Bias Mafia Short Stories & Awakening Novels

My fiance, Marcus Benton, has canceled our wedding seven times now because of his childhood friend's depression. The first time, she cut her finger and needed him to comfort her. The second time, her depression flared up, and she threatened to kill herself. Every single time something happens to her, he drops everything and abandons me. This time, he is finally supposed to keep his promise and fly me to Solaviera for our wedding. Yet on the day of our flight, he shows up with his childhood friend, Bianca Warner, in tow. "Bianca's biggest dream in life is to see the ocean in Solaviera. Let's put the wedding on hold. I'll take her to see the sea first, and I'll take you there for our wedding next time." Marcus assumes I'll just wait for him like I always do. What he doesn't know is that to be with him, I made a bet with Papa. If we fail to get married this time, I have to return to my mafia family and accept an arranged marriage. So this time, I am leaving him for good.

Dominic De Luca always called me by his ex-girlfriend's name. When he cooked, he would call out from the kitchen without thinking: "Bianca, come set the table." The birthday gifts he gave me came with cards that read: "Happy Birthday to my love, Bianca." At first, I used to get angry. I would hold his face, make him look me in the eye, and correct him over and over: "My name is Clara, not Bianca." Every time, he would apologize, and every time, I would forgive him. I left Boston to be with him. I gave up a promotion and moved to New York to start over, because Dominic said he could not handle a long-distance relationship. I thought that meant he had finally chosen me. Until the night he got down on one knee to propose. He looked up at me and said: "Bianca, will you marry me?" That was the moment I stopped wanting to correct him. I just took out my phone and replied to an email I had ignored for an entire month. I accepted the position in London. Dominic did not know yet. The moment he put my engagement ring on Bianca's finger, I had already decided to resign and leave New York. This time, I would not wait for him to explain. By the time he finally learned to say my name correctly, I would no longer love him.

When I was six, a car crash wiped out most of my memory. My foster parents told me my parents had died that night. They said they had taken me in, given me their name, their home, and the protection of one of New York's most powerful families. So I spent twelve years proving I deserved to stay. I cleaned up my younger sister Bianca's messes, handed her the credit for my work, and locked every trophy I earned in a wooden archive box because my success made the family's real daughter uncomfortable. Then, at eighteen, I ordered a certified birth record for my student visa. The clerk looked at me and said, "Your parents have always been Vittorio and Elena Romano. There's no adoption on file." I had never been an orphan. Bianca knew. My relatives knew. The family attorney knew. Even the old butler who carried me home from the hospital knew. For twelve years, everyone had played a part in the same lie. So I hid the birth certificate and kept playing the grateful adopted daughter. I fixed Bianca's speech, prepared her heir's gala, and smiled while my family erased my name one last time. They had no idea I'd already booked a one-way flight out of their lives.

I was Damian Valenti’s legal wife. But to the rest of New York, Sofia Bellini was the woman he planned to marry—and I was the pregnant mistress who refused to let him go. Damian said it was only for show. Sofia’s husband had died saving his life, and he had promised to protect her. She needed the wedding and the title of Donna. I already had what mattered: his love, his fortune, and our real marriage. At least, that was what Damian believed. He was so certain I would understand that he spent our seventh anniversary helping Sofia choose her wedding dress. He never noticed that I was in the fitting room beside them, wearing the dress he had once promised to see me in. As Sofia admired herself in the mirror, Damian told her she looked beautiful. I lowered my eyes to the faint curve of my stomach and rested a hand over it. Then I made the one decision he never believed I was capable of making. He could give Sofia my wedding, my home, and my name. But he could no longer keep his wife and his heir.

