An Arranged Marriage To The Mafia...?

"This isn't what you're thinking it is." his eyes stayed focused on the abandoned newspaper across the bed spread, his voice calming with a hint of amusement as he scanned over the headlines. The media had, had somewhat of a 'field day' with the demise of my engagement and Ethan was quickly joining the ranks.

"How could this be any different?" I spat back, pausing for a second to stare coldly into his calm exterior.

"Amelia, seriously. This." His hand motioned toward the atricles, "this is business." His voice laughed with mockery, cheating and lying in my mind were not games, and no matter how much I didn't want this engagement or marriage I felt disgusted at the extremes he was prepared to go to in order for it to be called off.

"Business? really Ethan!?" I zipped up the large black suitcase packed and ready upon the large bed and moved into the adjacent bathroom, my make-up and toiletries clanging in a mad rush while I threw them into packing bags, "If it were such an important assignment I would have heard about it. Don't treat me like an idiot!"

He laughed. Rudely and absurdly, the bell-toll fell from his lungs and he placed my suitcase over the carpet for me. Frustrated and at my wit's ends I clasped the handle and dragged the over-size carry luggage from the giant bedroom suite we'd once managed to share between us, I moved quickly down the hallway and found myself greeting the rest of my soon-to-be in-laws huddled and crowded in the foyer of the living room.

"Amelia, don't be hastey." Antonio's voice was raspy and quiet from the centre of the room, his eyes sincere and appologetic at the same time as stern and demandng. Yet men like Antonio needed to do a lot more than glance my way to place fear in my bones; I'd seen more than enough gruesome endings and merciless killings to know what people could truely be capable of with far more than a glance.

"I'm sorry..." I paused to let the suitcase stand on its own, "I need time on my own for this."

"Lee." James Radev didn't need to move for me to know exactly who spoke in the sea of suits, his eyes warm and calm, his taylor-made nickname echoing in the silence. "Don't be rash love, you don't really know what happened, it isn't quite what you think."

I watched him with suspicious eyes, James Radev was the boy who would once upon a time save me from the evils that lurked along the strip, he was my closest of close friends when it came to my father's allies and I would have given anything at all for James to be the one I was forced to spend the rest of my life with, at least he would never be caught running off with other girls. But unfortunately for Ethan and I, James was already engaged and in my father's eyes far too old for his only daughter.

"I want to go home." My eyes burned into his pupils and I left no room for anybody in the room to give me reasons to choose differently.

James watched for a second before he nodded slowly, "I'll drive you."

Silence beckoned me inside the passanger seat of the slim black car while James threw my amount of luggage into the back, he said nothing while the engine purred to life and kept a hold of his tongue as the car pulled out into the gliding traffic of afternoon mayhem in Vegas. I picked at my nail polish while the radio burned into an awkward tension.

"You don't want to marry him." It wasn't a question but more a realisation as we pulled up inside my father's pebble drive way.

"I never offered, and I never said I wanted to."

He let a soft chuckle from his lips, "Either did Ethan," he cut the engine, "That's not to say he'd willingly go to the extreme of doing this." He didn't need to explain for me to know he meant the alligations on the front of every Vegas paper, "I'm serious when I say this isn't what it seems like."

"Why is everyone saying that!" I pushed a hand through my hair, "Ethan calls it 'business', your dad tells me it isn't what it seems and you tell me not to jump to conclusions. Can't somebody just tell me what..."

"It's a Radev secret, you're not lucky enough to be apart of us just yet Lee." he smiled a teasing grin before his face fell serious, "I really think you should come back though, your father can't watch over you like we can."

I scrunched my brows together in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"Amelia, you know better than I do there's some sick people out there," He motioned to the world outside the car, "Being here on your own isn't safe."

"No-one ever said anything before." I shrugged and unbuckled my seat belt.

"Before... before we didn't have the problems we do now."

"Problems.... I-is something wrong?" I could feel a slight nervousness creeping up.

"No-No nothing is wrong, everything is fine." his smile faultered and he covered quickly by jumping from his seat and rushing around to grab my bags from the back.

James' nervous attention had my own nerves shot. He was a steady figure in the under world, he'd made a name for himself the second he could work, a ruthless and easily tempted trigger happy personality within the world of crime and just watching his anxiety had me fretting for the worst.

"James." My voice held a warning tone as I stood in the centre of the driveway watching him drag my luggage over, "you'd tell me if there was something I ought to know, right?"

"Amelia. There's nothing." He placed the suitcase at my side and let a small laugh roll from his lungs at my serious expression, "really Lee, it's all fine. Now go, your father's waiting." He sent a quick wave over my head to my waiting paternal figure on our marble enterance steps.

James placed a gentle kiss across my forehead and sighed a casual laugh, "I'll pick you up next week when you realise this is all a miss-understanding and blows over" With a wink James Radev had climbed into the front seat and sped down the roads and onto the highway home.

If only either of us could predict the future, I would have never left the Radev mansion and James would have never sped off down the strip alone with me in the back of his mind, if i had of simply moved bedrooms his car would never have been on the road at the same time as a giddily fast black sedan. If I had of never picked up a newspaper James' eyes wouldn't have caught the glint of a window winding down and recognised Jakowski's men driving at his side.

If only I had of listened to their warning and pleas to stay I would have never gotten a call five hours later to say that James had been shot along the Vegas strip.