Married To The Mafia...?

For a moment I didn’t dare move. My heart rate accelerated the second Ethan’s voice was replaced with continuing silence, my body resisted the urge to move, to run and instead kept me captive within the folds of the warm sofa, the telephone still tightly in my grip.

The terror left my bones in an instant. I was so tired of being scared, of fearing what would appear from around every corner. I’d gone my whole life terrified by what lurked in shadows, by what could happen rather than live and deal with the consequences of what had already occurred, and now at legal age I had finally had enough.

I felt my phone buzz inside my pocket, my husband’s name appearing across the screen. A part of me was tempted to answer, even after that morning I yearned to hear his voice, I needed him to be there. My dependence and faith that no matter what, Ethan could keep me safe, warm and loved was exactly what had made me realise I’d fallen so far in love with him it was dangerous. I needed desperately to stand upon my own two feet and face the world on my own, and so I hit ignore, curled deeper into the cushions of the couch and raised the volume upon the television.

As much as I tried to regain my composure, to calm and settle my fried nerves the second Ethan’s voice was cut short from his sentence I was on edge. The only thing being I simply refused to believe it, I wanted to prove to everyone and everybody that I’d survived without Ethan while he acted selfishly and I could survive without him even longer.

But I knew that was easier said when in the dark something went bump. The sound echoed down the dark hallway and enveloped the living room like an unwanted hug from a total stranger. It was as if somebody had knocked upon the door, but in doing so had managed to open it and barge inside. As if a total unidentified soul was stepping, heavy footed down the hall.

Instinct told me to run and hide, my brain screamed for my legs to push across the room and to the tall bureau against the far wall, for my fingers to wind against the cool steel of one of my father’s many hidden guns. Shaking, my knees took me to the other side of the room. My ears picking up the sounds of creeping feet against hardwood floors, of shadows gracing up against walls.

Adrenaline coursed through my body and pushed me to stand opposite the sound. The only thing standing between me and the intruder, a plain wood door. My throat ran dry as I rested my fingertips upon the handle, counting the steps, the seconds, the mere moments that sped up and loomed impending doom over my head.

Deeply I breathed through my nose, I held the oxygen in my lungs for a fraction too long, until it burned the top of my chest before I pushed on the frame of the heavyset doorway. The hinges swung silently through the tight air. Though the silence was short lived as my fingers squeezed upon the trigger of the handgun, a blaze of deafening sound and spark of light releasing a bullet flying through the atmosphere.

I wasn’t exactly a stranger to firing a gun, but I would never call myself an experienced gunslinger either. The second the bullet left the barrel my hand shot upward with the back fire, my shoulder jolting violently and arms ending poised together above my head, gun still within my hands.

“What the fuck!” A voice screamed through the deaf noise before a pair of hands touched me.

I wiggled against the arms around me; I pulled away from the body holding me. It was only when I took proper notice of the blanket of black around me did I open my eyes, did, did I drop the gun at my feet, did I push against the body so forcefully that the arms broke away from my waist.

“What are doing?” His voice was challenging, it was degrading but it held an underlining tone of actual pain and agony. “Trying to kill yourself?”

“Yes Ethan I’ve become totally suicidal since you disappeared. Maybe you would have known if you stuck around. Maybe I wouldn’t have decided to top myself if you just told the truth.” It was malice and sarcastic as I shoved against his chest, my pent up anger from that very morning rising once more.

“Funny.” I could tell he was angry just by his voice. “You know, shooting like that I’m surprised you even survived. Thought your father would have taught you better than fire, put your hands in the air and close your eyes.”

My eyes tightened to a glare as he moved away, deeper into the living room. I sauntered slowly after him picking up the discarded weapon, my eyes burning into his back until the dark shape oozed into view.

“D-did I hit you?”

“What?”

“The gun. Did I shoot you?” My head was in a frenzied panic as my husband stared down at me.

“No.” He winced as he lowered himself upon the couch, squeezing his eyes tightly as obvious amounts of pain burned through him. “You’re a crack shot Amelia, I doubt you’d be able to hit a target an inch away from you.”

“You’re bleeding on the couch.” I tossed the gun into his lap before sitting down in the armchair, watching as he lifted his shirt from the corner of my eye.

“Shit…”

“Not such a crack shot?”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up, it’s just a bullet graze.”

“It needs cleaning.” My tone was soft, my eyes sorrow and teeth seeping into the pink of my bottom lip as I looked over the wound, it was deep for a ‘graze’, inflamed and bleeding. A wound I inflicted upon my own husband whilst trying to convince myself I didn’t need him to help keep me safe, that I was completely and utterly independent.

The irony was a catastrophe in it’s own right.