Familial Bond Mafia Short Stories & Bias Novels

I was the daughter of a mafia Don. The day I met Ethan, he fell for me at first sight. When I found a receipt from a luxury boutique in his pocket, he said, "It's a gift for another capo's wife. These things have to be done right." I believed him. The second time, I found an earring in his car that wasn't mine. His friend told me it belonged to his girlfriend and that I shouldn't read too much into it. Then came a third time, and a fourth. Every time I found something, someone had an explanation ready. By the tenth time, I pulled a box of condoms from under the bed and waved it at him. "Whose are these? We've never used this brand." Ethan paused halfway through knotting his tie. With a weary sigh, he made a call. "Miller, did you take a box of condoms the last time you stayed over?" On the other end, my brother answered right away. "Yeah, I was wondering where those went. Sorry about that. Is my sister suspicious of you again?" Then my sister-in-law, who was also my best friend, started lecturing me. "Michelle, trust is the foundation of any relationship. You can't keep doubting Ethan." "If you can't manage that, then don't get married. Don't take Ethan's love for granted." After the call ended, Ethan spread his hands. "Michelle, are we done here? This is the tenth time. Like your sister-in-law said, if you can't trust me, then don't—" I nodded. "Exactly. Let's not get married." Ethan never could have guessed that the condoms weren't anyone else's. I had bought them myself and planted them there on purpose. That single box of condoms exposed the ugly truth behind our so-called love.

Ever since my husband, the mafia capo Rocco Marchetti, poured all his attention and the family's resources into his brother's widow, the woman whose husband took a bullet for him. I found our daughter Tessy's diary, where she had started writing, "My Papa is gone." A nun from her private Catholic school called, asking about his passing. I paused for a moment. "Yes," I replied. "He passed away a long time ago." On Father's Day, the school organized a trip to the church to light prayer candles. While other children wrote cards praying for their fathers' safety, Tessy neatly wrote just two words on hers: "To Heaven." During the parent-teacher open house, the nuns displayed the children's decorated diaries on their desks. The theme for their entries was My Father. My Papa died in a shootout in the next neighborhood over. A lady there wouldn't stop crying, and then Papa never came home. After every entry like this, she would clutch the crucifix on her necklace, her small hand gripping it so tightly her palm grew slick with sweat. Eventually, Rocco sensed the growing chill at home. He dropped everything and rushed back to the estate with a bouquet of expensive red roses, hoping to celebrate his daughter's birthday with her. The door opened. On the coffee table lay Tessy's new diary, its title scrawled in a childish hand: If Papa Were Still Alive.

When the Russo family—the most notorious mafia empire in America—brought me, their long-lost true blood, back to the estate, I set three rules: One: Don't compare me to Chloe, the perfect adopted daughter. Two: Don't give her my things as charity, and don't dump her hand-me-downs on me. Three: Stay out of my private life. The man she was supposed to marry is hers. Our father—the Don—agreed. Chloe and I barely kept a fake peace. But when the marriage alliance came up, the rules went out the window. Her fiancé Marcello chose me—a street-wild girl covered in motor oil. My father was furious. My mother, bitter. My oldest brother, the Underboss, looked at me with pure disgust. Chloe was convinced I seduced her fiancé in bed. But God as my witness, I never touched him. I stormed into his private cigar club, demanding he clear things up. Marcello blew out a puff of smoke and sneered. "The Vitiello family's marriage pact was always with the true Russo blood. We have no intention of taking a fake." As he said it, his sharp dark eyes slid toward a trembling Chloe. A cruel, almost sick thrill flashed in them. It took me a long time to get it. He had too much wildness in his bones to marry a smiling puppet. And I—a foul-mouthed, reckless street girl—became his perfect pawn to rebel against his entire family. I was forced to become Marcello's wife. Three years later, he got bored. He threw a divorce agreement in my face. Filled with my unbearable "sins": "Too stubborn. Zero feminine, in bed or out." "Always showing your face at that biker shop. A disgrace. Unfit for the title of Donna." I stared at him. I remembered why he dumped Chloe—he hated her submissive elegance. Now, what he hated most was that I wasn't submissive, and I wasn't elegant. I flicked the ash from my cigarette and said, dead calm: "Fine. I'll sign."

