Mafia Short Stories & Novels

In the third year of their secret marriage, Matteo, the newly appointed head of the Moretti Family, requested a Black Rose Ring at the Dowager's seventieth birthday banquet. He stood at the center of the hotel ballroom, a gentle smile on his face. "There's a woman who stood by me through my darkest days and even saved my life during that assassination attempt. I want her to wear the Moretti Family's highest ring of protection. She's here tonight." The room erupted in whispers. Everyone knew Matteo was composed and restrained, never discussing his personal life in public. A few of the old bosses allied with the Moretti Family were the first to egg him on, urging him to bring the woman forward. My heart gave a small flutter. Matteo had never told me about this. Back then, he had been the most overlooked heir in the Moretti Family. I used the shipping company my mother left me to move cargo and funnel funds for him, and I dragged him out of a warehouse filled with toxic gas. It left my heart permanently damaged and half my face scarred. Matteo took the Black Rose Ring from the Dowager's hand and, under everyone's gaze, stepped down from the stage. The ballroom fell silent. The black diamond flashed in the cold light as Matteo crossed toward the far end of the women's tables. I alone felt ice flooding through my veins. He wasn't coming toward me. Matteo stopped in front of my half-sister, Lydia. He slipped the ring onto her right hand, his voice tender. "Lydia was born out of wedlock. She's spent her whole life being looked down on, and what she needs most is a status no one can sneer at. Elena, you're the legitimate Rossi daughter. You own ports, and you're my lawful wife. You've always been generous. You wouldn't begrudge her one empty title." I swallowed the taste of blood rising in my throat, turned away, and snapped the last vial of antidote—the dose he would desperately need the following month.

I had always known my family hated me. Or maybe more accurately—they hated me for taking their real daughter’s place for so long. When they finally found Lily, their real daughter and sister, Matteo, the brother I grew up with, told me to disappear. Father, Don Kane, never looked at me twice again, no matter how hard I tried. Mother treated me like I was invisible. But they never let me leave. They made me stay and suffer. One day, Lily did something horrible, and they threw all the blame onto me. I was locked away in an asylum. When I was finally released two years later, the Kane came looking for me again, smiling as they called me their real daughter after all. A little too late for that, don’t they think?

While my entire family was helping my adopted sister try on wedding gowns, the doctor told me I had almost no time left. I held my terminal stomach cancer diagnosis and sent one message to the Moretti family group chat. “If I were dying, would any of you miss me?” Three minutes later, my parents replied. “You would lie about having cancer just to ruin Bianca’s wedding?” “Enough. The Moretti family has no daughter who tells lies like this.” My brother called, already irritated. “Bianca’s father died taking a bullet for me. No one will ever walk her down the aisle. She only wants to experience one wedding. Why can’t you let this go?” My childhood sweetheart and fiancé, Adrian Vitale, never answered. He was kneeling in front of Bianca, gently arranging the skirt of my wedding gown. Seven days earlier, my family had decided to give her my wedding. I stood there for a long time before signing the body donation papers. My parents and brother could choose her. My fiancé could choose her too. This time, I would fight for nothing.

My sister Brenda fell in love with Don Joseph Genovese because he saved her life once. She thought a man that dangerous had chosen her. Then she learned the truth. Joseph had only pulled her out of that riot because she looked like his wife, Maria, when Maria was young. Any sane woman would have walked away. Brenda decided Maria had to die. She tracked Maria’s schedule, planned a hit-and-run, and meant to play the heroic bystander after putting Joseph’s wife in the ground. If Maria was gone, Brenda believed she could take her place. In my first life, I stopped her. I knocked her out before she could make her move. I begged her to understand that Joseph was not some lovesick man from her mafia novels. He was a Don. If he found out, he would not just punish her. He would burn our whole family with her. Brenda cried. She nodded. She promised she understood. That night, she poured paraquat into my water glass. As I died, she whispered, “You ruined my shot at the big life, Sharon. So I ruined yours.” Then I opened my eyes again. I was back on the day she made her move. This time, I stayed where I was.

