CEO Familial Bond Short Stories & Novels

The tenth time one of my paintings appeared under my sister Rose's name, I handed Adrian the divorce papers. He raised an eyebrow and tossed the agreement aside without a second glance. "Don't be dramatic. Your hand is ruined -- where would you even go without me?" I said nothing. He smiled, his tone dripping with casual indifference. "You should be grateful. Rose was the one I was supposed to marry. A few paintings is a small price to pay. A little gratitude wouldn't kill you." He blew a ring of cigarette smoke directly into my face. I choked, and the sting brought tears to my eyes. Through the blur, I was transported back to the moment my tendons were severed for his sake -- a pain that had drilled straight to the bone. He thought I had no choice but to take it. What he didn't know was that I'd already accepted an offer from the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Soon, I would be free of him for good.

Rocco Falcone, who is the Falcone family's Don and my so-called husband, hangs up on me for what feels like the 99th time. Having been diagnosed with leukemia, I haul my ravaged body into the family lawyer's office. "I'm here to file for a divorce," I said. … When Rocco hears about it, he barges in with my family ten minutes later. The moment he enters, he slaps me. "Did you use the emergency line just to ruin Sofia's big night? Are you out of your mind?" Lily Marone, my mom, snatches the diagnosis right out of my hand and skims through it. She chuckles dismissively. "Did you fake being sick just to get attention? How many lies have you told since you were a kid, Claire?" Sofia Moretti holds Rocco's arm with tears in her eyes. "Forgive me, Claire. I shouldn't have taken the position. Please stop hurting yourself and Rocco." I wipe the blood from my mouth and turn back to the lawyer. "I have no family left. Please hurry with the divorce paperwork. I need it settled before my cremation in three days."

My fiancé Damian Crowley and I'd been together for six years. But the night before my wedding, he demanded that I let my twin sister, Chloe Lambert, take my place as the bride. "Chloe doesn't have much time left. This is her only dream. Think of it as granting your sister's last wish." My own parents jabbed their fingers in my face and yelled at me too. They said I owed Chloe my life. It was only a wedding, they said, and I should stop being so selfish. Three years ago, I'd slipped and fallen into the water, and Chloe had supposedly risked her life to save me. She'd been in fragile health ever since. From then on, my family blamed me for everything. I walked on eggshells around them and gave Chloe whatever she wanted to repay that debt. I told myself I owed her, so I gave in to every demand, no matter how unreasonable. Now they wanted me to give up my wedding too. I looked at Chloe hiding behind my fiancé, barely able to keep the triumph off her face. My fingers closed around the contents of my bag: a falsified medical record with an official hospital stamp and proof of what had really happened three years ago. I smiled coldly and nodded. This time, I wouldn't just give them what they wanted. I'd give them a wedding the whole city would talk about.

After our rivals murdered my parents, I had to become something else. A fortress. I held the Blackthorne family together all by myself. My younger sister, Anna, couldn't stand the life—the blood and the fear. She cried, begging me to send her away, to college overseas. I said yes. And the first thing she does when she gets back? She goes to the Commission and accuses me of stealing her inheritance. She said it with this entitled, high-and-mighty tone. "My boyfriend, Victor, the Falcone heir, says I can't lose." "I just want what's mine," she said. "Half of the $8.7 million Mom and Dad left, and half of the Blackthorne family's power. Fair is fair, right?" But she knew damn well she'd already blown through every last cent of that $8.7 million. And the extra ten million I'd earned for her on top of that. That's when it hit me. My sacrifice hadn't just been for nothing. I'd raised a goddamn wolf, and she was insatiable. So this time, I let the kindness die. I gave her a cold smile. "My sweet, naive sister. It's time I showed you how a real Godmother plays."

