Plot Twists Mafia Short Stories & Bias Fake Death Novels

It took Matteo De Luca ten years to rise from soldier to Don. I fought through all ten beside him. The year we hit rock bottom, I cast aside every shred of pride and knelt before my father, the man who had betrayed my family, just to borrow twenty rounds. Matteo looked at me, his eyes full of pain. I asked only one thing. "The day you become Don, will you let me stand beside you?" He promised me he would. After he finally took his place as Don, I reminded him of that promise. He kept cleaning his gun without looking up. "Things are tense right now. We'll talk about it later." So I never asked again. Then I stumbled across a video on a dark-web forum: Matteo being crowned Don at Manhattan's Round Table Hall. He'd said he was going to Chicago to handle trouble. Instead, he was standing under the lights with my half sister, Isabella Volkov, at his side. Isabella slid the Don's ring, the symbol of his power, onto his finger. Matteo pulled her into an ecstatic embrace. "Thank you for being here at the start of my reign. I'm so happy." Isabella rose on her toes and kissed the side of his neck. "So am I." I shut off the video, wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes, and returned to cleaning my guns as if it were any other night. When I finished, I texted Matteo, "I want twenty rounds." He did not ask why. He had a whole case delivered. I counted out twenty and texted back two words, "Too many." I had those twenty rounds returned to my father, settling a ten-year-old debt. Ten years ago, I traded my pride and dignity for twenty rounds. Ten years later, Matteo used twenty rounds to break his promise to me. There was no place for me at his coronation banquet. And he had no place left in my Brooklyn underworld.

After my fiancé ran away with my sister, I became the biggest scandal in New York. Then Roman Vescari—the feared Don of the Vescari crime family—confessed that he had loved me for years. I married him. For five years, Roman treated me like the center of his world. Everyone believed I was the cherished wife of New York's most powerful mafia don. Then I overheard him speaking to his consigliere. "Celeste is Adrian's wife now. Are you really going to spend the rest of your life pretending to love Evelyn?" Roman fell silent. "I married Evelyn. I'll love her and give her everything a Vescari wife deserves. Celeste is in the past." But when Celeste and I fell into a freezing lake, Roman swam past me to save her, leaving me to sink only yards away. That was when I finally understood. He could protect me for the rest of his life, but his first instinct would never be to choose me. After I was rescued, I arranged my death at sea and ended our five-year marriage. When Roman learned of my "death," the ruthless mafia don shoved Celeste away, coughed up blood, and seemed to age ten years overnight.

I'd been married to Lucas, the Don of the Mitchell family—the biggest crime syndicate in the country—for six years when I found out he'd given my own daughter to his savior to raise. I was about to confront him when he beat me to it, asking for a divorce. His savior didn't have much time left. Her dying wish was to become his Donna. "She ended up like this because she saved me. Her last wish is just to be my Donna. You understand, don't you?" "Don't worry. You'll always be my only Donna. Once this is over, we'll remarry right away." I'd lost count of how many times he'd sacrificed me for her. So I nodded calmly and signed the divorce papers. Seven years of love. Nine hundred and ninety-nine disappointments. I was done standing by his side while he repaid his debts. I sent one message: "Help me plan a fake death. A plane crash." The day he slid the Donna's ring onto his savior's finger, I boarded that plane. If he wanted to marry another woman, then— I didn't want him anymore.

When the Kane brothers turned eighteen, my father asked my adopted sister, Bianca, and me to choose one of them as our personal guard. Their father had died protecting mine, and my family had raised them inside the Moretti estate ever since. Gabriel chose Bianca. I was left with Julian—a silent, deeply traumatized boy everyone believed had lost his voice in the shooting that killed his parents. For seven years, I took him to specialists, learned sign language, and trained to protect myself because I didn't want my family to cast him out for being unable to speak. Then our yacht sank. Julian tore the last survival suit from my body and gave it to Bianca. As I drowned, he spoke to me for the first time. "I'm sorry, Elena. I want Bianca to live. If we have another life, I'll repay the one I owe you." When I opened my eyes, I was back on the day we chose our guards. But this time, I would never choose him again.