finger over his tiny hand. "He's so tiny".

"You made it, babe" Jungkook kissed the top of your head.

"We made it" you rubbed your head against his cheek, unable to control the tears from falling down at how full you were feeling in that particular moment.

The nurse smiled at you, standing at one side of your bed before asking "Do you know how you will name him?"

Jungkook looked down at you, receiving a proud smile before you took a breath and answered: "Our little blessing, Ujin".

#dirty talk #armpirate #request #fanfic #ff #jungkook #jeon jungkook #jungkookxreader #jk #bts #wattpad #kookie #smut #jungkook smut #mafia!au #The Only One #reader insert

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 2 years

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We Were Something, Don’t You Think So? [Chapter 12: The Atlantic Ocean] [Series Finale]

You are a Russian grand duchess in a time of revolution. Ben Hardy is a British government official tasked with smuggling you across Europe. You live happily ever after.

This is a work of fiction loosely inspired by the events of the Russian Revolution and the downfall of the Romanov family. Many creative liberties were taken. No offense is meant to any actual people. Thank you for reading! :)

Song inspiration: “the 1” by Taylor Swift.

Chapter warnings: Mentions of historical war and violence.

Word count: 3.6k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @imtheinvisiblequeen @okilover02 @adrenaline-roulette @youngpastafanmug @m-1234 @tensecondvacation @haileymorelikestupid @rogerfuckintaylor @yourlocalmusicalprostitute @im-an-adult-ish @someforeigntragedy @mo-whore @mellowfellowyellow @peculiareunoia @mischiefmanaged71 @fancybenjamin @anne-white-star @theonlyone-meeeee @witchlyboo @demo-wise

There are rumors that a grand duchess survived, of course—they are whispered into life almost immediately after the murders at Yekaterinburg and never quite disappear—although no one can seem to decide which one. Sometimes it’s Maria, sometimes Olga, sometimes me, most often Anastasia; and for years, decades afterwards there are women who periodically surface and claim to be my most undomesticated sister, and each time I know they’re not just by seeing their photograph in the newspapers. The only consensus that can be found is that surely the survivor is not Tatiana, as she never could have vanished into the anonymous ether of humanity, not with that striking, elegant, gem-rare sort of face. No, everyone agrees that the most beautiful Romanov daughter died in Russia; everyone, that is, but Ben.

It is the last day of the October of 1918 when we board a ship bound for the New World. Ben, Joe, and I ascend the steps as Ben’s family—our family, now—waves us off from the dock: August, Kathryn, Opal, Leo, Luther, Ben’s mother…and Frankie, too. He arrived in London six days after our audience with the king, honorable discharge papers in hand and a perplexed yet grateful expression on his face. I don’t know if it was guilt, or a bribe, or one last favor to my father, or simple pure-hearted mercy once his shock and rage bled away, but King George V kept his word about bringing Frankie home. I never ask my uncle about it. I never ask him anything. I never speak to a member of any royal family again.

As we cross the Atlantic—the days shortening, the nights bitterly cold, bobbing dolphins chasing our iron walls, right whales breaching in the distance—Ben and I walk the decks like we did on that bleak journey from Saint Petersburg to London, but this time we do it as Benjamin and Lana Hardy. We married in a brief, uncomplicated ceremony in a tiny Russian Orthodox cathedral we found tucked away in North London; as a wedded couple, we will have a smoother passage through Ellis Island. We have also thought of a way to keep the Romanov jewels safe and undiscovered, as our luggage will almost certainly be searched upon our arrival: we’ve sewn them into our clothes.

Joe, predictably, makes many new friends onboard—Italians, Greeks, Turks, Spaniards, Poles, Russians, Hungarians, Jews—but he grows closest to an Egyptian named Rami. Rami, a Coptic Christian, fled Egypt to escape religious persecution…but not before falling in love with the daughter of a British archaeologist based there. He and Lucy are newlyweds too, always entwining their fingers and gazing into each other’s clear eyes and bubbling over with anticipation for their very own fabled American Dream to begin. Lucy is expecting their first child already, and as we chat away her hand often settles—unthinkingly, instinctively—on the modest swell of her belly.

