Married To The Mafia...?

In the early, glamour filled days of the mob, people were less inclined to glorify the illicit underground actions of heavy set men and fabulously clothed women. Drug trafficking was heard of but not ratted upon simply out of fear that the Maria wouldn't hesitate in taking hour life, hauling you across the desert in the truck of a sedan and burying your corpse in a shallow grave.

Franks Sinatra was to be feared and nothing less. The mob was a family governed by their own laws, run by patriarchs with incredulous amounts of power, run from spoken adoration and respect.

Today, the media was the third party to everything that happened. The public still feared the stereotypical mafia, they bit nails contemplating the repercussions of dobbing in illicit behaviors. 

That being said, the 'mob' bad competition. New recruits who thought they were all that, thought they could take over decades of enterprises, titles and reputations. These new recruits were evidently the very cause of the Las Vegas Mafia's demise.

"Rome?" My voice was raised, brows lifted inside my hairline as I staggered into the kitchenette of mine and Ethan's penthouse. "You bought tickets to Rome?"

The crisp shiny cards were clasped tightly under my burnt orange fingernails, my mouth twisted in confusion.

"We need to leave Amelia."

"Leave? Did you not hear the police? We leave the country and we look guilty Ethan. They'll call Italy and have us detained. We'll be committing international felony!"

"It was a suggestion by them Amelia. We haven't done anything wrong. Neither of us shot Mason, neither of us killed him."

"They don't know that! We leave and we look guilty."

"We leave and-" His eyes glared over at the phone as it screamed a shrill cry from upon the tiled wall. His shoulders brushed by my own gently as he pulled back the receiver and barked into it.

I had no patience to listen as Ethan spoke in broad italian down the phone, an obvious plot to shield my ears from whatever it was he spoke about. Instead I turned and walked back down toward our shared bedroom, the plane tickets in my hand falling to small fragile flakes as I tore them in my bare hands.

"It was my father." His voice entering the bedroom behind me caused my shoulders to jump in surprise. 

"You needed to speak in Italian to Antonio?" I gritted my teeth slightly, my pent up anger beginning to spill slightly. "Must have been important."

"You ripped up the tickets?" He dropped whatever he was about to say, instead lifting the small white paper litter from the carpet.

"Rome is a mistake and you know it Ethan. This isn't just your life. You can't just run away from this and think nobody will come after us." I left my knees bend and slumped upon the freshly made bed. "Do you remember what you said to Mason?"

Ethan moved slowly before me, the paper fluttering from his grasp as he noticed my sense of complete and utter seriousness.

"You told him you were out, that this was it. This whole facade was over Ethan."

"I am out Amelia. I don't want to be the one putting you in danger."

"Then be out. You're not even trying to get out, you still report to your father, you would still take an assignment if he told you to. I'm tired of being afraid, I just want to be normal. I want to wake up  in the morning without wondering if you're still alive, if you're going to walk in the door. I die a little bit every time the door knocks or phone rings because my first thought is that it's going to be somebody saying you're dead."

By now my heart was racing, my cheeks flushed with salty streams of tears, my words fumbling over one another in sobs. Ethan didn't waste a second in folding down to his knees between my thighs, his hands gently rubbing the tears and kissing away the red of my cheeks.

"Im out, I swear to you I am." His hands caught my own, "I don't want you to live like this, scared constantly and always in doubt. I want to wake up here with you and know you're safe whenever I leave. I'm out, no matter how hard it's about to become leaving my father behind. I'm out."

***

"Ethaniel you know it's not so easy." Antonio's eyes didn't look at his son, instead they stared down at me and I knew instantly he blamed me.

"I don't care how hard it is. I don't want this, any of this-"

"You don't want this or Amelia doesn't want this?"

My mouth parted to rebut but Ethan's eyes sent me a warning glance. In this regard I was to keep my mouth well and truly shut.

"I want no part. It's not like it used to be. These new 'families', they're better prepared, more ruthless than what anyone is used to. They don't play by these rules, they play their own league. You can't beat them and you know it."

"What do you suggest, we join them? Or better still we roll over and let them take it all?"

"I suggest you do what you want. But I want no part in this. I bought back the shares, I have no debt with you anymore, no ties-"

"You've planned this for a while no?"

It was only as Antonio said this that realization dawned. Ethan was always going to leave the mafia. It had been an idea set in stone the moment bs feigned his own death. The shares his father had owned, Ethan had re-bought for a higher price. A price that paid for the loans, the aid and any other financial situation Antonio had pulled our hotel through. Ethan had always serve his father because he felt he owed a debt, his death and sudden resurrection had been another step in sewing close the debt and freeing himself from the illicit world of mob bosses.

Ethan's eyes looked down for a moment, but when they looked up a new emotion was playing over them, their focus somewhere behind me.

In a sense I wish I hadn't turned around. If I hadn't of turned around I wouldn't have bore witness to the brigade of men dressed in bulletproof vests, in masks and holding an onslaught of automatic weapons toward our defenseless bodies. I wouldn't have read the four letters that spelled of S.W.A.T on each of their chests. I wouldn't have noticed the two detectives approaching with handcuffs and a warrant for mine and my husband's arrest.