My mother, Elena, was a System host. After completing her mission, she left this world, leaving me in the care of my four adoptive fathers in the mafia. Dad Theodore was the cold-blooded Don of the Family, the man who ruled this city's underworld. Dad Harrison was a movie star, the darling of the red carpet. Dad Gabriel was a top surgeon in the underground medical network; his hands could save a life as easily as they could take one. And Dad Zane was a ruthless mercenary leader. For sixteen years, these four fathers spoiled me like the Family's one and only princess. If I wanted the moon, they would have found a way to pluck it from the sky. That was, until three years ago, when Zoe, the daughter of their first love, was brought back from Sicily. From that day on, my four fathers believed only her, never me. Zoe framed me, claiming I'd mocked her for looking like a street rat, so my fathers kicked me out of the princess suite and threw me into a storage room by the garage. Zoe showed them fake bruises on her arms, so my adoptive fathers smashed my phone, cut off all my social connections, and put me under house arrest for three months. Zoe cried again, claiming I'd hired thugs to harass her, so Dad Zane dragged me straight to the Family's dungeon beneath the estate. They starved me for three days and three nights, saying it was to teach me "some manners." I leaned against the dark, damp wall, my vision fading to black in waves. Just as I was about to pass out, I heard someone call my name. "Hazel, do you want to go to your mother?"

Five months after opening my bakery in Sicily, I ran into Quill Moretti, the Mafia Don who had once paid me to be his lover. He stared at my pregnant belly, mockery and warning in his eyes. "Claire, you've got some nerve! Thinking you can use a baby to become my wife! "The only woman I've ever loved is Sherry!" I scoffed. "I think you've misread the situation. "I'm carrying my husband's baby." Quill's brow furrowed. "Trash like you will lie about anything! "I want a paternity test. You're coming with me." I nodded calmly. "Fine. We'll go first thing tomorrow morning." Three years ago, I was nothing more than a hotel housekeeper. While cleaning a suite, I accidentally knocked over the man staying there. Quill. He'd been drinking heavily. He stared at me for a long moment, then dragged me onto the bed. We were tangled up together all night. Once he sobered up, Quill tossed me an agreement. "Be my woman. "A million dollars a month." I thought of my mother, who was fighting cancer and desperately needed expensive treatment. She finally had a chance. I agreed without hesitation. Quill's sexual appetite was insatiable. At least five times a day. But he refused to let me get pregnant. "Someone of your lowly status doesn't deserve to carry my child." So I took the pill, over and over again. Until his first love, Sherry Russo, came back. Quill threw me a bank card. "A hundred million dollars to end this. Be smart and take it." I had always known that Quill's possessive hold on me was not love. So I accepted his offer. On the day of his wedding to Sherry, I slipped away without a word. And married a strikingly handsome billionaire who rivaled Quill in every way in a private civil ceremony.

The Pentarchy famiglie forbid their heirs from marrying commoners. But Matteo Adorni loves me so deeply that he plays revolver roulette against his father just to be with me. Even as blood soaks through his shirt, he still holds me and smiles softly. He says, "Don't be afraid, Rosella. Only death can separate us." But later, he secretly sleeps with Giorgia Vitalis behind my back. When I discover this, he explains guiltily, "The price for the famiglia allowing us to stay together is for Giorgia to give birth to my heir. Please wait for me, okay?" After that, he sleeps with Giorgia 33 times, and they have a daughter. However, the heir must be a boy. So, he sleeps with Giorgia another 99 times. This time, when Giorgia becomes pregnant again, she tearfully accuses me of poisoning her unborn child. Matteo points a gun at me. "Why are you trying to kill Giorgia? Why are you trying to kill my child?" I am chained inside the Adornis' dungeon. All I can do is beg day after day. Finally, the dungeon doors open once again... This time, I will not wait for him anymore.

