Contos de Mafia com Bias e Romances com Fake Death

My older sister, Bianca, fled with her lover the night before she was supposed to marry Adrian Vescari. The marriage secured a truce between two Mafia families. If Bianca failed to appear, the Bellandis would lose the Commission’s protection—and might not survive the winter. Because Bianca and I looked almost identical, my father forced me into her wedding dress. Adrian recognized me the moment he lifted my veil. “You’re not Bianca.” I expected him to expose the deception. Instead, he said, “Since you’re already here, stay.” So I stayed for seven years. Adrian protected me, cared for me, and made me believe I was more than Bianca’s replacement. I gave up traveling with my camera and devoted myself to his estate, trusts, and family, waiting for the day I could finally stand beside him under my own name: Mara Bellandi. Then Bianca came home. She claimed she had been forced to flee on the eve of the wedding because someone was trying to kill her, and that she had spent the past seven years in hiding. Adrian believed every word, carried her into our home, stayed at her bedside, and said he owed her everything she had lost. As Bianca began reclaiming her inheritance, her place in the family, and pieces of my marriage, I returned to the Bellandi cemetery. There, I found my own grave. My parents had declared Mara Bellandi dead on the night I married Adrian. While I lived as his wife, the world believed I no longer existed. If everyone needed Mara Bellandi to disappear, I would give them exactly what they wanted. This time, I would arrange my own death. When I woke again, Mrs. Vescari would be gone.

Three years ago, during a brutal war with a rival family, my fiancé Warren took a bullet for me. To protect me, he dragged the enemy down a cliff with him. I never found his body—only his blood-soaked suit. On the day of his funeral, I stood in the pouring rain all night, swearing to make our enemies pay in blood. Three years later, I had wiped out every mafia family on the West Coast, becoming the cold-blooded, ruthless Donna everyone feared. On the anniversary of Warren's death, I took my gun to the cliff where he fell. "Warren, I can finally come see you." "Living without you... it's been hell." Just as I pressed the barrel to my temple, the bells of a nearby chapel rang. To my surprise, I saw my top Capos walking inside. Frowning, I quietly followed them in. But standing at the altar, saying his vows, was my "dead" fiancé, Warren. And the woman snuggled in his arms was my own sister, Chloe. Right as the guests erupted in cheers, they shared a deep, passionate kiss. I froze, my blood running cold.

Vincenzo Costa and I have been in love with each other for eight years. Everyone knows that the heir of the Costa family loves me more than life itself. In order to marry me—an orphan—Vincenzo has knelt outside Costa Estate for three days and three nights. At the same time, he has received 99 whips from his father, the Don of the Costa family, which almost kills him. In the end, Don Edmondo Costa finally agrees to let Vincenzo marry me. But the catch is, Vincenzo must date Sofia Camorra, the Principessa of the Camorra family, and have an heir with her. So, Vincenzo tells me to wait for him for a little longer. I end up waiting for a very long time while watching him traveling to Sofia's villa time and again. At first, Vincenzo still takes three showers and scrubs his skin so much that it turns red. He tells me that once Sofia has given birth to the child, which allows him to fulfill the promise he has made to the Costa family, he'll whisk me far away from the violence and spend the rest of his life with me. Alas, everything has changed. Vincenzo no longer showers frequently. He constantly smells like Sofia's perfume now. He doesn't inform in advance whenever he goes on dates with Sofia. To make things worse, there's nothing but affection in his eyes whenever he looks at her. When Sofia burns up from a fever during her pregnancy, Vincenzo doesn't leave her side at all. She pretends to be gracious by telling him about how understanding she is about his situation. Because of that, Vincenzo wastes no time in admonishing me for being spoiled and pampered. Through the gap in the ward door, I can hear how close and intimate Vincenzo and Sofia are. At the same time, I notice the flash of provocation in Sofia's eyes. Vincenzo has made me wait year after year, not knowing that my biological parents have already found me. They want me to go home with them so that they can give me a real home. That's why this time, I won't be waiting for Vincenzo anymore.

