Short Mafia Stories & Novels

Eight years ago, she sent the most dangerous man in New York to prison. Eight years later, he sat in a Cadillac parked by the Brooklyn Bridge, a cold smile on his face as he said, “A woman like you deserves to be alone.” No one knew she was sick with Alzheimer’s. It had gotten so bad that she could not even remember the way home. Yet, she remembered his face. She remembered every word he had ever said to her. She even remembered the star named “Christine.” On the first page of her diary, the same sentence was written over and over again. “Vincent Medici is the most important person in this world. No matter who I forget, I must never forget Vincent Medici.” She waited for him for eight years, but in the end, what she got was his indifference, news of his wedding, and him saying to her that someone like her did not deserve to be loved. She didn’t argue. Instead, on the last page of her diary, she quietly wrote, “That’s okay. I’m going to be with my mom now.” Amidst the five thousand streets in New York, he never found her again after that.

Lucien Varelli loved me best when my madness belonged to him. I tracked his convoy routes, checked his burner phones, and almost turned the city upside down whenever he disappeared for more than five minutes. At first, Lucien loved it. He kissed the signet ring on my hand and swore no woman, no family, no power in the city could ever take him from me. Until the night I cut off a call from Celeste Ardian. After that, I was no longer his wife. I was a problem. A scandal. A woman too unstable to stand beside the heir of a ruling house. So Lucien signed the papers and sent me to St. Dymphna House. They called it a private residential clinic. What it really was, was a place where inconvenient women were broken down and rebuilt into something quieter. Five years later, Lucien came to take me home. The director told him I had done beautifully. I no longer screamed. I no longer fought. I knew how to lower my eyes, soften my voice, keep my hands still, and smile like a proper Donna. Lucien thought they had cured me. He was wrong. They had not cured my madness. They had only killed the part of me that once loved him.

Rumor had spread through the Vittori family that the daughter they had lost years ago had finally been found. The moment I heard, I left the family branch and rushed back to the main estate. My car had barely stopped when a young woman hurried over and grabbed my hand. “So you’re the Vittori family’s adopted daughter,” she said with a smile that looked painfully sincere. “Your dress is so beautiful. It must cost tens of thousands of dollars. You can tell you’ve never really had to worry about anything before. Unlike me. I grew up in places where even finding my next meal was a problem.” For a second, I didn’t understand what she meant. Then her eyes lowered to the only necklace around her neck. “This is the only thing I have from Mother,” she whispered. “Please don’t hate me for wearing it.” The next second, she suddenly grabbed my hand, dragged it up toward her throat, and yanked hard. The necklace snapped. Pearls scattered across the marble floor. “Why would you do that?” she cried, staring at me in shock. “If you hate seeing Mother’s gift on me, I’ll take it off right now. I won’t stay and make things difficult for you. Just please don’t tell Father and Mother. I don’t want them caught in the middle, and I don’t want this family fighting because of me.” She curled into herself on the marble floor, shaking as she cried, while the guests around us immediately turned to stare. I stood there completely stunned. I had imagined a thousand ways I might meet my daughter again. I never imagined she would look me in the eye, mistake me for someone else, and frame me before I had even spoken. Because I was not Valentina. I was her mother.

I've had a crush on Don Luciano Damiani for ten years. Heck, I even agree to his request to sleep with him a thousand times before we finally get to announce our relationship to the world. The locations vary, be it Luciano's private shooting range or the VIP lounge. He uses every trick up his sleeve just to groom me into his personal plaything. Every time we do it, Luciano will kiss me while coaxing the answer out of me. "Do you want our relationship to go public, babe?" I've answered him "yes" 999 times. Of course, he disappoints me 999 times as well. But on the thousandth time, Luciano says, "Cecilia, let's announce our relationship on my birthday, which will be held in two days." Excitement washes over me at that moment. But that's when my best friend, Valentina Fiore, starts a video chat with me. "I lost to Luciano in a racing competition. Yesterday, I had to go to the City Hall to get our marriage registered there. "But he still intends to keep you as his mistress. That's why we shall fight for his affection to the best of our ability on fair grounds. "The next two days shall be our contending period. We'll bet on who matters to Luciano more. The loser will travel to the Republic of Azamir as a war correspondent, whereas the winner gets to attend his birthday party and announce their relationship to the world."

