Maikling Kwento at Nobelang Mafia

My son, Jasper Cole, won the gold prize in an art competition. When I took off my apron and rushed to the award ceremony, I found that the painting titled 'Mother' was not of me but Maeve Leighton, my husband's secretary. Maeve pretended to be troubled as she told my son, "Your mom will be sad when she sees this painting." However, Jasper was unperturbed. "What does her sadness have to do with me? She's an ordinary-looking and incompetent housewife, always nagging me about what I can and can’t do. She's too strict with me. It's annoying! Maeve, I wish you were my mother. My dad doesn't like my mom at all. He's only happy when he's with you. He's only with my mom because he feels obligated." My heart broke at that moment. Since he no longer wanted me as his mother, it was pointless for me to stay. I called my dad. "Dad, I want to go home. Can you pick me up?" My dad could not believe it. He answered after a long pause, "Of course. I'll come pick up my brilliant daughter in three days."

I was dying from my fear of heights, but my husband, Don Vincent, was busy with his assistant, savoring the latest coffee flown in from Hawaii that morning. "You're a grown woman, Bella. What's the big deal? You're stuck on a roof, figure it out." Then he hung up on me. I collapsed onto the hot tar of the roof, my body shaking uncontrollably before everything went black. It was two hours before building security found me. When I got home, I asked Vincent for a divorce. He rubbed his temples, his patience worn thin, looking at me as if I were a child throwing a tantrum. "Over a cup of coffee? I told you, the heights are all in your head. You’re perfectly safe now. Stop making a scene alright? What's this nonsense about a divorce? I have more important things to deal with. Calm yourself down." I stared at his back as he left, tears already streaming down my face. Something important? Did he really think I couldn't hear his assistant, Sophia, murmuring in the background? Did he think I didn't know he took her to the last family gathering? I had loved Vincent for three years. Everyone knew he was the center of my world. They all thought an orphan like me could never leave him. But now, all the love I had was eclipsed by a profound, soul-crushing exhaustion. I was done. I picked up my phone and dialed a number I hadn't touched in three long years. "Uncle, book me a flight to Seattle. I'm ready to leave Vincent."

When my mother went into kidney failure and needed a transplant, it was Pauline Maynard—on the brink of death herself—who gave my mom a second chance at life. Just before Pauline passed, she gripped my hand tightly and whispered her final words. "Summer, Ricky is my only son. He's rebellious… and fragile. Please, take care of him. Just three years, please?" I gave her my word. Then I moved into their home and gave Ricky everything he needed—love, comfort, a sense of safety. For three years, I stayed true to that promise. By the third year, Ricky had transformed. No longer the wayward boy he once was, he rose to become the Mafia Don Ricky Lenza. And I was carrying his child. As I busied myself with wedding plans, I overheard something I was never meant to hear—his voice, low and mocking, as he wrapped another woman in his arms. "Summer? She's just pretending to love me for the sake of my mother's inheritance and a stupid deal. A gold digger like her dreams of marrying me? What a joke." A sharp pain pierced my chest, like thorns stabbing deep beneath the skin. On the way to a prenatal checkup, we were hit in a crash. My baby didn't make it. And my mother, sitting in the passenger seat, shielded me with her life. When I woke up, I stared blankly at the date on my phone. Three days left. That would've marked the end of the three-year promise. I realized then—I'd paid my debt to Pauline in full. It was time for me to go.

My fiance, Victor Blackwood, is a mafia boss who rules the country's underworld with an iron fist. To the rest of the world, he is the epitome of power. Yet to me, he is the embodiment of love. But I do not realize the cost of loving a man like him. On Valentine's Day, I cook his favorite dishes and wait for him to come home. However, time passes, and his chair stays empty. Uneasy, I go to Queenie Stone's social media page. She is Victor's foster sister. She posts, "All I said was that I felt lonely, and he came right away. "Even when I accidentally spilled wine on him, he didn't mind. Victor is still someone who puts family first, even if it means neglecting his lover. "He never lets me down. I hope things stay that way." In the photo, Victor's shirt is soaked at the waist. Queenie's handkerchief lingers near his most private parts, but he doesn't pull away. He merely looks at her affectionately. I do not make a fuss and give Queenie's post a like. Then, I send Victor a message that reads, "Let's break up." Victor ignores it as always. Later, I discover that when my breakup message popped up, he had said offhandedly, "Vivienne can't live without me. She's just acting out. "If I ignore her for a few days, she'll come crawling back by herself. She's easy to please." What he doesn't know is that I was easy to handle only because I once loved him. But now that I have decided to leave, he cannot make me turn back, no matter how he tries to win me over.