Five years married to Marcello, and I find out he's no street punk. He's the Don. The head of New York's McCarthy family. While I was pinching every penny, he was dropping millions at auction, buying a fortune in diamonds for Camilla, his dead best friend's widow. He even took the baby I nearly died giving birth to. Gave him to Camilla. He stroked my hair, his voice soft and cruel. "Camilla and I, we grew up together. She was carrying Ethan's kid. If she knew her baby died... she couldn't take it." "We'll have other kids," he said. I said no. So he threatened my family. I gave in. But I made a promise to myself: I was leaving this man. I secretly signed the papers to be a combat medic. I ship out in seven days.

When I went for my prenatal checkup, I filled in my mafia husband Enrico Salvatore's information in the spouse column. However, the doctor told me, "The system shows no record of you ever being married. You're unmarried." I froze, unable to believe it. "How is that possible? We got married five years ago. Please check again." The doctor pulled up the system records again, and only one line appeared on the screen: [Marriage Registration: None.] At first, I thought the hospital had made a mistake. Then, I overheard Enrico talking to one of his men. "Isabella's the only one in my heart. I'll give her everything else she wants. But Luisa gave me a daughter. For the sake of the family's bloodline, I have to register our marriage and give her that status. Isabella can never find out about the registration." At that moment, I finally understood. The small wedding five years ago was nothing but a cover. We never registered. There was no legal marriage. Even the child I was carrying had no legal standing. It was all an elaborate lie he had crafted. Since none of this ever truly belonged to me, I would just leave.

I'd been with Daniel Bonanno for five years. On our anniversary, I was the one who processed his marriage license application— but the bride wasn't me. It was Emma Miller. He told me it was just a merger. A fake arrangement between families. Once he became the Don, he'd marry me for real. I'd heard that line so many times I'd lost count. But I watched him grow closer to that woman. Day by day. Even when I was kidnapped, he was in bed with her. And finally, it hit me. Five years of loving him, and it was all just a joke. So I faked my death. I made sure everyone thought I jumped off that cliff. But after that, Daniel started haunting the base of that cliff. Two years, pacing back and forth, murmuring under his breath: "I was wrong. Please. Just come back."

Papa announces that whoever is accepted into a Rose League university will be named the successor of the Romano family. Papa is already prepared to give me the successor's signet ring when I receive an acceptance letter from Harmond University. However, seconds before he gives the ring to me, a video of me leaking the Romano family's secrets to a rival family plays on the big screen. Overnight, I become a traitor who everyone despises, falling from my position as the favored successor. My fiance, Lorenzo Caruso, steps forward to defend me, but he's rendered speechless by the conclusive evidence. By the time the supervisory committee rushes onto the scene and declares that the surveillance footage and family secrets are fake, Papa has slipped the signet ring onto my stepsister Isabella Romano's finger. "I can't change the successor anymore," Papa says. "The other Dons have already verified the successor's name. Who will listen to my orders in the future if I go back on my decision now?" I leave the estate, clutching the acceptance letter from Harmond University. From that day on, I refuse to pick up Papa's calls. But when I hear about how he has been admitted to the family's private hospital because I've been giving him the cold shoulder, I can't help myself and return home to visit him. As I stand outside his hospital room, I hear my stepmother, Veronica Tonetti, laughing inside. "You're really something else. How did you come up with pretending to be sick to trick Sophia into coming back?" Papa chuckles and says, "Sophia has already been accepted into Harmond University. She has a bright future ahead of her even if she's not the successor. "Isabella's different. She's not going to receive an education from a prestigious school, and she doesn't have her own family. The other families will bully her if I don't name her as the successor of the Romano family." "We have to thank Lorenzo this time," Veronica says with a nod. "If he didn't give Sophia's private key to us, we wouldn't have been able to forge those records of her leaking the family secrets."

In the third year of my marriage, Don Scott Cullen's lover, Elena, threw me over the second-floor railing. The fall killed my third unborn child and destroyed my last hope of ever carrying a child to term. She was never punished for any of it. Even though I had just miscarried, I was forced to kneel and scrub her swimming pool. Elena accused me of cutting her finger with broken glass and had me plunged into a tub of ice water as punishment. When my grandmother lay dying, I begged them in the rain, only for the guards to drag me away and dump me across the road. Later, I was kidnapped and called Scott. At a banquet, he had his arm around another woman and scoffed that I was lying to him again. The cruise ship exploded. Seawater flooded my nose and lungs. At last, I was going to die. As I closed my eyes, I seemed to slip into the past. He wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and promised to take me and our baby to an island to bask in the sun. What if he knew this call was the last time I would ever beg him for anything?