I woke up from a nightmare, and I was back. Back in the year the Falcone family went to war with the Morozovs for the shipping lanes. I was the Donna of the Falcone family. The woman they all envied. And the first thing I did? I got rid of the baby in my belly. My husband's child. Don Enzo's. Because in my last life, on the day I gave birth, Enzo held up a baby with blue eyes. His own eyes were blazing. "How dare you sleep with a Morozov," he snarled, "and birth their blue-eyed bastard!" The family sentenced me to death. They threw me in a cell. I didn't learn the truth until the very end. That baby belonged to Eliana—Enzo's first love. She was the one sleeping with our sworn enemy. The Morozovs. And Enzo? He stole my rightful heir and swapped him for her bastard. They made me the family traitor. And left my body to rot in a cold, damp cell. And my own son—his mind twisted by that bitch—stood over my corpse and cursed my name. When I opened my eyes again, I was three months pregnant. I didn't hesitate. I walked into a clinic and ended it. Before I left, I took a different kind of shot. High-grade hormones, straight from the black market. It fakes the signs of pregnancy. Fools even the best blood tests. Enzo needed a baby to cover for Eliana's sins. Fine. Let's play.

My fiancée and I had been together for ten years. In everyone's eyes, we were the perfect couple. After she saved my life, with tears in my eyes, I made her a promise: "In this lifetime, I'll do 100 things for you." On the eve of our wedding, we decided to climb a snow-covered mountain. An unexpected avalanche struck, and we were stranded at a local farmhouse. Her first love, who was the expedition leader, was injured while trying to save her. In the confusion, he accidentally took an aphrodisiac rather than a painkiller. My fiancée, who had always seemed so traditional and reserved, did not hesitate. She began taking off her clothes, saying she needed to "help" him. Everyone waited for me to explode in rage. Instead, I calmly stepped aside. Three promises remained. Once they were fulfilled, Yvette Jenkins and I would owe each other nothing. However, then it would be time for me to return… and take over my mafia family.

The day I buried my mother, my husband, Luca, the Don Ricci, conveniently disappeared. Later, my best friend, Annie, sent me a video. In it, she stood beside Luca in a hospital room while a doctor confirmed her pregnancy. Luca looked… happy. Radiant, even. The baby was theirs. Then another message came. Annie’s voice, “Sis, looks like you failed—just like your mother did against mine.” I had always known my father cheated on my mother and had a child out there somewhere. I just never imagined… it was Annie. That night, Luca came home—with Annie by his side. I said only four words. “I want a divorce.” Luca refused, saying I wouldn’t survive without him—but it was just gaslighting. In truth, he couldn’t afford to lose me or my family’s power. So I called one man Luca hated most in this world—his uncle, Stefan Ricci. The man who once stood equal to Luca in the race for power… If Luca believed he could humiliate me and still keep me tethered to him—his perfect little guarantee to the Don’s seat.… Then I could just as easily make another man take his place.

After Isabella loses the three children she carried for the mafia don Matteo, she finally tears herself away from his lies. But when Matteo discovers the truth behind the deaths, his guilt collides with the woman he once used as a pawn, and every secret he buried comes back to destroy the power he thought he controlled.

When I opened my eyes again, I was pinned against the floor-to-ceiling window of the skyscraper by my stepbrother, Rocco. The man I had been infatuated with for a decade. He panted, his hot lips and tongue trailing along my collarbone as he murmured, "Don't go." In my past life, on the night I received my acceptance letter from London Business School, Rocco got blind drunk. Late that night, I gave in to his pleas for me to stay. I willingly gave myself to him. After a debauched night, his cherished fiancée, Clara, caught me walking out of his room the next morning, my clothes in disarray. She ran out in tears, her parting words ringing in the air, "I'll let you have each other." A month after she disappeared, the family search party found her engagement ring at the edge of a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff lay mangled remains, battered by the waves until they were unrecognizable. Rocco clutched that ring and didn't sleep all night. On the surface, he acted as if nothing had happened, even arranging a trip for me to Sicily, telling me to go and relax. The night I landed, I was kidnapped by assassins from a rival family. I screamed for him to pay the ransom, only to hear him give the order himself over the phone: "Don't make her death a quick one. The Costello princess? She's nothing but a damn liability. Torture her. Break every bone in her body. " "This is what she owes Clara." You like playing games, Rocco. But in this life, I refuse to play along.

