An Arranged Marriage To The Mafia...?

They say home is where the heart is and if it were true my heart had always remained in Vegas. There was something new to the smell of air, the warmth of sun and brighteness of lights as I waltzed my way through customs and baggage claims, my heels clicking over the perfect, gleaming white tiles.

"There you are Mrs. Radev." A petite woman passed me down my suitcase smiling as she scanned it's contents only to find zero threats of any kind. I watched her startled for a moment but soon stammered a thank-you and turned to leave, Ethan's coy smile watching my every move.

"Weird?" he spoke low and whispered in my direction his eyes completely curious as to how I would answer.

I walked dazed for a moment before nodding my head and mumbling a yes. I knew exactly what he was referring to; the woman had addressed me under my married name. I was no longer Amelia Samuels but Amelia Radev and it took hearing a complete stranger to say it for the realisation to actually sink in. I hadn't had time to process the thoughts of my wedding properly. One moment I was getting married, the next I was reading my father's eulogy, the next I was flying home from Italy to take over my father's enterprise with myfiance husband.

"It's got a ring to it." Ethan nudged me playfully and I scoffed a small laugh at his boyish charm.

Since our wedding nothing had changed between us, he was still the same Ethan as before only his eyes were always warmer, his smiles always poised on me, his hands always around my own and lips forever pushed against my forehead. We weren't in love. I knew that, he knew that but to everyone else we were head-over-heels. We weren't in love but I cared for him like no other and I was sure that somewhere he cared for me. We held a silent understanding and for the mean time I was content with that. My only problem was how long could I keep up this lie...

When would we fall a part and fall in love with other people? How hard would convincing Antonio of a divorce be? When did the drama stop, the chaos, the lies, the death. I wanted so badly for somebody to tell me it was over with my father, for somebody to tell me I would never again lose another friend or family member to the icy hands of cunning, rutheless murder; but no matter how badly I wanted, how terribly I wished I knew it would never happen. In our world there was no mercy, no feeling. There was business and the way to go about it.

I felt the smile on my face faulter and I took note of Ethan's body pausing by my side. "It'll be alright," his finger tips lifed my chin to stare at his eyes. "You know that. Everything will work out somehow."

Slowly I nodded my head. Somehow, in a way that at that moment didn't make sense everything in life would find and fall into it's place. They say the universe can only throw so much at you, and for now I had received my fair share of heart break and turmoil, for now I wanted the steady stream of tranquility to wash over our lives. To settling into this new lie of 'marriage' or whatever it was.

With baby steps we walked toward the enterance doors, the sliding glass gleaming and holding behind it a world that was soon to be ours. The power had been shifted. No longer did my father posess half of the Nevada underworld, but the responsibility had been thrust forward into my own unready palms and a weight loaded upon my uneasy shoulder. No longer was George Samuels' name spoken with a mix of fear and respect. His name was now a morbid, sad song on the lips of everyone who had the good graces of coming into his life, though his legacy left a sour taste in the back of the throats of many he had still been my paternal figure, the man who had raised me and no matter what evil lurked in his bloodstream or the severity of his mistakes I would always love him unconditionally as only a daughter could.

Suddenly my small shoes came to a complete and utter hault. My shoulders hunched slightly with pent up nerves and my palms began to sweat as my eyes fell to the other side of the glass exit doors. Ethan's warm hand wrapped securely around my own and gave a small gentle squeeze of reassurance, his eyes watching down over me.

"Ready?" His lips coiled in a small smile and his eyes lit up with a wild excitement.

Timidly I sucked in a deep breath and smiled back at my husband. In the corner of my eye I could see it, the flash of bulbs, hear the calls of media. They all wanted the first tabloid story, the headliner. Next to the Moretti they were our worst nightmare, they were the world. Shortly I nodded my dark haired head in positive reassurance and tightened my grip on Ethan's palm. Our bodies turned slightly as I pushed a pair of dark lensed sunglasses upon my face and stepped out into the call of news reporters, into the ocean of Nevada sun, into marriage, into life, into the world.

At eighteen I had seen enough horrific circumstances to last a lifetime.
At nineteen my name was splashed across more headlines than Paris Hilton and the tabloids.
At twenty life as I knew it was forever changed and altered.
At twenty-one the world was in the palm of my hand

Sequel :)