The night before my wedding, I found out I was pregnant. That same night, I found out my fiancé had already chosen another woman to give him his first child. Adrian DeLuca, heir to a mafia empire and the man who once swore I was the only woman he would ever love, came home carrying her perfume on his clothes and told me, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, that it was only a medical arrangement. His dead friend’s widow needed an heir, and after I had failed to give him one through sixty-six rounds of IVF, he had decided this was the best solution for everyone. I said nothing. I let him go on preparing the wedding. I let him believe I would still walk down the aisle and become Mrs. DeLuca. But while he was planning our ceremony, I was planning my disappearance. On our wedding day, the estate would still open its doors. The guests would still arrive. The ceremony would still begin. But the bride Adrian DeLuca betrayed would die there. By the time he learned the truth, that I had been carrying his child all along, I would already be gone under a new name, taking his heir somewhere he could never reach.

Three nights ago, I was locked inside my own family’s underground wine cellar. When my congenital heart condition hit, I called my husband, Zane Corleone, and begged him to come save me. He didn’t come. Instead, he stayed with another woman all night because she was afraid of the dark—and told me to stop faking it for attention. That was the moment I finally understood. If he cared that much about her, then I would do the one thing neither of them expected. I would make room for her. In three days, I would disappear from his world completely.

I'm married to Don Antonio Gallo for ten years. My hands, which are originally meant to play the piano, have learned to assemble guns and take apart bombs for him. I was there with Antonio when he was just a lowly criminal, and I witnessed his entire journey to the summit, where he claimed the throne as the king of the underground casino. But right after Antonio becomes successful in life, he gets infatuated with a pure and innocent maiden from the slums. That maiden is Silvia Bianchi. She was delivered to Antonio's bed like cargo. A maiden like her is as pure as an angel, yet so delicate like porcelain. For the first time ever, Antonio, who's already used to bloodshed and violence, gets a taste of addiction. He's really good at hiding her presence. I only find out about it when I accidentally come across him and Silvia attending a prenatal checkup together. When I break down and demand an explanation from Antonio, he just hands over a divorce agreement nonchalantly. "Silvia doesn't have anyone to rely on, nor does she have a home to go back to. Once she has a proper title, she and her baby won't get bullied anymore. "If you sign this document, I'll give you 20% of my shares. Once Silvia gives birth to her baby, I'll make sure that the baby acknowledges you as their mother as well. Consider this my compensation to you." Of course, I can't accept it at all. I end up slapping Silvia on the face during her baby's first party. That night, my younger brother, Paolo Romano, gets crippled and strapped to the front of an armored truck. "This is the lesson you shall learn for hurting Silvia, Valentina!" I kneel on the ground and beg Antonio to stop. But the moment the engine starts, I feel Paolo's blood being sprayed all over my face. Sharp pain flares from my abdomen immediately. I can only clutch it while screaming hysterically before passing out. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Antonio and Silvia are attending a prenatal checkup together. This time, I no longer ask Antonio any questions. Instead, I secretly sell all of the jewelry I've secretly kept and buy myself two plane tickets. Now, I just want to escape from Antonio with Paolo by my side.

My Mafia husband, Alessio, was sleeping with his stepsister, Sophia. In the car, the study, the bathroom, even on the dining table, they left evidence of their affair everywhere. "Sophia, don't worry. Once I solidify my position in the family, I'll give you everything." "Blair… she's just a tool to secure my position." In our eight years of marriage, he had whispered the sweetest words in the world to me. Now, his devotion was worthless. I didn't cry or cause a scene. Instead, I made a deal on the black market. In two weeks, Blair Greco would disappear from this world for good.

