CEO Familial Bond Short Stories & Novels

For Children's Day, I help source and purchase gifts for my son's class. I not only keep the budget to a minimum, but I also manage to get expensive toys that are way over budget for them. During checkout, because my son, Harry Chandler, has grabbed a limited edition toy robot, the PTA representative, Darren Larson, shouts at me, "Jordan Chandler, are you trying to tell me that you didn't embezzle the class funds for that 500-dollar toy robot?" The class teacher, Kevin Brown, and the manager of the toy store, Florence Young, immediately pause in their footsteps. I feel dozens of pairs of eyes staring at me in the mall. Darren complains animatedly, "You were trying to pay for that 500-dollar toy with the class funds, basically using everyone's money to spoil your son, weren't you? "Both Mr. Brown and the manager are right here, but you still dare to pocket our money? I can't imagine how much of the class funds you must've used to line your own pockets behind our backs! I daresay, for someone with no morals like you, the children you raise will be thieves in the future too!" Darren glares maliciously at me, looking me up and down. Even Kevin is giving me a look of suspicion and disdain. Instead of arguing with him, I turn to the cashier and ask in a calm tone, "My family owns this mall. Do I need to pay for a toy I just grabbed off the shelf?"

Every year on Dante Moretti's birthday, they played a game. Whoever drew the ace of spades could order anyone to do one thing. The first year, Sofia Cavarro poured red wine over my head. She was the Cavarro family's precious princess, and no one had ever dared to cross her. So that night, she smiled and told me to kneel and lick the wine off the tips of Dante's shoes. The second year, she hung a price tag reading "three million dollars" around my neck and let everyone guess whether Dante's purchase of me had been worth it. Dante sat on the sofa with his glass of wine, watching them jeer with a smile. Because everyone knew I was the woman he'd bought at an auction seven years ago. And I loved him, so I endured it, time after time. This year, Sofia drew the ace of spades again. She didn't make me kneel. She didn't give me a new punishment. She simply handed me a ring and told me to put it on her finger myself. That was how I found out. In one month, Dante was going to marry her. For the first time in seven years, I asked to leave. Dante laughed. "Elena, have you forgotten? I paid for you. "No matter who I marry, it doesn't change the fact that you belong to me." He was certain I had no family, nowhere to go. He was certain that as long as he didn't let me go, I would never be able to leave his side. But three days later, twenty black sedans surrounded the Moretti estate. The man who made the entire Sicilian Mafia tremble stormed in and knocked Dante to the floor with a single punch. He held up the price tag, his eyes red. "My precious daughter, the one I've spent twelve years searching for... "How could she have ended up here, a slave for seven years?"

Three years ago, my father ran into a burning building and carried my wife Vanessa out. He came out of it with scorched lungs and one leg gone. Vanessa sat by his hospital bed and cried all night, swearing she would honor him like her own father for the rest of her life. Three years later a storm drowned the city. My father was trapped on the fourth floor, and every breath he coughed out came up with blood. I called Vanessa, who ran rescue dispatch, forty-two times. She didn't pick up once. Her only reply was, "Your father can hold on. Save the ones in worse danger first." But five minutes later, someone posted a video in the residents' group chat. Vanessa was piloting the only medical boat in the city herself, and she had gone to collect Julian Marsh, her childhood sweetheart, whose only injury was a twisted ankle, and he could still walk. To make room for his golden retriever, the emergency stretcher had been stripped out of the boat beforehand. And my father was the only critical patient on the list who needed a stretcher to be moved. Even before he lost consciousness, my father clutched my sleeve and spoke up for her. "Don't blame Nessa. Saving people comes first." The next day I carried my father out of the disaster zone on my back. Vanessa saw me and frowned. "Why didn't you just wait? Once I was done with Julian, I would have come back for your father." I didn't argue. I just handed her two documents. One was the divorce papers. The other was the critical condition notice the doctors had issued after my father missed the window when he could still have been saved.

The Gambino family's highest decree: every Don must be married before taking office. So the moment I came back from studying abroad, my father sent me to intern at the family company run by my fiancé, Ethan Clark—to prepare me for taking over family operations, pave the way for me to become the next Don of the Gambinos, and, you know, build some chemistry between us while we were at it. The first day I walked in, I saw a woman holding court, surrounded by everyone, with everyone deferring to her, calling her "Mrs. Clark" with practiced reverence. She tore up a two-hundred-million-dollar contract, and they all applauded. She spotted the ring on my finger, and they all reached out to take it off for her. I didn't flinch. Didn't panic. "Do you know who can wear this ring?" She scoffed. "An intern. What's the big deal? Take it off." I smiled. This ring is the heirloom of the Gambino heir. Anyone who touches it without permission doesn't live to tell the story. I pulled out my phone and dialed Ethan right in front of her. "Your 'Mrs. Clark' is trying to take my family ring. Care to explain?"