AMORE MIO (on hold)

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

The thick fabric of the expensive dress hugging my body is suddenly so suffocating on my figure, forcing me to suck in my breath further as if to make space. I don't even know if I'm breathing anymore or rather just holding my breath and waiting for the end. The end of all of this. More likely than not, the end of me from the end of us.

My hand is trembling beside me, but I know that there's only one choice left in this game. I have to play, rather than be the pawn. I slowly lift up my left hand, feeling the rough hand that is wrapped around my waist, resting on my belly, tighten its grip, pulling my entire body closer to his side and against his chest. Before anyone can react, my hand wraps itself around his other one, around the grip of the Beretta that he's holding up to my temple.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" My father's voice booms through the church as my mother's shriek echoes behind it. Both of them are staring at me wide-eyed, shocked that their innocent and angelic daughter is now placing her finger over that of the man holding her against him, over the trigger that can end her life in less than a second.

Fear courses through my body, but so does power. That's what everyone works towards in life, right? Power. My world has always revolved around power. It has never once been in my hands. But right now, all the power in the room is mine. In my control. The control belongs to me. For as long as I can remember, I always wondered what it must feel like to hold such power, but it is nothing like I imagined it. It is utterly terrifying.

"She is mine now. Do not raise your voice at her. You have no right," his voice comes from behind me. I can feel his breath hit my hear, reminding me that he's right here, holding onto me. Yet, at the same time, his voice seems like it's coming from elsewhere. From all around me. From around all of us. It's much more commanding than my father's. It's calm, fearless, and so relaxed. How? I shudder slightly, only enough so he can feel it and not enough for everyone else in the room to see. I may have thought for a brief second that I held power, and although I do hold the power to my life right now, I surely do not hold the power in this room. The power is all his.

"Giovanni, please do something," my mother's voice is shaking as she begs my father to spare his only child. It's a painful sight for me, to see my mother fall apart in front of me after all she has done for me. She has not once in her life begged for anything — not even from someone as ruthless as my father. Yet, I doubted that this situation could be changed by a bit of begging on her part. Not when his little girl was ready to take her life. Not when the enemy had his finger sandwiched between my own and the trigger of the gun to my head.

Father is a Don. Father did not forgive. He did not reason. His word is law, and for as long as he lived, it would not change unless he changed. One thing about my father was that he never changed. Not in all the years of his marriage, not since he became a father, and definitely not since he had become Don of the Chicago Outfit at the mere age of eighteen. He has always been the most feared man in the Midwest, so why did he suddenly look so weak? The terror in his bright blue eyes was unmistakable.

"Giovanni!" my mother screamed at my father, falling to her knees as I felt the hand resting on my waist center itself, gripping me with so much strength against his front, forcing me to shut my eyes. I refused to pull the trigger, and I held so much trust in the man holding me that I doubted he would either, but my father and a good handful of men were all standing down the aisle with their own guns pointed directly at us.

We were outnumbered. It was something like three to thirty with us having three, not that it really mattered, because either way, my father would lose. He would either lose his daughter — one that is already lost — or he would lose the respect of his men. For him, one of the most notorious Dons that the American-Italian mafia has ever seen, the ladder seemed worse. But they didn't know him like I did. He may hurt my mother unconventionally for the mafia, and he may have unintentionally hurt me to protect his bloodline, but never once has he let me down purposefully. The choice was his to make — the mafia or his little girl? Either way, it was his loss. He would lose his men or his only heir.

My father has always been fairly honorable. Well, as honorable as they come in the mafia. My mother could not have any children after having me and unlike other Dons or Made Men, he chose to remain with her even if that meant that he would not have a male heir to the Outfit. Instead, he chose to rewrite the law, making it so that my own child could one day, in the hopes that I would have at least one son, become a Made Man and eventually Don themself. His hope was to keep his blood running through the heart of the Chicago Outfit.

My mother continues her begging, screaming, and crying, but I force myself to ignore it. I am no longer listening to anything. I can only feel the his heart steadily pounding behind my head, his hand tightly holding onto my waist, and his finger under mine on the trigger. I know he's exchanging words with my father, the rumble of his voice shooting through his body against my own, but I don't care to listen. Listening to the exchange of words will only make going down harder for me. Instead, I relax my body to his, remembering the words he told me minutes before. Possibly our last conversation, ever.

"Do you trust me?"

I responded to him with a nod, knowing we were running out of time. Footsteps were pounding against the ground above us and we could hear them through the thin isolation of the ceiling. "I trust you," I spoke softly, yet wholeheartedly. "You are my husband now. I married you, didn't I?"

"I don't think I gave you much of a choice," He teased me, his smile genuine. A smile that not many have seen, the first smile that he's given me in months, and the one that I laid in bed thinking about for the last few weeks. "Then let me protect you, amore mio. Until my last breath."

I closed my eyes as I felt his lips brush my own, pulling me in for one last kiss before we would be interrupted by my father and his men. We had heard the helicopter landing as we said I do, and the sounds of their feet on the grounds above was a mere reminder that they were closing in on us.

What if this is our last moment together? What if we didn't leave this church alive? I guess they could bury us outside, but I doubt my father would allow me to lay at rest with my husband. His enemy. Was I also an enemy now? I ran away from home to marry this man. A man that I was once promised to. A man that was the most dangerous of all. One that I was not supposed to fall in love with. One that was pulled out from my heart at the last moment. What would our wedding have looked like the first time around? If my father had not broken the promise?

My hands took in the silky smooth material of his suit, recalling the first time I met him. I was only fifteen at the time. He was eighteen, and although my father had wanted us to marry as soon as I turned sixteen, this man refused to have me before my eighteenth birthday. I could recall how he always dressed so well, even if he knew that he would have blood on his hands. I inhaled his scent, a mix of fresh and spicy that I had come to love. I only wish we had more time. More time for him to hold me. To tell me he loved me. To make love to me one last time. We were robbed of our first wedding, and now we were about to be robbed of the rest of our lives together after sharing our vows.

I felt a tear roll down my cheek, one that he quickly brushed away as his lips left mine. "Do not cry. Do not show weakness. We cannot win if they come to think we are weak," he whispered, grabbing a hold of my waist and pulling me against him, the back of me lined up with half of his front. "Smile. It's your wedding day. You're a bride, so act like one," his voice is commanding, but I hear the hint of sarcasm in his voice. I can't help but let out a sheepish grin as his fingers dig into me.

"Trust me."

Those are the last words he spoke to me. The last words that came out of his mouth before he held a gun to my head. My heart stopped for a second, but had no choice to recover as the bronze-plated double doors to the church fly open. This is a game. A game of war. A bloody war. Someone will suffer, and someone will win, but one side must fall so the other can reign.

The buzz in my head is so loud that I've convinced myself the sound is real. Good. I don't have to listen to this war break out. I can go peacefully as they allow me to. As soon as I hear the trigger being pulled, my eyes shoot open. Am I dead? I feel dead inside. That's for sure. I can't make out what has happened, because everything around me is spinning, but suddenly I'm winded, falling backwards at a ridiculous speed. My hands tremble down to rest on my stomach loosely as I trip over the fabric of the wedding dress with my feet, gasping for air as I fall back.

Blood.

I smell it. I can see it. Suddenly, even with all of the buzzing in my ears and the chaos that has erupted around us, there is a loud, continuous scream. I don't realize it then, but the screaming is coming from me.