The day Lily Bianchi returned from abroad, the Don Dario Moretti threw a street race in her honor. She was the woman he valued most. He ordered me to race, even though my old injuries hadn't healed. The wound on my arm tore open, and I lost control of the steering wheel. The car slammed head-on into a boulder. Pain ripped through me. When Dario drove past, he instinctively slowed down for a moment. Lily, riding shotgun, immediately rested a hand on Dario's shoulder. "Dario, why on earth did Lucia crash into the mountainside? Is it because you let me ride with you? She got jealous and hurt herself just to get your attention." Dario scoffed. "Nobody help her. She'll live. "Anyone who takes her to the hospital gets sent to the border for hard labor." With that, he sped off in pursuit of first place without looking back, Lily at his side and dust swirling behind them. He raised Lily's hand in triumph, floored the gas pedal, and crossed the finish line cheering. The drivers behind him glanced over at me. None of them dared disobey Dario's orders. All they could do was slow down when Dario wasn't looking and toss first-aid bandages through my car window. A few of the veteran guards quietly got out of their cars to help stop the bleeding. Their hands were gentle, their eyes full of sympathy. Dario didn't send anyone to take me to the hospital until nightfall. When I woke up, the first thing I did was reach for my phone. Six hours had passed since the accident, but there was only one message from him. "Stop playing dead. Be back by six, or you know what happens." I set the phone down, my throat tight. Dario cared about many things: money, power, Lily. Everything except me. Eventually, I stopped hoping for his love. It wasn't until I died before his eyes that he went mad with regret.

When Michele Barone, the Underboss of the Moretti family, proposes to me, I receive a video call from another version of myself, who's five years in the future. In the video call, my older self is already shaved bald. She's also trapped in the Moretti family's basement. "Don't marry him! You have to get rid of the unborn baby in your belly and get out of here right now!" I throw the ring to the table on the spot before going through an abortion right away. When Michele finds out the truth, he breaks down and cries his heart out. At the same time, he keeps demanding answers from me. All of my family and friends keep blaming and accusing me. They even claim that I've gone nuts. Meanwhile, Michele's childhood friend, Gianna Grasso, hides outside the room with a hand clamped over her mouth as she giggles secretly to herself. "AI nowadays sure is powerful! I can't believe she actually believes that the woman in the video call is actually her future self five years from now!" My lips curl into a small smile. Honestly speaking, I can tell right away that it's just a fake AI video, based on how shabbily it's made. It's quite simple as to why I've done those things, though—I've received an actual video call from my future self for real.

Eight months pregnant, a contraction tore through me like a blade. But my husband, the Mafia boss Darren, refused to take me to the hospital. His sister-in-law, Angelina, his late brother's widow, was also due. To ensure she gave birth before me, she produced so-called proof of my infidelity, insisting the child I carried was no true Falcone. Because the heir to the Falcone family had to be the firstborn grandson. Darren believed her. He locked me in an abandoned wine cellar. “Don't think for a second I don't know what you've been up to.” “Let me tell you, you're not giving birth to that bastard until I've verified its bloodline myself.” “Angelina’s boy is of pure blood. I have to make sure her boy is the family's firstborn grandson.” I tried desperately to explain. “My water is about to break! Please, take me to the hospital! He’s your son, I swear on my life!” “I’ll never fight for the position of heir! I just want my baby to be safe!” Darren simply kicked me and shot me a glance. “Who knows if you’ll change your mind later? Don’t worry. I’ll come for you after Angelina gives birth. When the baby is born, I’ll see for myself whose it is.” Later, as he gazed at the crying infant in Angelina's arms, he finally thought of me. But one of his men informed him, his voice trembling: “Boss, the Madam… and the child… they're both dead.”