After I divorced the mafia boss, he pleaded outside my house on bended knees for us to get back together. Apparently, it struck him that I was the only one for him. To win me back, he dropped every lover he kept on the side and made a spectacle of his love across the city. At our wedding, he lit the sky with fireworks to show the city of Naples that he had me back in his life again. All envious eyes were on me as I completely had his heart. The eve of our first Valentine’s Day together after our second wedding, I went for a hospital check-up, only to find that I was expecting. With the pregnancy test result in hand, I wanted to share the good news with him right away, but I ran into him taking another woman with a bump for a prenatal appointment. The doctor congratulated them on their newborn, due next week. The woman was a childhood friend of his. As it turned out, he begged me for another shot at marriage while impregnating another behind my back. His proclamation of undying love was nothing more than lies to keep me sweet. I didn’t cry, nor did I raise hell. All I did was take out my entire savings to stage a plane crash to fake my death. Since a divorce couldn’t free me from him, I’d make him lose me forever. By the time he realized that I was carrying his child, the only thing he’d have left of me was a death certificate.

The Consigliere—my husband, Sal Barzini—who'd always despised anything soft or weak—suddenly started sleeping with a teddy bear. One button eye missing, filthy as a stray dog, yet he cuddled that beast every night, curled up in silk sheets like a baby returning to the womb. And left me freezing on the edge of the master bedroom. I couldn't stand it anymore. At our son Luca's first-year baptism, I announced I wanted out. Everyone went numb with shock. Sal grabbed a glass of red wine and threw it in my face. "You're jealous of a stuffed animal? Have you lost your fucking mind?" I wiped the wine from my cheek, cold as ice. "You say you want to spend your life with that beast. I'm giving you my blessing."

It is said that Marco Colombo, the heir of the Colombo family of Chiron, is holding a wedding for his mistress, Gina Bilotti, today. The scale is ten times grander than when he marries Isabella Pratico in a political union. I lean against the ebony railing on the second floor. Sipping my red wine, I watch the lively scene of clinking glasses and mingling guests below with quiet amusement. Gina is definitely favored—she is even wearing a ruby necklace. One should know that set of ruby jewelry is an heirloom of the Colombo family. It is something only the Donna and the wife of the heir are allowed to wear. "You must be Isabella, the one Marco who does not love." A voice suddenly comes from beside me. I turn my head and see the woman wearing the ruby necklace before me. Gina has come up to the second floor at some point and is now looking at me with a cunning smile on her face. I freeze for a moment, not yet able to respond. She suddenly grabs my hand and yanks it hard toward herself. There is a sharp tearing sound, and the hem of her wedding dress rips open with a long tear. Gina lets out a cry, and tears immediately stream down her face. "Mrs. Colombo, why did you tear my wedding dress? Marco specially commissioned this from an independent designer just for our wedding! "If you really cannot tolerate my presence, then I will break up with Marco today and leave Chiron…" The surrounding guests all lift their heads and glare at me angrily. I am stunned because I am not Isabella. I am the new wife of Marco's father, the woman of the current Don, and the Donna of the Colombo family.