Divorced and remarried—I've lost count of how many times Aaron and I stepped in and out of marriage. He once treated me like something precious, but less than a year after our wedding, he asked for our first divorce. The reason was simple, Vivian was coming back. "Vivian's a public figure," he told me. "I don't want anyone thinking she's involved with a married man." That third-tier actress had nothing but her father's sacrifice to her name. He had taken a bullet for Aaron—a life for a life. And because of that, Aaron believed he owed her everything. Every time Vivian returned to the country, Aaron divorced me. And every time she left, we remarried. The first time we split, I drowned my tears in whiskey and stumbled back to his house half-drunk. The lights inside were warm. He was with her. And I stood outside, shivering through the night. The second time, I tracked his every move—restaurants, auctions, charity galas—just to "accidentally" run into him again. Later, I learned better. The moment he mentioned divorce, I would quietly pack my suitcase and disappear from his mansion. My love and humiliation kept me trapped in that endless cycle of breaking up and coming back together. But this time, when Aaron waited for me at City Hall to remarry, I never showed up.

I've been in a secret relationship with Declan Gibson for five years, and I've tried to seduce him more times than I can count. Yet, when I stand in front of him in my birthday suit and a pair of bunny ears, all he does is worry that I'll catch a cold and wrap me in a blanket. I used to think his restraint came from being the mafia don, that he was saving our first time for our wedding night. However, one month before the ceremony, he secretly plans the city's grandest fireworks show to celebrate his childhood sweetheart's birthday. They hug and share a slice of cake in public. That night, they check into a hotel. … The next morning, I watch them leave together. That's when I realize Declan is not restrained. He just doesn't love me, so I walk out of the hotel. I call my parents. "Dad, I've broken up with Declan. I'll marry into the Sullivan family as planned." My father is stunned. "I thought you were madly in love with Declan. Why did you break up? I heard Bryson can't have children. You've always loved kids. What will you do once you marry him?" "It's fine," I reply, disheartened. "We can always adopt."

The night I got into Cambridge University, we were supposed to celebrate. Instead, I ended up in Gilbert’s bed—my older brother from next door, the man I had secretly loved for years. The mafia kingpin of the Veronatri. We used protection. It didn’t matter. I still got pregnant. In my past life, I relied on our child to marry him as I wished, but I was also forever barred from Cambridge University. Gilbert cornered me on our wedding night, his breath shallow, eyes wild— “You drugged me, didn’t you?” “Admit it. There’s no other reason I would’ve wanted you like that.” “You’re shameless, Julian. You will never touch me again in this lifetime!” From then on, he used every means possible to humiliate me. He even secretly transplanted our daughter’s heart into his first love’s daughter. While he and his first love celebrated the success of the surgery, I clutched my daughter’s ashes and died on the way to the cemetery. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn to that night of utter absurdity. This time, I didn’t cry, I didn’t beg— I just walked away to Cambridge, and he went mad trying to find me.

He whispered her name nine hundred and ninety-nine times in his sleep. Never mine. For five years, I gave everything to Vincent Bonanno—the heir to one of the most powerful mafia dynasties in Europe. I turned his house into a home, remembered every careless detail he let slip, even abandoned my dream of becoming an artist—believing that one day, he would finally choose me. But whenever Alessia appeared, his loyalty bent toward her. The night boiling fondue scarred my arms, he rushed to shield her from a scratch that barely reddened her skin. In public, his gaze never stayed with me—it drifted to her. I was the wife on paper, but never in truth. So I walked away. With nothing but a suitcase, divorce papers he signed without noticing, and a secret I never planned to share—three months pregnant. He discovered too late. The divorce was real. The clinic file was real. And by the time he realized, I had vanished. Now the man who once ruled cities with cold power is tearing the world apart to find us. He has soldiers, money, and a thousand apologies he never gave when I was still his wife. But I’m no longer the woman who begged for affection. I’m a mother. An artist. A survivor. The question isn’t whether Vincent can reach me. It’s whether, when he does, I’ll ever let him back into the life he destroyed.