On my wedding day, my twin sister refused to take off my dress. "The groom's car is almost here, Isabella. Give it back." But my father was already smoothing her skirt. "Let her have it. You're twins—no one can tell you apart." My mother pinned her veil and tossed me the bridesmaid dress. "It's just a ceremony, Camilla. You're still the one getting married." Just like always. Whatever Isabella wanted, I wasn't allowed to fight for. The last chicken wing. The only scholarship. Now my own wedding dress. I reached for my phone to call Luca. Isabella snatched it from my hand. "Let's play a game. We swap places—no one tells. I want you to see, with your own eyes, who Luca really loves." I almost said no. Then I saw it. A bump in the lace, right over the heart. I pulled back the silk and read a word stitched in pale gold thread. Tesoro. The name he whispered to her a hundred times. The name he had never once said to me. My wedding dress had never been meant for me. So I unclasped the diamond necklace he gave me and set it down. "Then she can have the audience too." I slipped into the burgundy bridesmaid dress and watched my sister walk down the aisle wearing my name and my life. Then Luca pressed a key into my palm and whispered, "Come to the penthouse tonight, Tesoro." He had no idea he was confessing to the wrong sister.

After fifteen years away, I was finally brought back to the DeLuca family. I thought I was returning to my real home. Instead, I walked into a house where the adopted daughter wanted me dead, my father treated me like a burden, and my brothers would rather watch me bleed than make her cry. On my first day back, she set dogs on me. That night, I was dragged to the top of the observatory and forced to apologize to her. When I fell from the tower covered in blood, they still called me a liar. Because in the DeLuca family, I may have been the real daughter by blood— but she was the daughter they loved. She thought she could bully me, poison me, and freeze me to death without consequence. She was wrong. Because the night I nearly died, my mother finally chose me—and turned a gun on the whole DeLuca family.

Evan Peretti and I had been together for five years, but he left me at the altar on the day we were supposed to get married and publicly announced that my bestie, Yvonne Quinto, was his true love. As I was about to become the laughingstock of the day, the heir and Don of the Linaris, Chris Linari, walked up the altar to profess his love for me. He claimed to have fallen in love with me at first sight when he first laid eyes on me years ago. I married Chris, and he showered me with love after we got married. Everyone was envious of the love we shared, and even the media would publicize our love story in high profile. However, I learned the truth when I found thousands of Yvonne's photos on his computer. His so-called love was a tactic he used to hold me back from destroying Yvonne's happiness. I thought I was saved by love when he saved me from that embarrassing situation back then, but it was just a deception in the name of love. For the past five years, he had me tied up in a web of lies he had woven by carefully creating an illusion of happiness. I decided to contact a private workshop that specialized in customizing and planning my 'disappearance'. I would fall into the sea three days later on our wedding anniversary, and my body would never be found. Chris Linari, we would never meet again.

My classmate Bianca and I have the same taste. She wants every man I’ve ever dated. She says I’m too naive. That I don't see how powerful men think. She calls it “testing” them for me. She says she’s helping. Then she sleeps with my boyfriend. Then she rubs it in my face. “See? I told you that you can’t handle them. These men are sharks. If it wasn’t for me, you’d have been eaten alive by now.” I choked on my rage. I said nothing. This time, I went behind her back. I went after the king of New York's underworld. When she found out, she made her move. But she has no idea. This man isn't my endgame. He's the trap I set for her.

On the night of our third anniversary, Killian missed dinner again. Texted me he was working late at the auto shop. I looked at the $5.90 clearance cake on the table. I'd fought a crowd at the grocery store to buy it. I swallowed the bitter lump in my throat. We need to save for a real house in Brooklyn, I told myself. I put the cake in the fridge. I wrapped my cheap coat tight and walked into the cold to deliver late-night takeout for extra cash. I never expected to run into my "poor" husband at a luxury hotel in Manhattan. He stepped out of a Rolls-Royce in a sharp custom suit, tossing hundred-dollar bills to the valet. A hot woman wearing a priceless pigeon-blood ruby followed behind him, hooking his arm. "Killian, it's snowing so hard. Are you really going back to Brooklyn to play house with your naive little peasant wife?" she whined. Killian looked at the cheap, tarnished silver ring on his finger. A hint of softness crossed his cold eyes. "For three years, she worked five jobs a day to pay off the fake debts I made up. She wouldn't even see a doctor when she was sick." "That's enough. She passed my test. Once I deal with the rat in the family, I'll tell her everything. Give her the glory she deserves as my Donna." The woman bit her lip. "What if she finds out you're a Mafia Don and is just after your money? Why not tell her you have a terminal illness—see if she'll drain her savings to save you. Test her one more time…" Killian stayed quiet for a long time. Finally, he nodded. "One last test. After this, I'm giving her the grandest wedding." The freezing wind howled. I gripped the paper takeout bag. Tears rolled down my face without a sound. I am done with this arrogant, lying love.

