Married To The Mafia...?

Harry Gordon

The name struck me as familiar, it held a ring that I knew and a sound that I'd heard before. While I was asleep I dreamed of Ethan, as I was awake I wondered over Harry Gordon.

"We just found a guy counting cards." Stephen Lanyeski moved through the office quickly, his eyes dark as he led a stumbling stranger through a plain red door and into one of two interview rooms.

I sighed frustrated and fed up with the amount of people who constantly believed they could cheat out a casino. Our security systems were state of the art with detectors that scanned retinas the moment you walked in, face recognition systems and cameras that identified and followed suspicious activity from punters.

My heels clicked as I walked across the floors, my wedding ring glimmered in the bright lights as I pushed against the interview room door and for a moment I paused, too captivated in the promise Ethan had made when he'd slid it upon my finger. 'Til death do us part.

"And you just thought you could get away with it?" Stephen's voice was tired and I knew he'd begun the interview the second they had sat down.

"I don't know what you're talking about?"

"Don't play me kid. We saw you counting-"

"Beginners luck." The man was calm and collected, not a day over twenty one. "Where's Mr. Radev? I thought he'd be giving the interview-"

"My husband," I choked slightly, there had never once been a time I had to say the words aloud to anyone before. "My husband was murdered,"

The boyish smirk made me nervous, it made my heart accelerate and crash against my chest. There was something to the way his lip turned and snarled to one side, a hidden knowledge that he was dying to spill.

"You believe that?"

"What?" It was as is Stephen was no longer in the room, as if it were just me and the boyish looking card counter.

"You believe your husband really died?" He snickered slightly before looking down at his watch. "You're more gullible than either of us gave you credit for."

I opened my mouth, my lips already forming the rash words I wanted to spill, the anguish rocketing inside my chest growing more and more with his words. My breath shock as I withdrew but words never exhaled from my voice, instead the door opened and a flustered looking security member stared down at me.

"Uh," He was nervous but I waited patiently for him to regain composure. "Mr Harry Gordon is waiting for you."

Slowly I nodded my eyes moving for a moment to the smirking man at the interview table. I had completely forgotten that Harry Gordon had made plans to meet myself and the teams of employees, I had forgotten that today was the day he signed the paperwork for part ownership in the hotel. I forgot the mountain of burning questions I needed desperately to throw at him.

With slight hesitation I walked from the red door, across the hall and into a small foyer. My hands squeezed together nervously as I gathered the strength to walk across the foyer and into the small office I knew contained Harry Gordon.

If I had of known what lay inside the office, I most likely would have pivoted around and never walked inside.

"Amelia." Emmanuel's eyes were wide as he stepped out of the office, he seemed almost breathless and his cheeks were a pink flush. "I-I... I don't know what to say."

Confused I knitted my brows together and tried to clarify what he'd meant, only he pushed me slowly inside the cramped room.

Swiftly the door was closed behind me and I stared at it's slammed frame for a moment, every question was now burning even more furiously inside my head, my body, my everything. Timidly I turned around my eyes catching sight of everything until they fell upon the man who called himself Harry Gordon. 

The room was small, the three walls were painted dreary pale colours and the large desk sat facing away from the wall-length window. It seemed smaller as I stared over at him.

Instantly I felt my breath knocked from my chest, my lungs screamed violently but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I watched as he stood up from the desk, tears stung the backs of my eyes but I refused to let them fall. Not here, not like this, not for him.

He wasn't how I remembered. His hair was matted slightly, darker if possible. Facial hair grew untamed over his jaw, chin and upper lip. His eyes were heavy and concealed in giant bags. Slowly he shuffled, a slight limp in his leg and with the aid of a walking stick closer to where I stood frozen.

"Amelia, love-"

I didn't let the words fall from his mouth, I didn't want to hear them as my heart broke and died and crawled and begged and pleaded for this not to be a dream. It raced and burned and pump and spilled fury through my veins. 

The only sounds I let fill the small cramped room was the echo of my palm against his face, the sweet tasting smack of my skin against his, the purr of my fury unleashing across Ethan Radev's red cheek.