After I came of age, I entered the Gallo family's trial period. Only those who passed the family's trials within five years would earn the right to wear the family crest. Anyone who failed would be sent to the shooting range as a live target. This year's trial was to seize a weapons shipment at the port. I was the first to locate the weapons cache, but when Vera blundered into the ambush, I had to stay behind and clean up the mess to save her. After the fierce gunfight, my team's casualties ended up exactly one more than Vera's. At the crest ceremony, my mother Carmela once again pinned the family crest to Vera Gallo's chest, smiling with satisfaction. "Vera brought back the weapons with the fewest casualties. She passes the trial again this year, without question. "Not that the crest needs to be awarded twice, but Elsa, you really aren't as capable as Vera. Better luck next time." Better luck next time. I'd been hearing those exact words for four years straight. Ever since Vera was brought back four years ago, I, the adopted orphan, had become the most unwelcome person in the house. Because she claimed everything I had should have been hers. The moment she heard that Carmela had treated me well, she'd spiral into hysterics and threaten to kill herself. From then on, I waited four years and never once received the crest from Carmela's hands. This time, I was done waiting. I was going home. My real home.

My mother, Elena, was a System host. After completing her mission, she left this world, leaving me in the care of my four adoptive fathers in the mafia. Dad Theodore was the cold-blooded Don of the Family, the man who ruled this city's underworld. Dad Harrison was a movie star, the darling of the red carpet. Dad Gabriel was a top surgeon in the underground medical network; his hands could save a life as easily as they could take one. And Dad Zane was a ruthless mercenary leader. For sixteen years, these four fathers spoiled me like the Family's one and only princess. If I wanted the moon, they would have found a way to pluck it from the sky. That was, until three years ago, when Zoe, the daughter of their first love, was brought back from Sicily. From that day on, my four fathers believed only her, never me. Zoe framed me, claiming I'd mocked her for looking like a street rat, so my fathers kicked me out of the princess suite and threw me into a storage room by the garage. Zoe showed them fake bruises on her arms, so my adoptive fathers smashed my phone, cut off all my social connections, and put me under house arrest for three months. Zoe cried again, claiming I'd hired thugs to harass her, so Dad Zane dragged me straight to the Family's dungeon beneath the estate. They starved me for three days and three nights, saying it was to teach me "some manners." I leaned against the dark, damp wall, my vision fading to black in waves. Just as I was about to pass out, I heard someone call my name. "Hazel, do you want to go to your mother?"

I have been able to smell people's emotions since I was a child. Love is sweet, and sadness is bitter. After being with Dante for ten years, the scent on him had always been sweet. Until last month, when my sister Sofia agreed to the arranged marriage with the Colombo family. In that very moment, the scent on him abruptly turned bitter. That night, I heard their suppressed voices: "Sofia, you clearly love me too, so why are you marrying that useless man?" My sister cried back at him: "You are Gia's fiancé, and she is my sister. We cannot continue this mistake." Only then did I realize the truth. My fiancé had been in love with my sister all along. I canceled the engagement party and booked a flight to Sicily in three days. But why was it that only after I left did they both go mad with regret?

In my first life, I was finally brought back to the Moretti family as their biological daughter. Then Sofia—the girl they had raised for twenty-six years—died. From that day on, I became the person they blamed. They never threw me out. They simply spent the next ten years making sure I understood that I could have the Moretti name, their blood, and their inheritance—but I would never be the daughter they truly loved. Then our yacht sank. My parents gave me the last life ring. My brother pushed me toward shore until the freezing water took the strength from his body. Before they died, they finally told me the truth. “If we had never brought you back, Sofia would still be alive.” “If there’s a next life, don’t come looking for us again.” I died in that ocean too. When I opened my eyes, I was back seven days before the Moretti family officially recognized me This time, I didn’t go home. I signed the North Star Project agreement instead. In seven days, my identity would be erased from every public system, and I would disappear for at least ten years. My parents were still preparing my recognition banquet. My brother still thought I was only angry. None of them knew I had decided to grant their final wish from our last life. Sofia could remain their only daughter. And I would disappear from their lives completely. Seven days later, a car carrying my identity plunged off a cliff. By midnight, the news was everywhere. Dr. Elena Hale was presumed dead.