After my mother passed away, my father's lover brought her daughter, Winona Sweeney, into our family. From then on, I became the most hated person in the entire family. To protect myself, I became arrogant, withdrawn, and grew into a thorny rose — beautiful, but no one was allowed to approach me. I no longer believed in love. When I was once again subjected to cold violence and isolation at the banquet, Cameron Payne openly declared his love for me to everyone and said that he would break the necks of anyone who slandered me! He pursued me openly, gave me a grand wedding, and announced his love for me to the whole world. Everyone envied me. Then, when a fire broke out during my father's birthday party, I almost died inside. No one from my family tried to save me; it was Cameron who saved me. When I woke up in the hospital, I heard a horrifying truth. "I know I mistook Hazel for my savior. It's my mistake and I will make it up to Winona. But that doesn't mean you can hurt Hazel!" Cameron was furious. "But Winona's leukemia can't wait; she needs a transplant immediately..." My father chose to sacrifice me for his illegitimate daughter. "That doesn't mean you can hurt Hazel! The baby is only seven months old; a premature birth can be fatal!" Those things I thought were signs of love turned out not to be for me from the very beginning. In that case, I would help him fulfill his debt to Winona.

I masterminded a half-billion-dollar art auction to wash money for Miles’s family. But at the celebration party, Miles gave all the credit to Rebecca. His childhood friend. The daughter of the family’s consigliere. I stormed into his study. “Miles, head curator was Rebecca? Are you sure about that?” He looked up from a cloud of smoke, pulling me into his arms. His voice was a low, soothing rumble. “Valerie, I know you want to prove yourself, but this was all Rebecca. Especially the Caravaggio. The real one, worth three hundred million. She’s the one who pulled it off.” His lips brushed my forehead, his breath hot. “I don’t love you because you can fix some old paintings. You’re my queen, always. My girl. You don’t have to worry about her.” I almost laughed. The anger was choking me. “She can’t tell the difference between oil and acrylic. How the hell would she know a real from a fake?” “Enough!” Miles cut me off, his tone leaving no room for argument. “I know what Rebecca can do. Don’t make a scene just because you’re jealous.” His hands tightened, trapping me in his smoky embrace. “Don’t disappoint me, Valerie.” But he already had. When I’d had enough of his favoritism and his blindness, I walked. And that's when he went crazy. Scoured the earth looking for me. Begging me to come back, saying he was blind, that he’d been wrong about everything.

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!"

Elena Rossi married Victor Moretti, the most feared mafia Don in the underground world. For three years, he treated her like a queen. Everyone said the ruthless Don was madly in love with his wife. Elena believed them. Until the night everything fell apart. At a family banquet, Elena was drugged. When she begged Victor to stay with her, he simply told his guards to take her to the hospital—then left to meet her sister. In that moment, the love Elena had once been so proud of shattered. She soon learned the cruel truth: Victor had married her only because he believed she was the woman who once saved his life. And now that the “real” savior had appeared—her sister—Elena had become nothing more than a mistake. So Elena made her choice. She quietly arranged everything, had Victor unknowingly sign the divorce papers, and disappeared from his world—carrying his unborn child. Only after she was gone did Victor realize. The woman he thought he married out of gratitude had long become the one he could not live without. The woman who had saved his life years ago had been Elena all along—only she had been injured back then and lost that part of her memory. By the time the truth came to light, Elena was already gone. The cold-blooded mafia Don who once controlled the entire underworld finally lost control.

At the Colonetti family banquet in New York, I stood in the center of the grand hall with more than a dozen girls from different families, all of us waiting to be chosen. Victor, the heir of the Colonetti family, was supposed to announce his fiancée tonight. Along with that announcement, he would present her with the family heirloom, a lily brooch. As an illegitimate daughter of the family, I understood that if I didn’t receive that brooch tonight, it meant I would be sent to Chicago for an arranged marriage. Victor, who had once promised to marry me, changed his mind without warning. With a smile, he pinned the lily brooch onto the chest of the woman standing beside me instead. Then, he leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Let your sister Emily have her moment today. She’s also an illegitimate daughter like you, and she’s also never been valued growing up. Don’t worry. With me here, no one will force you into an arranged marriage.” Even as I looked at him with pleading eyes, he reached out and let Emily take his arm. “Emily is kind and gracious,” he said. “She deserves the lily brooch.” Those words—kind and gracious—turned me into the joke of the entire evening. The next day, I boarded a flight to Chicago alone, but Victor panicked. He used every connection he had and managed to ground every flight heading to Chicago.