At Ellis Island, we are pried at and interrogated and examined for any signs of defects, whether mental or physical or of the spirit. And as we are granted entry and rush down the staircase with our hands gliding over flaking metal railings—the same railings gripped by millions seeking new lives here—I remember my dream from the night before we were summoned to Buckingham Palace: water, metal, crowds, cobblestone streets, unfamiliar plants, a cold prickling drink that I will one day recognize as Coca-Cola, innumerable transparent bulbs of light. Perhaps that was more than a dash of intuition. Perhaps it was my parents letting me know it was alright to choose another path.

We find an apartment in Brighton Beach; between the five of us, we can afford to keep it to ourselves without squeezing in any additional boarders. That first night—after Kroshka has been placed in a rented stable stall down the street, after the luggage is unpacked, after we have eaten chebureki purchased from a street vendor, as the cracked and bare walls stare silently back at us—Ben sits down on the scuffed floor and covers his face with his hands, too exhausted to weep but drained and petrified down to the bones. “It’s the responsibility,” he says, and I know exactly what he means: it’s the weight of having to look after his family, Joe, our new friends, me.

The very next day, I get a job at a settlement house three blocks from our apartment. The pay isn’t much, but then again it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever been paid for anything, and so that in itself gives me a great deal of satisfaction. I excel there; I am a proficient typist, I can read and write and speak a myriad of languages, and educated women fluent in Russian are hard to come by in Brooklyn. I teach new arrivals to speak English, I teach children to hold pencils, I teach adults how to find work, I teach women how to escape violent husbands and to prevent unwanted pregnancies. I clean faces and braid hair and look into eyes—shining, hopeful, thankful eyes—that remind me so much of my parents and brother and sisters that my heart aches, and then calms, and then opens wide to swallow up and engulf the abandoned people of this city, of this world. Little do I know that I will work at this same settlement house for fifty-one years, over half a century, longer than either of my parents lived.

Ben starts out at an afternoon daily newspaper company called the Brooklyn Eagle. In his spare time, he writes his own articles and shops around for publications that will take them. When we are in desperate need—when a storm shatters our windows, when the radiator breaks in the middle of January, when I catch pneumonia and need medicine and weeks of bedrest—Ben takes a few of the smallest jewels or a rope of precious metal to a pawn shop on the other side of Brooklyn and returns with a thick stack of bills with Alexander Hamilton’s face on them. Joe gets a job at a pizzeria in Little Italy so he can learn the tricks of the trade before striking out on his own. Rami works there too for a while before finding a position at a tailor shop owned by a Coptic Christian from Luxor.

Once they save up enough money, Rami and Lucy move into their own apartment in Astoria—where many Egyptian families are settling—and promptly fill it with fervently desired children. Joe marries a Sicilian woman named Christabella and moves with her to Little Italy. We see each other several times per week and I am present at each of Lucy’s births. Rami teaches me Arabic. I teach him Italian. Ben teaches me Old English songs from his childhood. Joe teaches us all to make pizza.

Sometimes—as I lay awake at night long after Ben has fallen into sleep, his breathing slow and serene—I wonder what became of the items I left at Buckingham Palace: the books, the scarf, the pillowcase. I wonder if they were lost, or thrown out with the rubbish, or kept by the Prince of Wales as some sort of strange memento. Sometimes I wish I still had them. More often, I am glad that I don’t.

I was a different person then. Perhaps it is better to make a truly clean start.