"Dominic, Julian, guess what I wished for?" A cheap, marked-down cake sat on the table. I closed my eyes and made a wish. When I opened them, the two chairs across from me were empty. That was when I remembered: my brothers didn't want me anymore. When I was ten, my brothers brought Leah Morgan home. She was the daughter of their late mentor, Professor Andrew Morgan, and they told me to treat her like a real sister. But little by little, Leah stole all their affection from me. I grew anxious, then competitive. I thought that if I were good enough, they might love me a little more. In the final round of a piano competition, Leah burst into tears after losing to me. Dominic comforted her. "In my heart, you play better than Heather ever could!" I ranked first in my school and won a scholarship, which cost Leah her place among the candidates. Julian went so far as to force the school to investigate whether I had cheated. At my eighteenth-birthday party, Leah fell from the second-floor balcony into the pool. She pointed at me. "Heather pushed me!" My brothers were furious. Without an ounce of mercy, they dumped me in the worst part of town. "We indulged you for too long, Heather. That's why you became so competitive. Now it's time you learned to rein in your jealousy." They even sent local thugs to my door to harass me and steal what little money I managed to earn. They thought I would learn my lesson. What they didn't know was that I had received an email offering me a full scholarship to the University of Zurich. I was about to leave for Switzerland, and I was never coming back.

Ten years ago, I brought my distant cousin Sofia to New York after finding her cornered by her stepfather's creditors in an old Sicilian port. I taught her English, etiquette, and the laws of our world. I even introduced her to my fiancé, Alessandro Moretti. On the eve of our wedding, I found a secure family thread on my brother's computer—a thread that excluded me. My mother had written, "Sofia is pregnant. Are you really going through with tomorrow's wedding?" Alessandro replied, "The legal marriage is hers. The ceremony and the Moretti name will be Isabella's." That was when I learned they’d already gotten legally married. Our wedding was meant to seal a truce between two Mafia families after twenty years of bloodshed. I would not humiliate my father or the D'Angelo name in front of every major family in New York. So the next morning, I still took the Don's arm and walked down the aisle. Instead, when the ceremony ended,I’d signed on for a seven-year closed research program. When it ended, I had no intention of returning to the life they had chosen for me.

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.

After class, my half sister sent a driver to pick me up for the family dinner. But he parked outside the estate of the Besa family, the most dangerous mafia clan in England. My half sister, Sophie Hawthorne, was practically dripping with smugness on the other end. "Got you! The driver's gone. Let's see how you get out of this one!" I stood frozen. My father sighed on the other end of the line. "You fell for a trick that simple? You're a disgrace to the Hawthorne blood in your veins!" My stepmother laughed. "How can you be this stupid? Find your own way out. We have a dinner to attend." Shaking with fear, I sank to the ground and, with my last shred of hope, called my fiance, Ethan Mercer. The call connected, but it was Sophie's voice that answered. "Iris, Mom and Dad said you have to come back on your own. No cheating!" Ethan took the phone. His tone was breezy. "Come on. Don't disappoint your sister after all the thought she put into this. Good luck." The line went dead. Before, I would have cried and called them over and over until someone agreed to come get me. But this time, staring at the forest stretching endlessly before me, I was just tired. Sophie loved her pranks, and the whole family played along. Last year, she kissed my fiance in front of everyone at my engagement party. Last month, she swapped my heart medication for sugar pills and landed me in the ICU. This time, they all knew the Besa family' reputation for cruelty, yet they still helped her dump me on their doorstep. I spotted the red glow of a surveillance camera in the distance. I knew there was no escaping. I wiped my tears and stood up. I walked toward the Besa estate. If my own family wouldn't have me, I would find one that would.

After I gave myself the last dose of painkiller, I stood outside the hotel all afternoon in the vintage couture gown Lucian had chosen for me himself. The black Bentley motorcade that was supposed to come for the bride never arrived. What I heard instead was the chatter of people passing by. "Did you hear? The youngest Don in New York is getting married. He and the bride have been together ten years." That stopped me, because Lucian and I had only been together seven. "They say he bought a blue diamond, the only one of its kind in the world, just to set it in her ring. He's proposing at the church today." The moment I pushed open the church doors, Lucian looked straight at me. "Cassie, I knew you'd come. Ten years ago you lost Elena, the true blood of this Family, and left her to be ground down at the bottom of the world. You had the safety and glory of the Family name while she endured ten years of hell. I let you believe in that engagement for exactly this day. I want you to feel what it's like to be thrown away by everyone." Three people I knew better than anyone sat in the front pew. Marcus spoke first. "You took the life that was supposed to be Elena's. She's back, so it goes back to her. You owe her that." My heart felt like a cold gun barrel was pressed against it. I couldn't get air. Nobody knew that a month ago I had been diagnosed with end-stage neurological failure, and that I had one day left. For my last hours all I had wanted was to hold the hand of the man I loved, with my family around me. I walked out of the church calmly and dropped the keepsake he had given me into a trash can. But now I'd changed my mind. I wasn't going to spend my last day intruding on any of them.