Everyone knew Elio Carbone, Don of the Carbone family, was a cold-hearted womanizer. He had one rule: never sleep with the same woman twice. But for me, he broke it. The first day after our breakup, he stood outside the old Bianchi estate for a day and a night, his entire security detail in tow, just to win me back. The second day, he flew to Sicily and bought the deed to my family's ancestral estate at auction for triple its value, and had it delivered to me. The third day, he tattooed my favorite flower, the lily, over his heart. The tattoo artist said he refused any anesthetic and didn't make a sound. Later, at a banquet for the Five Families, in front of all the other Dons, he sliced his palm and made a blood oath. He swore loyalty only to Eleonora Bianchi for the rest of his life; if he broke his vow, he would pay with his life. After a year of his relentless pursuit, his devotion finally wore me down, and I agreed to take him back. I truly believed him then. That Elio truly loved me. Until one night. He took me to an underground racetrack to broker a deal with an ally. But in the roaring crowd, I saw a girl, trembling and crying, her clothes in tatters. Ava was shoved to the starting line. She was the wager for the death race. One look was all it took for Elio's face to darken. The next second, he dropped his hand from my waist and, without a word, walked toward the track entrance. I stood frozen, watching his back as he disappeared into the driver's seat of a modified sports car. I used to wake up crying, terrified he would lose his life in one of these reckless races. He had smashed his trophies, burned his marker for the illegal track, and sworn to God he would never again enter such a life-or-death gamble. My hand drifted to my stomach, covering the secret I hadn't yet had the chance to share. His blood oath was broken. And so was I.

I was vacationing in St. Moritz, Switzerland with my mother when Vivian from the Valenti family office sent me a photo. The woman in it lay on the cold marble floor of the estate, her coat stripped away, her body covered in blood. No one stood near her, as if she had already been set aside like a problem to be dealt with. It was hard to tell if she was still breathing. A voice message followed, her tone sharp and controlled. “Elena, don’t assume that marrying the Don and being called Donna means your small-town family can step onto Valenti property.” “The lakeside estate Mr. Valenti just acquired is a family asset. Letting someone like your mother stay there breaks rules.” “I act on the Don’s behalf. It is my responsibility to remove people who should not be there.” “This is what happens when someone crosses a line.” I went still. Then I looked up at my mother sitting across from me. She held her tea, calm as ever. I lowered my eyes and enlarged the photo. The moment I saw the woman’s face, my chest tightened. It was not my mother. It was Luca’s. I called Vivian immediately. “Have you lost your mind? That’s Luca’s mother.” She gave a light laugh, her tone cool and distant. “Mr. Valenti has always been clear. Your mother is yours. His mother is his.” “The Valenti family does not take in outsiders.” “You may be Donna, but that does not mean your family steps inside with you.”

Everyone in the underworld knew Rosalie Thorne, the "Thorn Principessa" of the North. Wild, rebellious, notorious. Street racing, high-stakes gambling, guns, and drinking, she had mastered them all. The rose-and-thorn tattoo on the nape of her neck drove countless men wild. But what they didn't know was that for Rocco, the new mob boss of the South, a single sentence, "I prefer a more obedient woman," was all it took. At his word, I had the tattoo lasered off and swapped my leathers for long, conservative dresses. I am Rosalie. For five years, I hid my identity and played the porcelain doll Rocco wanted. Until the night he eliminated all his rivals and was crowned the new Don of the South. That was when he let his men bow to another woman, hailing her as their "Donna." I watched Rocco. The same hands that had just executed a traitor were now gently placing a pair of red high heels on the feet of his adoptive sister, Vivian. "Rosalie, she has a temper. She'll make a scene if she doesn't get the title." "You're the good one, the obedient one. Just let her have this." That day, I walked straight out into the rain and never looked back. I was never truly obedient. I just made myself smaller for him. My family had already chosen a husband for me. They had been waiting five years, just for me to say yes.