The day Vincent Moreau held a christening for his illegitimate son, everyone waited for me to lose control. Three years ago, I saved Vincent from a car crash and fell into a coma. I awakened one week before the christening. Everyone expected me to attack Isabella Cross and force Vincent to choose between me and her child. Instead, I placed a silver guardian angel medal beside the baby. “May you grow up safe and healthy.” Vincent studied me suspiciously. “You’re not angry?” “Isabella has given the Moreau family another heir. That is worth celebrating.” My best friend followed me out. “The old you would have overturned the entire banquet table.” “You said it yourself. That was the old me.” I looked back at the crowded banquet hall. “She died in that car crash three years ago.” During my coma, I lived another life in a parallel world. In that life, I ruined the christening and demanded that Vincent choose me. He chose Isabella and their son. He froze my accounts, took away my protection, and waited for me to come crawling back. Instead, his enemies abducted and tortured me. My birth parents found me as I lay dying, but they were too late. Then I woke from the coma. This time, I would not repeat the same mistakes.

My daughter, Nina Camollo, who was badly injured in a car accident, died in the operating room after life-saving measures failed. Before I could recover from the shock of her death, I received the horrifying news that all her organs had been removed. Devastated and desperate, I threw all my energy into uncovering the truth. Only then did I discover that the consent form I had signed—given to me by the lead surgeon Avelina Bianchi—had a voluntary organ donation clause hidden in it. Moreover, Nina hadn't been in critical condition at all. She was still alive when all her organs were harvested. Enraged, I showed my husband, Arturo Camollo, all the evidence and declared that Avelina must suffer. Yet, three months later, I see Arturo holding Avelina's daughter in his arms at the mall with Avelina herself leaning against him affectionately. When I storm over to confront him, I learn that Avelina was Arturo's childhood best friend. Nina's heart had long been transplanted into Avelina's daughter, who suffered from a heart condition. Faced with my accusations, Arturo insists that Nina has always been kind-hearted. He believes that Nina would have agreed to it if she knew that her life could save so many others. Amid my struggle with them, a speeding car runs over me, killing me on the spot. When I open my eyes again, I find myself reborn to the day Avelina hands me the critical condition notice and consent form.

Bianca and I were switched before birth. She became the beloved daughter of both families. I became the girl neither one wanted. Every month, I carried a suitcase between two guest rooms while Bianca kept a bedroom, parents, and a place at the table in both estates. Then Bianca was diagnosed with a deadly blood disorder, and both families demanded that I become her stem cell donor. There was only one problem. My donor screening showed that I might be seriously ill too. They refused to read my medical report. They called my nosebleed an attention-seeking stunt. Then they forced me to voluntarily surrender every claim to both families before they would pay for my tests. The next day, I learned the truth. I had acute leukemia. Bianca had never completed the examination required to prove she was sick. I sent both families the evidence. They still didn't believe me. When they asked what I thought, I smiled and agreed to let them fly Bianca to Europe for treatment. They praised me for finally learning. While Bianca received treatment overseas, I suffered a fatal brain hemorrhage alone. As I took my final breath, I couldn't help wondering. Would they finally regret never thinking to spend more time with me?

I was the eldest daughter of the Costa crime family until an engineered car crash killed me three years ago. When I opened my eyes again, to my shock, three years had passed. I had been reborn. For three years, hatred had blinded my three brothers, and they had welcomed our true enemy as family. They trusted Elizabeth, the woman who copied my every move, without question. They let her join forces with our enemies and gut the Costa Family from within. Fools. Since I was given a second life, I would set everything right. Rebuilding the Family would start with my youngest brother, Nick, the Wall Street prodigy.