The Mafia circle in New York City was a tangled web, where power shifted in the blink of an eye. The Dusk family, once a powerful force in the underworld, was now reduced to nothing more than a pawn in the game. Their only hope for survival was to marry off their daughters, securing the support they so desperately needed. I, Seraphina Dusk, was sadly one of those daughters. In my past life, I had managed to secure myself a powerful marriage. I married Silas Vane, the head of the most influential mafia family in the country. My sister, Lila, was less fortunate, ending up with Jaxon Westmore—whom she believed would save her. I gave Silas a son and a daughter, and in return, my family was gifted wealth and power. But my sister? She was not so lucky. Jaxon wasn’t the man she thought he was. Instead of honoring the marriage or alliance, he squandered his time on models and strippers, leaving Lila discarded by both him and our father. One seemingly ordinary day, Lila invited me to lunch—never did I expect that she would kill me, drove a knife into my heart. Then she killed herself. And now here I was, reborn, back when our father first told us that Lila and I have to marry for the family. And this time, Lila called her shots on Silas Vane. That’s when I knew. She was reborn as well. Let her have him, then. She had no idea what kind of man he really was.

The day before our wedding, my fiance, Yale Salvatore, died in an accident. He had been setting up the venue when the stage collapsed. I'm now a widow and carrying his child. Devastated with grief, I even tried to end my life. However, my parents-in-law urge me not to grieve too much. After all, I'm pregnant and need to stay strong for the child's sake. On the day of Yale's funeral, his older twin brother arrives from Novavista with his wife and child. They're here to attend the funeral. His face is so identical to Yale's that I nearly mistook him for Yale several times. By accident, I overheard a conversation between him and my in-laws. "You faked your death just for Gwen King? Sasha is pregnant with your child! Do you want your baby to be born fatherless?" "You did all of this just so you could be with Gwen out in the open?" My brother-in-law, exasperatedly explains, "Mom, Dad, Gwen has cancer. She has less than a month to live. She's loved me for years, and her dying wish is to marry me. "Once she passes, I'll return to Sasha's side and give her an even grander wedding. Then, I'll be there for the birth of our child, and we'll raise him together." Hearing this, I'm so shocked I can't speak. My so-called "brother-in-law" is actually my fiance, Yale! For the sake of helping another woman fulfill her dying wish, he doesn't care how upset or devastated I may be. And once he completes his benevolent mission, he intends to return to my side? No. My fiance, Yale, is already dead. I won't beg him to come back. And in three days, I'll be just like him. I'll be lying beneath a cold gravestone, and I'll forever vanishing from his world, he will never find me again...

When I pushed through the main door, covered in blood, I found my amnesiac husband right on top of my best friend. His arm was wrapped around her waist with practiced ease, and she was passionately reciprocating his advances. "Ada will be devastated if she finds out…" Camilla said in a sweet voice through bated breaths. "After all, she really thinks you've lost your memories." Lucio chuckled softly and said in a mocking tone, "It's not my fault she loves me that much. Then again, it's a good thing for me since I can just let her do all the tough and dirty work." He leaned down and planted a kiss on Camilla's lips, mumbling, "Right now, you're the only one I recognize as my wife. Just wait. Once I sign the deal with the Della Veras, I'll have her kicked out and pass everything she owns to you. After all, I no longer remember a thing." Only then did it hit me. My husband's amnesia was all an act, a farce to fool me. Moreover, my best friend conspired with him to stab me in the back. Too bad they didn't know that the Della Vera family, the most feared Mafia family in Ritelle, only acknowledged one person: Me, Ada Rossi.