My husband, Lucien Moretti, had some last-minute trouble at the docks to deal with, so I had to attend the underground auction alone. I didn't expect to run into my ex, Damon Vesper—the man I was supposed to marry five years ago. The man who chose the woman who put my mother in a coma over me. The moment I raised my paddle for my mother's emerald brooch, he raised his against mine. The room laughed, whispered, sneered. They thought I was the same desperate fool chasing a man who'd never loved me. But I wasn't there for him. I was there for the truth—the truth hidden inside that brooch. The truth that would expose the accident that destroyed my family as the murder it always was. And when his fiancée Serena had me dragged to the basement, Damon let it happen. He stood there and watched as they beat me, humiliated me, and threatened to carve up my face. Silent. The way he always had. But he had no idea who he was really messing with. They thought they could break me again, just like before. Too bad. I'm not that girl anymore.

My husband Christian Messina's assistant has been blowing through my money like it's water. At the underground auction, she laughed in my face and called me a useless trophy wife. So I cut her access. She got humiliated at checkout, and the club's security locked her up for a full day and night. When Christian found out, he froze my card on my birthday. Told me I'd better figure out how to pay, or I'd be stripping down and crawling out on all fours in front of every mob higher-up in New York. What he doesn't know? I'm the heiress to the biggest mafia empire in the country. The Moretti name? That's mine. And everything he has right now—every turf, every dollar, every scrap of power? I put it all in his hands. Quietly. Behind his back.

For the past ten years, all of Boston society had been guessing whether I would end up marrying Alexander Grant, Nathan Cole, or Julian Vale. One of them took care of every problem that came my way. One remembered every allergy I had. One built me an observatory with a view of the whole city. I never once doubted that I was loved. I had always been the spoiled little princess everyone doted on. Then my mother found her older daughter, Vivian Ashford, who had been missing for twenty-two years. Vivian was the one expected to marry into Black Harbor for the Ashford family. To make up for the life she had lost, the three men started asking me to give up a little at a time. Alexander missed the fitting he had promised to come to, because Vivian needed the practice in front of the cameras more than I did. Nathan canceled the follow-up on my old injury because Vivian had a panic attack when she heard about the medical exam before the wedding. Julian booked the entire observatory to make up for my birthday, then, while I sat there alone until closing, sent me a text that read, "You're the sensible one. Go home by yourself tonight." When I got back to the estate, I asked them why none of them had told me beforehand. But Vivian cried and said she didn't want to be the reason they lost me. So Alexander stepped in front of her, Nathan told me to stop upsetting her, and Julian said I shouldn't be using one broken promise to test whether they loved me. As I turned to leave, I heard them making a pact in that room. "Until the engagement is settled, no more coddling Evelyn." "She'll be angry." "She'll sulk for a few days and get over it. She could never bring herself to leave us for real." They weren't wrong. Back then, I really couldn't bring myself to leave. What they didn't know was that I had already let go, and I was never coming back.

My younger sister, Arianna Valenti, is engaged to Dario Lancieri, heir of the Lancieri family. But after drinking a glass of spiked champagne, I end up sleeping with Dario. To preserve the alliance between our families, my Madre decides that I will marry Dario in Arianna's place. I marry the man Arianna loves, while she is sent away to marry the gravely ill elderly Don of the Bellini family as part of a political alliance. On her wedding day, Arianna is ambushed and killed by a rival faction. From that moment on, Dario hates me with all his heart. Our marriage lasts for more than 20 years, filled with nothing but indifference and humiliation. On the day I finally succumb to my illness, Dario doesn't even come to see me. He only sends someone to deliver a single message. "Vera, stay the hell away from me in your next life." … When I open my eyes again, I'm back at the exact moment I receive the spiked champagne. Before I can even react, Dario snatches the glass from my hand and smashes it against the floor. I look at the way he gazes at Arianna, and suddenly, I understand. He has been reborn as well. In front of both our parents, he takes Arianna's hand and announces, "Arianna and I are getting married this month. As for Vera… she can fulfill the arranged marriage instead." Memories of my death flash through my mind. This time, I'll give him exactly what he wants. "Fine. I agree."