Blue Eyes

45

            It was late when the doors of the bakery were stormed. Three men, three assassins broke in. Alfie was the only one on the first floor. Ollie was in the basement working on inventory. His assistant startled when he heard gunshots from upstairs.

He rushed up the steps, his gun drawn. But the men had already fled once Alfie started returning fire.

The Jewish gangster was now on the floor, bleeding out from the gun wound on his face. In an instant, everything changed. Ollie panicked and dragged Alfie into his office, just in case the armed men returned.

It was the phone call that made Ella seize up in anxiety. She could imagine it was the exact same helpless feeling Alfie felt when she was shot by the Italians. Her husband shot in the face. There was no telling if he would survive or not.

"He's going into surgery now. I don't know-" Ella dropped the phone and grabbed her coat to leave the flat. There were too many thoughts running through her mind to process at once. But on her way to the hospital, all she could do was pray for God to keep him alive.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ollie met her at the hospital. He explained to her as she shook in panic and anger what was going on. The only thing they could do was wait until Alfie got out of surgery. Then they would find out what sort of fate Alfie faced.

Ella paced in the waiting room for a moment but stopped. "Ollie." She turned to the young man.

"Yes?"

"The minute Alfie gets out of surgery, call my brother. Tell him Alfie's dead. Tell him that Mosley's men killed him."

Ollie looked bewildered. "Ella, they're giving him a good chance of survival-"

"I don't care. You tell my family that my husband's been gunned down by Oswald Mosley's men." She insisted.

He nodded and went to find a telephone to break the news that wasn't quite true.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tommy rushed to the hospital after Ollie called. Heart in his throat. He met his sister in the waiting room. "El..." He reached out to her but she lashed out in response.

Hitting his hands away she yelled at him. "You bastard! I told you! How could you let this happen?" She sobbed.

"I-"

"My husband is dead because of you!" She pushed him away from her. "Dead!"

It was almost unbelievable that a man with such a reputation like Alfie could be killed. Luckily, Ella pulled off a convincing enough reaction. She was angry that Alfie had gotten hurt. But she'd also learned from the best liars in the game.

As Tommy calmed his sister down in the waiting room, wrapping his arms around her and trying to soothe her, Alfie was being brought out the back of the hospital. Still knocked out from the drugs, he was driven out of the city.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Oh fuckin' hell." Alfie tried to reach for his head. He wanted to clutch his head to try and quell the awful headache he had. "Jesus Christ..."

"Alfie, sh, put your hands down, you can't touch your face."

He could hear his wife's voice but it began to dawn on him that his eyes were open but he couldn't see anything. "El? Ella? Ella, why can't I fucking see anything?" He tried to sit up but found her arms holding him down.