The Spaghetti Tree

The night before my victory gala, I heard my husband, Matteo Bellandi, promise my credit to his mistress. "Vivian, I'll put Sofia's project credit under your name. Consider it an early second-birthday gift for our son." Vivian laughed softly. "Will Sofia agree to that?" Matteo sounded bored. "She has the title of Mrs. Bellandi. That's enough." I thought I had misheard him. But the next night, my award was given to Vivian, and Matteo personally walked her onto the stage. "Young talent needs room to grow," he told the room. "From now on, Vivian will lead this project." The gala went silent. Everyone tried not to look at me. I sat in the corner Vivian had arranged for me and finally understood. Matteo had kept the title for me, then given the credit, the money, and his future to his mistress and their son. Fine. I left the ballroom without looking back. I was done being Mrs. Bellandi. From now on, I was Sofia Valenti again, the princess of Chicago’s most feared family.

Two families at war. One marriage for peace. Many lies to hide the truth. ​Alessia Moretti did not marry Lucien Valenti because she loved him; she married him to get information. As the daughter of the Moretti leader, she believes the Valentis killed her brother, Enzo. Now, she is living in their home, ready to destroy their business from the inside. ​Lucien Valenti is a man of secrets. He knows his wife is a spy, and he is ready to play her game—until a person from the past returns with a warning: the real enemy is not the husband she lives with, but the father who forced her into the marriage. ​When a stolen file reveals "Project Veil"—a terrible medical plan paid for by her own family, Alessia is forced to work with the man she wanted to kill. From the expensive parties in Manhattan to the dark hallways of secret labs in Italy, Alessia and Lucien must deal with many betrayals. ​In the world of the Syndicate, the truth is more dangerous than a lie. And the truth is: some secrets are better left hidden.

In the sun-drenched summers of Sardinia, Isabella finds a rare kind of freedom—far from the chaos of her high-powered life in New York and the suffocating legacy of her family’s ties to the mafia. For once, she can breathe, laugh, and be herself without fear or expectation. But the summer of 2021 changes everything. Haunted by the broken marriage of her parents—forced together by the iron grip of mafia tradition and the unyielding lineage of the Dons—Isabella has long abandoned the idea of love. Her heart is guarded, her trust fractured. Until she meets him. A stranger with secrets of his own. A man who sees her not as a pawn in a dynastic game, but as a woman worth knowing, worth loving. Their connection is instant, electric, and dangerous. Because in Isabella’s world, love is never simple—and freedom always comes at a price. As old loyalties clash with new desires, Isabella must choose between the life she was born into and the life she dares to dream of. In a land where the sea keeps secrets and the wind carries whispers, can love truly survive?

As the flames engulfed my body in the underground warehouse, I used the last of my strength to call my brother, the new Don of the Moretti family. Just as I was about to draw my last breath, Lorenzo finally answered, his voice as cold as the Sicilian winter wind. "Isabella, what the hell are you up to now?" "Brother, save me…" My voice was barely a whisper, but he cut me off without a hint of mercy. "Can't you go one day without causing trouble?" "Liliana's debutante dinner is next week. If you don't show up, I'll drag you back here myself." He hung up without a second thought, completely oblivious to the desperation in my voice. Despair mingled with the searing agony that wracked my body as the flames danced higher, and I couldn't hold on any longer. As I closed my eyes, tears still trickled from their corners. You won't have to drag me back, my brother. I'm never coming back.

Every Christmas Eve in Port Saint Giovanni, the Camerlano family hosts the Claiming Rite at Saint Giovanni Manor. Twelve girls stand in a line. Whoever receives the white-gold signet pin becomes the heir’s publicly acknowledged bride candidate. I am Grace Sorrento, the bastard daughter of the Sorrento family. If I do not receive that signet tonight, by sunrise I will be put on a plane to Chicago and married off to a Rizzo, a man rumored to have killed two former fiancées. Adrian Camerlano, the boy I grew up with, swore to me in blood three days ago that the signet would be mine. But when the moment came, his hand turned. With a smile, he pinned it on Lucia, the orphan his family had sponsored. Then he leaned close to my ear. "Let Lucia have her moment. No one has ever really looked at her before. Don’t worry. This is my estate. No one will dare arrange your marriage without my say." I grabbed his sleeve, but he removed my fingers one by one. "Lucia has no roots and no last name. Tonight is all she has. But you are a Sorrento. Even without the signet, no one will touch you." That phrase, no last name, drew every gaze in the ballroom toward me, full of pity and quiet mockery. The next morning, I boarded a flight to Chicago. When Adrian heard, he made one call to Port Saint Giovanni Air Control. "Ground every plane. Nothing leaves today!"

A bloody resistance against colonial invasion that tears Seme's indigenous leadership apart marks the entry of a strange culture into the clan. Osayo, the priest, seeks to protect the clan's religious system from erosion by the Blue-eyed (colonists). He, however, has to face off with a few loose canons, including his own son who escapes to a mission center far from home and ends up falling in love with a convert. In the meantime, a terrible plague breaks out in the clan, killing animals and people and leaving the land barren. Coupled by a misunderstanding of concepts in the new faith propagated by the Blue-eyed, a longstanding rift and blame game emerge between the converts and the conservatives, and spuns into a cutural marriage. Soon afterward, Osayo dies and his son, Okayo, realizes he has a greater role to play. The supernormal powers of the clan's aboriginal religious tree are stolen by a witch in line with a prophetic myth. And in a painful and tumultous mission to reunite the two conflicting religions of Seme Clan and limit the Blue-eyed's influence, Okayo puts his front foot forward in combating witchcraft so as to have the tree's powers in safe custody, and protect good from being superseded by evil.