I came home from a business trip. My daughter Anna threw herself into my arms and held up a hand-strung necklace she had clearly worked hard on. "Mommy, this is the birthday present I made for Mommy Lena. She's going to love it, right?" My heart dropped. Lena was my husband Preston's secretary. My daughter remembered her birthday. She had forgotten that today was mine. It wasn't the first time. She was always attached to Lena, hanging off her arm and asking, "Mommy Lena, when are you and Daddy taking me back to the amusement park?" Even when she ran a fever, the name she called out over and over was Mommy Lena. I corrected her, disappointed. "Anna, I'm your mommy, not Lena." But Anna pushed me away and shouted, "You're the bad mommy! I don't want you! I want Mommy Lena to be my mommy forever!" In that moment I could almost hear my own heart cracking. A second later, Preston shoved the door open. He scooped up the wailing Anna and turned on me. "Winnie, what kind of mother are you? Your child is crying like this and you can't even be bothered! "Anna's right. As a mother you're not half of what Lena is. I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I married you!" I watched their backs disappear down the hall and felt something go out in me. So this was what it had bought me. Six years ago I gave up my name and my claim as heir to the Family, all for love, and what I got in return was the contempt of my husband and my daughter. If that was how it was, then it was time for me to go home to the Family.

My mother dragged me out of my biological father's brutality, and I thought we had finally escaped. Then she married the Don of the Falcone family. The woman who once fought to protect me completely changed. To secure my stepfather's approval and coddle his beloved Sofia, she stood by and let them turn me into a servant in the house I was supposed to call home. Every time I pushed back, they pushed harder. Every time I begged to be seen, I was met with contempt. My biological father's fists left scars on my body. This family's marks went deeper—into my bones. So I stopped. If they never wanted me there, I would stop breaking myself for their hollow approval. I would take my own life back. In seven days, I would leave. Harvard acceptance in hand—Boston waiting.

My twin sister, Bianca, tried to kill herself because I was better than her at school. Apparently, my success triggered her. So my parents sent me away from the Bellini estate. “Only until the college decisions come out,” Mother promised. “Then you can come home.” Behind her, my brother, Dante, helped Bianca choose her new armored Bentley. My boyfriend, Luca, stood beside them, holding Bianca’s favorite white roses. “If anything happens, call us, Valentina.” I did. A month later, a drunk man showed up at my door and wouldn't stop pounding. I locked myself in the bathroom and called my family again and again. Every call was declined. Near dawn, Mother finally texted. Sorry, sweetheart. We were celebrating Bianca’s birthday. Seeing your name might have upset her. After that, I stopped asking for help. The last college decision arrived, but they still wouldn’t let me return. Then, at our eighteenth-birthday gala, the Bellinis presented Bianca to New York as their beloved and only principessa. Mother sent me another message. Your sister still needs time. Please wait. This time, I was done waiting. They didn’t know I had already accepted my offer from MIT. I was leaving the Bellini family behind.

On the day my fiancé, Raphael Moretti, and I were supposed to get our marriage license at city hall, I dressed with care. But by noon, he still hadn't shown up. Aurelia De Luca video-called me. "Sofia, where are you? Raphael's been waiting for you all day." Panic hit me. "Weren't we signing in Palermo?" Aurelia frowned. "It's Taormina, Sofia. Everyone's been waiting for a long time." I drove straight to Taormina. When I arrived, no one was there. When the video connected, Aurelia was crouched on the ground, laughing hard. "Sofia, don't tell me you actually went. We're already on Lipari. Raphael's setting up the wedding venue to surprise you." I left my car at the port and took a boat to Lipari. The water was rough. I threw up the whole way, and my makeup ran down my face. But when I arrived, no one answered my calls. I waited alone outside city hall until it closed, not knowing what else to do. Aurelia suddenly appeared behind me in a straw hat and smacked me hard on the back. "You really chased us all the way here? The underboss and Raphael only came to keep me company on vacation." I spun around with a yelp. My heel caught on the step, and I fell. Raphael stood there holding Aurelia's shopping bags and purse. "Didn't we agree to get our marriage license after the trip? You couldn't wait? You had to chase us all the way here?" My uncle, Vincenzo Ferraro, saw my pale face and frowned. "Lia is the cheerful one. You've been timid since you were a child. How are you ever going to take over the family?" Seeing Aurelia's smug smile, I didn't even feel like confronting her anymore. I wasn't angry. I wasn't sad. I just wanted to escape a home that had never felt like mine. I only had to stay away from the people and places that made me miserable. For good.