Within a year, and with the help of a sizeable contribution from me and Ben, Joe has opened up his own pizza shop in Little Italy called Signore Mazzello’s Pizzeria. It frequently has a line wrapped around the block during the lunch rush.

~~~~~~~~~~

It is 1925, and the nation is booming, racing, roaring. I am promoted to Assistant Director of the settlement house. Ben writes an article about his childhood in London and the New York Times buys it. When he sells them another—an anthology of the stories of the other immigrants who share our apartment building, many of them Russian by birth—they offer him a position as a full-time columnist. We stay in Brighton Beach but move to a townhouse on a quiet street with several bedrooms, a stable for Kroshka, and a small, fenced backyard. Ben sends word to his family in London that the time has finally come for them to join us across the Atlantic. They arrive on our doorstep one month later: Ben’s hushed mother, Frankie with his wife Althea, Luther with his fiancé Ethel, Leo with his poems, Opal with her paintings, Kathryn doting on the very slow and very grey basset hounds, August having grown into a singularly joyful and charismatic young man. The original plan was that they would stay with us only until they found their footing in Brooklyn, but as it turns out our home is always full; someone moves out, someone else moves back, it is a carousel of weddings and children and holidays and farewells and reunions. It is an undying warmth and fullness that I never believed I would experience again. It is heaven on earth.

Ben and I have two children, both explicitly planned. Each time he insists that I labor in a hospital, and each time he is in the room with me from start to end. We name them and we love them and we watch them grow like the flora of Central Park: eastern redbuds, blue mistflowers, scarlet beebalms, Carolina springbeauties, cinnamon ferns, calla lilies. Ben’s mother treasures our children and spends hours with them each day. They bring her a new purpose; they bring her peace. She says it is like being able to hold her own lost children again.

We make generous donations to settlement houses throughout New York City. When the aging owner retires, Rami takes over the tailor shop. Joe opens up three additional locations of Signore Mazzello’s Pizzeria throughout Brooklyn.

~~~~~~~~~~

It is 1936, and our adopted country is in the depths of the Great Depression. We help others float through the storm as best we can. At the New York Times, Ben takes on and funds several apprentices from working-class families. We volunteer at soup kitchens. We stock the pantry shelves at the settlement house. We teach our children about egalitarianism and democracy and compassion. We raise them to know nothing of my bloodline. They believe that I am British just as Ben is, and that we met as coworkers in London; we never mention that either of us ever set foot on Russian soil. This is a necessity: however unlikely, I am unwilling to risk the possibility of detection. Every once in a great while someone will give me a second glance, or narrow their eyes, or blink thoughtfully at me as if they have met me once in a dream…but it amounts to nothing. Even the Russian immigrants I work with rarely suspect anything. My accent and dialect are so far removed from theirs—so formal, so educated—that they can believe I learned it from a book. The last Romanov daughter is gone, buried like the rest of them. What is left is only Lana.

At Christmastime—a lean, humble Christmas—I read in the newspaper that David Windsor has abdicated the British throne and passed it on to his dull, dutiful younger brother. David left so he could marry the woman he loved, a woman forbidden to him, a divorced American named Wallis Simpson. As I sit at the kitchen table studying the lines of his face in the black-and-white photograph published on the front page, I wonder if any part of him was thinking of me when he announced his abdication to millions of British subjects via a BBC radio broadcast. I wonder if somewhere in the back of his skull lurked my shadow, my vanishing, my willingness to cut through the ties of royalty to embrace a life of my own choosing.

Rami and Lucy welcome their sixth child, a daughter they call Lana. Ben writes articles imploring the United States to accept refugees fleeing the rise of fascism in Europe. Joe has to close three of his pizzerias, but with a little help from Ben and me (and our stock of clandestine jewels), he is able to hold onto the original location through the worst years the American economy will ever see.