It is the final day for the high school students to submit their university application forms, and I find out that someone has swapped out my and Ned Nicholson's application forms for Jafferton College instead. In a panic, I hurry off to find Ned to tell him about it, but I end up overhearing a conversation between him and one of his friends instead. "Ned, you promised Miranda Montez that you would both apply for Hale University together. Why did you secretly swap out both your application forms for Jafferton College instead? Aren't you worried that Miranda's going to make a huge fuss about it?" Ned sounds confident as he replies, "She won't. She'll listen to whatever I say. She'll be fine with it as long as she's still in the same college as I am." He pauses for a while before continuing in an impatient voice. "Scarlett Jordan can't get into Hale University. It's beyond her. She's going to be really scared if she has to go to Westward to study on her own, so I promised her that I'd go to the same college she was going to. "I mean, Jafferton College isn't that bad. Miranda wouldn't mind it at all." I stay silent for a long while before leaving quietly, pretending that I never heard a thing. I withdrew my application form for Jafferton College and submitted a new form for Dayward University instead. We made a promise to each other that we would start dating after getting into university. But since he's breaking his promise for someone else's sake, I decide to leave him quietly and go after my own dreams instead.

On the night of our anniversary, I had prepared a new set of lingerie for my Mafia husband Joey, but he had prepared divorce papers for me instead. A Cuban cigar was clamped between his teeth, a look of pure entitlement on his face. "Adriana, we need to divorce. Vivian's father is a capo. If I marry her, my future's set." "Look, sweetheart, you're just a broken family's leftover daughter. You should be grateful I kept you around this long." "Once I have the family ring, maybe I'll throw you a few scraps, let you be my little side piece." Everyone expected the daughter of a fallen family to step aside for his ambition, to be the loyal dog I'd been for the past seven years. But that night, I made a deal with the devil. I accepted a match arranged by my family and married the true king of New York's underworld. I vanished from Joey's world completely. Three years later, I returned to New York on my husband's arm. We were there on family business. Dante was called away for something urgent, leaving me to wait for him at his private club. I never expected to run into Joey, the man I hadn't seen in three years. "That's enough, Adriana. Stop with the childish tantrums." "Our son Angelo's almost six. He needs care. I'm being generous, offering you a position as his nanny." I laughed. What was this idiot talking about? He was calling the most feared and revered Donna in all of New York a nanny?

I am reborn with memories of my past life. And I carry a secret with me: my fiance, Ethan Larsen, had forged our marriage certificate. The one he had actually married was Serena Gray. But I do not expose his lie. Instead, I quietly submit my application to Greenvale University and eventually become a permanent resident in Verenza. In my past life, I spent a lifetime believing in a lie. I thought I was his wife, until I learned the truth on the day he died. He married Serena out of love but kept me only due to his sense of duty. On the funeral day, Serena arrived dressed in white, holding the actual marriage certificate in her hand. She effortlessly took over all his inheritance, while I was thrown out of the house, penniless, with nothing left but a trampled heart. In this life, I will no longer beg for love nor stay put out of pity. I'll leave quietly and live freely. They can keep acting out their so-called "perfect" love story. Because now, I can see it crystal clear—some women are born to be loved, while others are reborn so they don't have to wait to be loved.

My father found me too rebellious, so he gave me to Marco, tasking him with making a lady out of me. To the outside world, Macro was the ruthless boss to a Mafia empire, but to me, he was just a man with a perpetually stern face. I tried everything to defy him. I smashed his car. Then I swapped his PPT for the lowbrow stand-up he hated most. And he opened it during a company meeting. Yet, every rebellion ended the same. He cornered me, his massive frame dominating mine on the silk sheets of his king-sized bed, the polished oak of his desk, or the leather confines of the car's backseat. His hot skin against mine, his fingers tracing fire along my curves. He moved with a primal hunger that left me breathless. My body arched in unwilling ecstasy, in a dance of punishing pleasure, until my fight dissolved into moans, my will shattered under his relentless claim. I fell for him hard, convinced this was love, and he was the beacon of my dark world. But the truth shattered me: it was all a calculated game to tame me, to stop my war with my sister Karen. My guiding light went out, or maybe it never existed at all. So I became a good girl. I stopped fighting back. He thought he had me tamed, chained to his will. But in the end, I slipped free, leaving him alone with his shattered heart.