I'm a bit of a chatterbox with an irrepressible urge to share everything. People around me usually find me annoying. At times, even Papa and Mama grow impatient with me. Only my boyfriend, Ronaldo Brunelli, the Don of the Brunelli Famiglia, patiently replies to every message I send. "Mi cara, it just shows you have an eye for beauty. I love everything you share with me," he writes back. But later, when I'm being followed by one of his enemies and reach out to him for help, he simply replies, "OK." When I'm trapped in a mudslide and text him, terrified, he replies, "OK." Then, the dog we'd raised together for five years, Anda, dies unexpectedly. I'm inconsolable and quickly text him, "Ronaldo! Our Anda is gone!" Once again, he replies, "OK." I can't understand why he's so cold with me and call him, sobbing on the phone. But he only picks up after many missed calls, his tone heavy with weary resignation. "I'm doing this for your own good, Liliana Cirillo. Helena says this is a sickness of yours, that you're just desperate for attention. She says that you might only turn 'normal' if I continue being cold with you." "Just because she says I'm sick?" I ask, bewildered. "But what about our Anda…" In the background, I can faintly hear Helena's cloyingly sweet voice saying, "Didn't we agree to ignore her for now? You promised to bring me to get a new pet." Ronaldo chuckles and answers her, but I can't make out what he says. He then comes back to me on the phone and says, "Alright, I have some business to attend to. I'll get back to you later. Try not to be so clingy all the time." Then, the line goes dead. I let out a self-deprecating laugh. So, it's not that I'm being "too clingy" with him. It's just that he's chosen to give his patience to someone else. If that's the case, then I'll leave him. Seven days later, I vanish on my way to our wedding. When Ronaldo finds out, his eyes turn bloodshot.

In the Valentino family, the rules were absolute—the title of Don passed only to the eldest son of the eldest line. On the day I was due to give birth, my water broke. The contractions came faster and harder, each wave of pain stronger than the last, until my consciousness began to drift. The baby's head was already crowning. Renato knelt beside the bed, gripping my hand, his eyes filled with what looked like heartbreak. I thought he would be my strength—my anchor. But through the haze, I heard him speaking to the midwife. "Control the dosage. Just delay Ellen's delivery for three hours." "But she is already fully dilated. Forcibly delaying it could be dangerous…" The midwife's voice trembled. "It's fine. She wasn't due yet anyway. She only went into labor because she secretly used induction drugs. Delaying the birth will only benefit her." Disbelief crashed over me. I tried with everything I had to speak—to explain. But then I saw him glance at his watch, murmuring to himself, "My sister-in-law is only five centimeters dilated. If we stall for three hours, my brother's child will be the eldest grandson. This is a promise I made to my brother." Terror seized me. I tried to struggle, but the needle had already pierced my skin. In an instant, the child that had been about to emerge was forced violently back into my body. The pain doubled, twisting through me like a storm. Darkness swallowed my vision, and I lost consciousness. When I came to, I had been dragged into an underground storage room. Only after his sister-in-law's son had been safely born did Renato remember me. When he returned—holding the toy he had personally made for our soon-to-be-born child—and ordered his assistant to bring me back to the operating room… All he found were two cold, lifeless bodies.

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.

It had been six years since Vincent Castellano was declared dead in that “car crash”, and I was still alone. My friends kept nagging me to move on. Even in my dreams, Vincent was there, begging me to stop living in the past. So I finally caved and agreed to a blind date with Leo Christopher, the guy who’d been chasing me for years. I’d decided I’d make a clean break with Vincent once and for all on the Day of the Dead. But the second I stepped out of the cemetery, a billboard for a luxury brownstone in Brooklyn Heights caught my eye. It was the exact place Vincent had been obsessed with back when I thought he was alive. Before I even knew what I was doing, I was heading straight for it. What I saw that day is seared into my brain for the rest of my life. There, on the bench outside the house, sat Vincent. The man was laid to rest in the Castellano family crypt. And he had his arm around another woman. That woman? Mia Rossi. The card dealer he’d been screwing behind my back six years prior. The same one I’d caught him red-handed with, the one I’d made him fire from the family casino.

Three days before our wedding, my fiancé, Raphael Russo, was killed in a gang shootout. They didn't even find a body. As I was drowning in grief, comments suddenly flashed before my eyes: 【Wake up, girl! the coffin's empty! He faked his death! The scumbag ran off to be with that scheming bitch chloe, the one pretending to be sick!】 【While you're crying your eyes out at the funeral, Raphael is fucking Chloe’s brains out in a hotel bed.】 【When he comes back, he'll claim he has amnesia. You won't know a thing and you'll forgive him. You poor thing…】 A month later, news of my marriage to Mafia Don Marcello Falcone spread through New York. Raphael’s right-hand man cornered me, furious. “How could you betray the Boss?” I tightened my grip on Marcello’s arm and smiled. “A girl can’t mourn forever, can she? I’m sure Raphael, in spirit, would be happy for me.”