Some people sink, of course; there are always those who will sink. But we pull as many into the life rafts as we can.

~~~~~~~~~~

It is 1958, and Ben and I celebrate our 40 year anniversary with a trip to Australia. We see the kangaroos and koala bears and beaches and the vast, red wildness of the Outback, and while we think of Gwilym and Hazel Lee quite a lot we don’t spend any time at all contemplating the merits or failings of the British Empire. I have learned that it is futile, maddening even, to battle against things so far above my control; it’s like trying to fight the sea or the stars. I cannot set all things right across the globe, but I can improve the circumstances of thousands of souls. Surely there is no better way to repay the debt the Romanovs owed to the world. Surely my parents and siblings would understand if they could see me now…and sometimes, when I dream of them, I like to believe they can.

As I am leafing through a magazine one afternoon, I come across a photograph of David Windsor and his wife Wallis. They are at a polo match or a garden party or something like that—something frivolous, something regal, waving to the paparazzi—and before I can turn the page one detail catches my eye. Looped loosely around Wallis’ thin neck is the green scarf I bought in Moscow. The silver-thread bears are as bright and shimmering as I remember them. Wallis is flashing a wide, triumphant smile to the same reporters who had once maligned her as a conniving, lowborn whore.

He kept my things after all. Why would he do that?

I close the magazine, thinking of the strings that tie people together and then unravel and then come back together again in new designs. I think of how little each of us truly knows. Sometimes that’s a blessing, and sometimes that’s a curse, and sometimes we’ll never know which it is.

I am made Director of the settlement house. Ben is promoted to Deputy Editor of the New York Times. Signore Mazzello’s Pizzeria now has ten locations: four in New York City, one in Baltimore, two in Philadelphia, and three in Chicago. Joe has his sights set on Los Angeles next.

~~~~~~~~~~

It is 1963, and I watch as Walter Cronkite announces that President John F. Kennedy has been assassinated. His wife was right there in the limousine. The new president is sworn in as she stands beside him, shellshocked, embittered, her pink suit stained with her husband’s blood and brains.

Everyone is horrified, and everyone is sad, but my children don’t understand why I cannot stop crying, why I cannot sleep, why I cannot get the vision of a nation’s leader senselessly murdered in front of his family out of my mind. I sit in front of the television with tears leaking ceaselessly from my scarlet eyes, thinking of Papa, Mother, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, Alexei. It’s like I’m back in Saint Petersburg. It’s like I’m learning they were slaughtered all over again.

Only Ben understands. He bundles me into his arms and presses his lips to my temple and whispers that I am safe, that our children are safe, that my family would be proud of me. It is the same way when Malcolm X is killed, and then Martin Luther King Jr., and then Bobby Kennedy. I am torn apart by the thought of their wives and children left bereft, left forever scarred by their murders. It guts me and leaves me bleeding for weeks.