Three months since my husband, Julian Moretti, disappeared. I walked into his favorite den, the grief so deep it stole the air from my lungs. I just wanted to breathe him in, to find any trace of him that was left. Then I heard it. A familiar laugh. And the soft moan of a woman. Through a crack in the door, I saw him. My husband, the man "missing" for three months, had his hand tangled in another woman's hair. "Baby, just a little longer," he said. "Soon as I siphon enough cash from the family's books, we're gone. You and me." In his arms was Bianca, from the Rosso family. "What about your wife?" she purred. "Let her play the grieving widow. She's nothing without me anyway." My fists clenched. The world went quiet, my blood turning to ice. The next day, I put the word out to the entire Family. "I'm holding a memorial mass for my husband." At the service, he stormed in, a ghost returned from the grave, roaring that he was alive and there to take back what was his. But I was standing next to his uncle, Dante Moretti, and all I did was stare him down. "Then explain," I said, my voice cutting through the silence. "Explain the woman. Explain the money. Explain your betrayal... to the Family. And to me."

When I was five months pregnant, my mafia husband Dante Pierce had an affair with his childhood sweetheart. That was when I discovered that our marriage certificate was fake. He had secretly married someone else behind my back. Even worse, the child I was carrying would be excluded from the family inheritance. From beginning to end, I was nothing more than a public front for his precious childhood sweetheart. After learning the truth, I did not cry or throw a tantrum. I quietly erased my legal identity, changed my name and disappeared forever with my child. However, later, everyone claimed that Dante, head of the Pierce family, was a hopeless romantic who had given up everything to search for the wife and child who had vanished without a trace.

Just before the weapons design competition, my design schematics mysteriously go missing. Since I no longer have anything to submit, I'm disqualified from the competition. Meanwhile, my older sister, Camilla Cassano, steals the show with my designs. She gets what she wants, which is to marry the next don of the Carbone family—and the man I've had a crush on since I was a child—Leon Carbone. When she brags about it to me, I don't kick up a fuss. Instead, I calmly wish her the best. In my previous life, I'd chosen to expose her on the spot. I seized back the glory that was meant to be mine and married Leon. I thought that was the start of my happiness, but it turned out to be the beginning of my nightmare. Leon had always been in love with Camilla. Throughout our five years of marriage, I was made to slave away like a robot and spend all my time researching. In the end, I was blown to pieces in an explosion triggered by sheer exhaustion. Now that I'm back in time, I personally deliver Camilla to Leon's side, and I marry Don Lorenzo Marra, the notoriously ruthless womanizer. Everyone waits to watch me sink into the depths of despair, rueing my every decision. I'm the only one who knows just how powerful the man, so misunderstood by the world, truly is.

I fought with my husband, Alessio, the Don of the Moretti family, over the mistress who'd given him twin sons. The next day, he stormed into my bedroom and put a gun to my head. "Did you take my sons?! You vicious bitch!" While I was still in shock, he ordered his men to lock my eight-year-old daughter, Lucia, in the icehouse for three whole days of "training." He gave me an ultimatum: Lucia would stay there until I brought him his sons. Lucia froze to death in that icehouse. I returned with her death certificate in my hand, my heart a hollow stone in my chest, only to find him moving his mistress and their sons into the home we once shared. He was cheerful, dismissing the whole thing as a misunderstanding. He even had the audacity to tell me to go get Lucia to meet her "new little brothers." I just stared, tears tracking paths down my face, the life inside me extinguished. It wasn't until that thin piece of paper—the death certificate—fluttered to the floor that the color drained from Alessio's face. He finally realized Lucia was gone. Killed by his own blind, cruel pride.

Elena Shaw is the wife of Henry Leone, the current head of the Monraven-based Mafia family in Newshire. She has been married to him for two years, but he has never once slept with her. Late one night, she inadvertently sees Henry relieving his desires while listening to a woman's voice. The voice belonged to Irene Shaw, her adopted younger sister and Henry's ex-fiancee. The year Elena turned 18, a DNA report changed both hers and Irene's fates. Elena is the real heir of the Shaw family, who had been taken at a young age and discarded abroad in Etolia. Meanwhile, Irene is the one who has taken her place in the Shaw family, receiving all of the love and glory that should've belonged to Elena. When Elena is brought back to the Shaw family, she replaces Irene as Henry's fiancee. However, Henry only marries her to take revenge against her for "ruining Irene's life". Even the fact that he had once saved her life turns out to be part of an elaborate lie. After learning the truth, Elena doesn't hesitate to leave. Once she disappears from Henry's world, the usually calm and collected Henry loses his mind.