forced to fall

chapter two

all words/sentences in another language will be translated to english in italics.

i do not speak russian so if anything is improperly translated blame google, not me.

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song rec: ultraviolence by lana del rey

ever since she was four years old and her oldest brother adélard was set up into an arranged marriage at the age of twelve, belle étoile was promised by her parents that she would never, ever, be forced to marry someone she didn't want to.

call her spoiled, call her the favorite child, but all four of her brothers were now married to women that they didn't choose. these were women whose own parents decided to give up as a way to get something from the étoile family, and her father would rather be dead than have his princess be in the same position as all those women.

adélard married a woman whose parents needed a priority trading position when it came to tobacco products.

faustian married a woman whose parents were in great debt towards amélie étoile.

hercule, the brother closest to belle's age, married a woman because her parents just wanted an invite to the annual holiday party the étoile's threw.

louis étoile wouldn't exploit his daughter, his princess, like that. he spent his entire life ensuring that. belle had dates to school dances, she had boyfriends growing up, she was a regular teenage girl. and that's mostly because her parents did everything in their power to separate her life from the family business.

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"i would like to marry your daughter."

who knew seven words was enough to make a table full of powerful people lose their shit.

"j'espère que tu plaisantes putain." i hope you're fucking kidding.

"absolument pas. père ne permets pas ça." absolutely not. father don't allow this.

"Виктор, это не то решение, о котором мы договорились." viktor that is not the decision we agreed on.

just a couple of the things that were shouted in the moments passing viktor's request for the deal.

belle was struck silent. she couldn't believe that this was happening.

the morotov's are known to kill in retribution for doing them wrong. was viktor about to give them the ultimatum of she either marries me or she dies? belle wasn't sure, but she was fearful of it.

"louis, vous ne pouvez pas accepter ce marché. pense à belle. pense à la promesse que tu lui as faite. pensez à votre petite princesse." amélie tells her husband, grabbing onto his fist that is clenching a fork so hard it might just bend. louis, you cannot take that deal. think about belle. think about the promise you made her. think about your little princess."

it seemed like everybody was giving viktor looks that could only be described as murderous. belle being the only person in the room not looking at him, instead she was looking at seamus, who was giving viktor a look of anger himself. but viktor was looking at belle.

what could've possessed him to request that?

that wasn't what him and his parents had agreed on. viktor was supposed to get the names of those who killed their men and the name of the employee, or employees, responsible for the leak, as well as invitations to any and all future events the étoile group would be hosting. the morotov's needed to avenge the deaths of their staff as well as get into the social scene for the benefits of making allies and not enemies.