We anonymously donate the last of the Romanov jewels to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There is fierce public debate for years concerning who came to possess them and how. Each time there is a newspaper article or a television broadcast about the jewels, Ben and I share a small surreptitious smile. Signore Mazzello’s Pizzeria restaurants stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific and boast over fifty locations. Joe leaves the business to his children to manage and retires with his wife to Atlantic City, New Jersey. He spends his days sunbathing on the beach, playing blackjack, eating cannoli, and gossiping with other Italians.

~~~~~~~~~~

It is July 13th, 1985. There are photographs of the loved ones we’ve lost on the mantle above the fireplace: Willis, Cecil, Louise, Ben’s mother…and there are even a few of Kroshka. The house is full of my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Ben’s siblings, our nieces and nephews and their children and their children, too. It is my great-grandson’s tenth birthday. His name—by pure coincidence—is Alexei.

There are children giggling and running through sprinklers in the backyard and basset hounds sniffing after crumbs of hors d'oeuvres and balloons everywhere. The living room is packed with people watching Queen’s performance at Live Aid on our single television, clapping along to Radio Ga Ga. Rami and Lucy arrive with the gift of a handmade sky-blue velvet suit. Joe and Christabella arrive with about twenty boxes of pizza. Ben and I and our two daughters are in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on Alexei’s birthday cake. It’s quite a challenge; Alexei loves dinosaurs, and the stegosaurus made of green icing has plenty of ragged edges to smooth out. Later, when Ben lights the candles, he will use a tarnished steel lighter with a bear carved into one side.

“Papa, Mum, have you seen this?” Tatiana, our eldest, asks. She holds open the pages of Time Magazine. “Some reporter based out of L.A. did a story on the Winter Palace. You know, where the Romanovs lived before they were deposed. He posed as a tourist and took a bunch of photos and smuggled them out of the Soviet Union, and now the Soviets are pissed. They don’t allow photography in the museum. And they definitely don’t want Americans capitalizing on their national historic sites. Anyway, check it out.” She turns the pages. Ben glances over at me. The butterknife has fallen out of my hand and onto the kitchen counter.

“Here, Mum, let me do that,” Louise offers. She plucks a clean knife out of the silverware drawer and resumes the meticulous sculpting of the stegosaurus.

“Amazing, huh?” Tati says, still flipping pages. They’re vivid, bright, in full color; they bring back memories I had forgotten I have. “There’s the Throne Room…the Malachite Room…the ballroom…the gardens…even the—”

“The private family rooms,” I murmur, dazed. “The bedrooms. The study. The dining room.”

“Yeah,” Tati replies. She’s still grinning, but her brow furrows. “Mum…are you okay?”

“She’s fine,” Ben says quickly. “She’s just tired. That stegosaurus has been giving us hell. I love the technique the reporter used here, opening with a vignette…”

Throughout the years, throughout the decades, as the century slips away from me, I have tried to avoid witnessing the calamities of my homeland: famines, purges, dictators, wars, censorship, rivalry, bloodshed and turmoil and insurmountable suffering. I barely recognize it at all; what was once Imperial Russia is now the Soviet Union, what was once Saint Petersburg is now Leningrad, what was once hope and the promise of a better future is now grim authoritarianism. I can still see my family in the Russian immigrants I helped settle here in New York City, but I don’t see them in the modern-day iteration of my birthplace.

But these pictures Tati is showing me, these memories…they are not from some failed, foreign land. They are the places where Papa puffed on his pipe and told us ancient folktales, where Mother read in her wheelchair, where Alexei played with his tiny toy soldiers on the rug in front of the fireplace, where my sisters and I stayed awake laughing and whispering until morning sunrays shone through our bedroom windows.

I reach out to touch the pictures with my fingertips. My hands are wrinkled, knobby, arthritic, just like Mother’s once were. Tati is still watching me, concerned.

“I know, it’s so beautiful, but so sad,” she says. “Knowing that the people who once lived there were murdered so brutally. Those poor kids. To have all this, and then to have nothing. It must have been a miserable last year for them.”

“They didn’t have nothing,” Ben tells Tati gently. “They had their family.”

“Yeah, but I mean…do royal families even really know each other? Don’t they just get together for polo games and tea parties and…I don’t know…arranged marriages?”

“The Romanovs knew each other.” Ben smooths my silver hair fondly. His hands shake a bit now, but they’re still strong, still perfect. His scars have faded with time; they are nearly invisible. It’s almost as if our pasts never happened. It’s almost as if we’ve always been the people we are now, here in the New World surrounded by friends and family and golden possibilities. “They were…a bit of an anomaly among royal families. Nicholas was very attentive to the children, very loving. And Alexandra was too, to the extent that she could be with her poor health. They did everything together. They went sledding and horseback riding and swimming, they told stories, they played games, they shared meals, they took care of each other. They hoped and they worked and they prayed. They tried to shield each other from the burdens the world placed on their backs. In a lot of ways…the Romanovs weren’t all that different from us.”

“Oh, wow,” Tati says, fascinated, awed. “I didn’t know that. They really must have been something.”

Ben looks over at me, smiling. “They were.”

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