The day Victor Moretti told me he was the Sicilian Don's heir, he also handed me a bill for everything he had spent on me over the years. "Elena, the Family will never let a woman who came to me for money become its next Donna." He pushed the ledger across the table to me. From the hot dogs we shared when we first got together to the condoms we used the first time we slept together. From the mattress-cleaning bill he had fronted to the hospital bill for my miscarriage. Thirty-seven thousand five hundred dollars in total. Every single item, down to the cent. I looked at the man I had loved for five years, swallowed the taste of blood rising in my throat, and kept my voice low. "I have to settle my mother's surgery bill first. I'll pay you back next month." Victor frowned at once. "Camilla was right about you. Women who come from nothing, like you, always have an excuse. I should have listened to her. I never should have broken the rules and gotten involved with you at all. Fine. One month. But you'll pay the same interest rate the Family charges its borrowers." I gritted my teeth but didn't argue. I silently accepted the condition. But the hospital's billing desk had another shock waiting for me. A clerk told me the balance in my account was down to one dollar. The hundred and fifty thousand I had scraped together from every corner of my life to save her was gone. Shaking all over, I called Victor. His tone was as condescending as ever. "I hacked into your account. Camilla Marchetti wanted an antique jeweled necklace, and she was a hundred and fifty thousand dollars short." "It comes to more than what you owe me. Consider the difference payment for the damage you did to my Family's name." With two casual sentences, he had turned my mother's life into a bauble at the throat of a mafia boss's daughter. The call ended. Then a nurse behind me said, "Miss Hayes... you don't need to pay. Your mother... she just took her own life... She said she didn't want to be a bur

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?"

I was Sofia De Luca, the only biological daughter of Marco De Luca, the most powerful Don. Then my parents adopted Celeste De Luca as my younger sister, and everything changed. My birthday party could be cancelled because she threw a fit. My place at the elite academy went to her. Even the ruby brooch my grandmother left me was taken away because she said she liked it. On nothing but Celeste's word, my parents branded me a traitor to the De Luca family and personally handed me over to a rival family as a hostage. I endured every kind of torment there. They toured the world with their adopted daughter and lived in luxury. They forgot me completely. It was only when Celeste finally caused a disaster too big to bury that they remembered I existed. But once I was actually dead, the regret drove them out of their minds. If there really is another life, I have only one wish. I hope they learn how to be decent parents. But I do not want to be their daughter again.

In the underworld, power is paid for in blood and betrayal. And I was born to rule. I survived the back alleys of the Bronx. Then I was adopted by two different mafia families. The first family's fake daughter cried. She wanted my territory. I smiled. I crushed her. I took every illegal casino and smuggling route in Brooklyn. The second family's fake heir slit his wrists for pity. I yawned. I took his black Amex. And the keys to the armory. I won. Clean. Both times. I sent those two idiots to the most dangerous prison on the East Coast. At twenty, a bloody DNA report showed up. Turns out, I'm the long-lost daughter of the Callahans. The biggest Irish mob in Boston. My first day at the Callahan estate, the adopted daughter in her innocent white dress knelt at my feet. She clutched her chest, trembling. "Sister, my heart is weak. I won't live long. All these years, I've been using the family's best black market medical resources. They even spent a fortune from the off-the-books accounts to find me a new heart." "I feel so guilty. If you think I stole your place, I can just die right now." My biological mother, Eleanor, screamed. She threw herself over the girl, holding her tight. Shaking and sobbing. My biological brother, Victor, slammed his gun on the table. He pointed it at me. "She has a serious heart condition. It's your first day and you're already trying to kill her?" Even my fiancé—some political match arranged by the old-timers—laughed coldly. "She sheds one tear, and the arms deal between our families is off. For good." I didn't flinch. I walked over, slowly. Knelt down. My fingertips wiped away her fake tears. I scanned her heaving chest. Then I leaned in close to her ear. My voice was a low, mocking whisper. "Don't be scared, sweetie. I'd never kick you out." "After all—" "I’ve seen a lot of fake sisters. Your acting is the absolute worst. You won’t last a week."