At the yacht party, everyone watches as Sophia Montgomery falls overboard by accident, whereas I dive in after her to save her. When I reach her, she clings to me, dragging us both under. Jack Harrison doesn't hesitate to jump in. He pushes me away before pulling her into his arms. Up on deck, the crowd erupts in cheers, applauding the hero for saving the damsel in distress. Camera flashes go off endlessly. Meanwhile, I struggle alone in the freezing ocean to reach the ladder. No one notices me. The next morning, still burning with fever, I place a document in front of him. "I want a divorce," I demand, my voice hoarse from swallowing seawater. Jack frowns. "Just because of last night? Sophia can't swim, and it was an emergency. Since you can, you could make it back yourself." A laugh escapes my lips. Of course. I can only rely on myself. I've been doing it for the past five years. He only has eyes for Sophia, so, of course, he doesn't care whether I live or die.

By the fifth year of my marriage to James Hill, he began pretending to be his late twin brother, the late Don of the family. With that, he took over all of a Don’s duties and the role of my sister-in-law, Hilary’s husband. Every time after he slept with her, he would cut his arm open, kneel before me, and beg for forgiveness. “Pia, you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. Once Hilary gives birth to the heir and secures her position, I’ll fake my death and come back for you.” He told me his twin brother had died saving him, so he had to fulfill his brother’s last wish. During the year he pretended to be his brother, James slept with Hilary ninety-nine times. After a full year, Hilary finally gave birth to the family’s heir. I truly believed James would fake his death as promised, then take our son and me away from this bloody life. However, I saw him with Hilary in his arms, teasing the tiny baby she carried. “Hilary, I’ll stay with you and our child until he’s ready to take over as the next Don.” Silently, I wiped my tears and went back to my room to pack my suitcase. My son saw me crying and ran into my arms, gently wiping away my tears with his little hands. “Ma, Aunt Hilary already had her baby. Why isn’t Papa coming home yet?” I placed my clothes into the suitcase as I told him softly, “Because he doesn’t want us anymore. But don’t be sad, sweetheart. I will build us a home.” If James wanted to raise an heir, then I would return to North Atlantis’s most powerful mafia family, take my rightful place as my father’s heir, and become the Godmother of the Mafia.

The day I married Santino Connor, he went from the infamous heir of a mafia fortune to a broke nobody. When he handed me a plastic ring in a shabby basement and asked if I would start from scratch with him, I looked at the man I had loved since I was a girl and nodded without a second thought. "Santino, as long as it was with you, I would do anything." For him, I worked more than ten hours a day until my stomach bled from the stress. Our son, from the moment he could walk, trailed me from one odd job to the next. I thought my love could eventually build us a life in the sun. Until, at a lavish banquet where I was serving the elite, he showered me with cash from his seat at the head of the table. "What's that thing crawling on the floor? It's blocking my view!" "Take the money and get out of my sight!" When I saw the woman by his side, her face an eerie copy of my own, I finally understood. To him, this was just a game, and I was the only one playing for keeps. If he was going to go to such lengths to deceive me, then it was time for his game to end. What he didn't know was that one month later, he would be tearing the world apart to find me.

【What should I do if I’ve fallen in love with my sister’s fiancé?】 I came across an Instagram post from an account with a default profile picture on my flight back to New York. The comments were brutal, each one harsher than the last. Then I saw a reply from a burner account: 【Don’t blame her. I was the one who led her on.】 【She acts tough, but she’s more fragile than anyone. I just can’t help feeling sorry for her.】 My finger froze on the screen, because the profile picture on that account was the cat my boyfriend, Vincent, had given me. With trembling fingers, I opened the poster’s profile. There was only one video on it. In the video, a woman had her back to the camera as she bent down to water a nearly dead plant, a silver bracelet on her wrist. It was the matching bracelet mom had left for my sister Clara and me before she died. For a long moment, I could barely breathe. Suddenly, I thought back to the first time I brought Vincent home to meet Clara. After one failed relationship, Clara had decided all men were the same. She looked at Vincent coldly and said, “He’s no different from the rest. One day, he’ll betray you too.” Vincent held my hand then and said, each word clear and steady, “If I ever betray Nora, may I lose everything.” Clara only scoffed, “Then we’ll see.” But if all of this was true, I was caught between the sister who had raised me and the man I had loved for five years. What was I supposed to do?

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?"