I had two fathers. One was Vincenzo, who was gentle and cultured. The other was Matteo, who was called "Il Diavolo Sanguinario", meaning the bloodthirsty devil, by everyone. Both were men my grandfather, Don Rossi, had chosen for my mother, Sofia. In my last life, my mother had chosen Vincenzo, thinking he was the man she could trust for the rest of her life. But after a woman called Carla came between them, he grew colder toward my mother and me. He took Carla's side and became convinced that my mother had drugged him on purpose and slept with other men. In his eyes, I was a bastard whose father was unknown. After my grandpa passed away, Carla framed my mother repeatedly. Vincenzo would let her get away with it every time. He had even forced my mother to apologize and locked us in the basement, to the point of starving to death in the end! When I opened my eyes again, I was back at my fifth birthday party. My grandpa was still gravely ill, and he was urging my mother to make a choice. "Sofia, whoever you choose will inherit everything in the Rossi family and protect you and Lia in my place." Mom held me in her arms, hesitant to make a decision. I pointed at the man everyone called the Diavolo Sanguinario. "Pick him! Only he can protect us!"

After I Took Three Bullets For Him, He Said He Was Just My Uncle I took three bullets for Don Lorenzo Moretti, the man I called my uncle. The last one nearly killed me. Only then did the family elders agree to name me Donna. But in the two weeks I lay unconscious, Lorenzo announced his engagement to Ava, the daughter of a family benefactor. The Rocci, my family, lost its power when I was ten. Ever since Lorenzo, a close friend of my father's, brought me to the Moretti estate, I was certain he would one day be my husband, despite our age gap. He always told me to find men my own age, but I just let it go. In my previous life, I crashed their engagement party, a decision that led to a miscarriage and my own violent death. But this is my second chance, and I have learned my lesson. I will reclaim the token of my love, accept my destiny as Donna, and offer myself in a marriage alliance far away in Sicily. Uncle, I finally understand. A young man is far more entertaining than an old one like you.

It was only when I met my boyfriend's family that I found out he was the heir to Scolaris' most powerful mafia family. The Cabellos’ family rules stated that any woman who would become the Donna of their family was required to have fifty million worth of personal assets to their name. For Ian Cabello's sake, I scrimped and saved and worked hard in the real estate industry to finally save up forty million. However, my company started to face problems when we started to lose contracts. I failed to put together the remaining ten million, no matter how hard I tried. Ian held me in his arms to comfort me as he told me how he would figure out a plan to help me put the money together. When my little sister suffered a sudden heart attack and required a large amount to pay for the surgery fees, I tried swiping three cards but discovered that I did not have enough money in them to make the payment. I hurried to the bank to inquire about the insufficient funds, only to be told by the cashier that there was no money in my accounts. How was that possible? I had saved up my hard-earned forty million in the accounts! The person-in-charge looked at me guiltily. "There was a forty-million withdrawal by Signorino Ian to purchase a villa to be gifted to Signorina Lucy Carter as her birthday present."

The day someone told me I was legitimate blood of the Mafia family, I went from being the Don's daughter's personal maid to being the Don's daughter myself. Three days after they brought me home to the family estate, I went looking for Luciano, the man I'd secretly married, and found him in the study, talking to Don Moretti. "Nina is obedient. She wouldn't dare utter a word even when bullied. She is the perfect person to take the fall for Avery at that bloody party and she won't crack." "Good, Luciano. You think of everything! She's nobody — a street girl. She walks into that bloodbath and dies, nobody's going to miss her. Let her go. Avery's waiting for you to make underboss first, then we do the wedding proper." I stumbled back three steps. My heel hit the marble floor and the pain shot straight up my leg, but it was nothing compared to what just exploded in my chest. I wasn't Don Moretti's real blood. And the man who had sworn his life to me, my own husband, was planning to send me into that slaughterhouse so he could marry the Don's actual daughter. I'd already heard what happened to the last stand-in at one of those events. Shot to pieces. That news drove into my spine like an ice pick. But what they didn't know, what I'd only just found out, was this: My brother, who'd been missing for years, was the highest power in the Cosa Nostra. The one they called the Shadow King.