Familial Bond Mafia の短編小説 & Bias 小説

According to the Moretti family's rules, my twin sister Chloe and I were supposed to inherit our grandmother's trust when we turned eighteen. But the night before the trust was unlocked, my mother came to us with red-rimmed eyes and told us the family was three million dollars in debt. We needed to pay it off immediately. My fiancé Damian held my hand and moved our wedding date up to the end of the year. He promised we'd face it together. That night, Chloe and I both signed the waiver. Three days later, I got my Harvard acceptance letter with a full scholarship. I rushed home early to share the news—and walked straight into the living room projector still running. On the screen was a group chat I'd never seen before. It was called "Protect Chloe." [Did she sign?] [She signed. She voluntarily gave up her inheritance. Everything belongs to Chloe now.] [That's what Chloe deserves. Vivian's the older sister. She should be the one to give in.] [She doesn't need that much money anyway. She'll have the Salvatorre Donna title soon enough.] Because I was born ten minutes before Chloe, my parents had always favored her. And now, even my fiancé had chosen her side. I didn't say a word. I confirmed my Harvard enrollment and booked a flight to Boston. They thought I'd do what I always did—get angry, cry, then come crawling back. But this time, I was really done with them.

I attend Don Vittorio Moretti's celebration banquet in a white evening gown that once belonged to his late wife. But his seven-year-old daughter, Sofia Moretti, shoves me into the sea. As I plunge into the water, my ankle gets slashed by a jagged iron piling. The scent of blood instantly draws a frenzy of sharks. Above me, Sofia stands on the dock, clapping and laughing. The cruelty in her eyes is identical to the way Vittorio looks at me. Sofia points at me and screams, "Do you really think wearing my Mamma's dress makes you worthy of becoming the Donna of the Moretti family? "You're nothing but my Papa's mistress. If I tell him to throw you out, he'll do it." I thrash against the freezing waves, and with every kick, every bone in my body howls in pain. By the time they pull me ashore, I'm shivering beneath a shawl. I look at Sofia, waiting for an explanation. Instead, she simply lifts her chin and spits in my face. Whatever remained of my hope for the little girl I'd raised for seven years vanishes in that instant. "You don't have to wait for your Padre to throw me out. I'll leave on my own tomorrow."

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?"

The day I was diagnosed with leukemia, my first reaction wasn't fear. It was relief. I wasn't really a Moretti anyway. If I died, I wouldn't owe anyone anything. When I was six, Bianca and I fought over a stuffed bear. My mother dragged me into a corner and said each word slowly enough to make sure I understood. “You are not our biological child. Everything in this house is something we've given you out of kindness.” After that, I never asked for anything again. Bianca got new dresses. I wore her old school uniforms. Bianca took piano lessons. I washed dishes in the kitchen to earn money for breakfast the next morning. I lived like a piece of luggage someone had left in the Moretti house, always ready to be claimed and taken away. After my diagnosis, Dr. Patel told me a stem-cell transplant was my best chance. A parent or biological sibling might be a match. I didn't tell the Morettis. Instead, I searched for my birth family in secret and used seven years of savings to prepay for the cheapest cremation in Chicago. Then, last night, I heard my parents talking inside my father's study. “Do you ever think we went too far?” my mother asked. “Serena acts more like a stranger every year.” My father sighed. “What choice did we have? Bianca is the adopted one. After her father died saving my life, I had to make sure she never felt like she came second. If Serena knew she was our biological daughter, why would she ever keep stepping aside for Bianca?” The cup slipped from my hand and rolled across the floor. I was their biological daughter. The girl they had raised as their real child was the one they had adopted. For eighteen years, my parents had erased me from their family so Bianca would never have to feel insecure. Standing outside that door, I started laughing. But the truth had come too late. My leukemia was already high-risk. My bone marrow was failing.

My sister came back after being kidnapped. She had no memory of what had happened. She saw the photos on my wall and became convinced that my boyfriend, Don Colton Turner, was hers. She hid under our bed. When Colton and I started getting intimate, she crawled out and accused us of cheating on her. She pulled out a grenade and screamed, "You've betrayed me! Neither of you is walking out of here!" Just as she was about to pull the pin, my mother lunged at her, grabbed the grenade, and threw it out the window. But Beth wasn't done. She pressed a gun to her temple and threatened to kill herself. In her mind, she was Colton's Donna, while I was his secret lover. My mother rushed forward to grab the gun just as Beth pulled the trigger. My mother died on the spot. After that, Beth tried to kill herself almost every day. Colton eventually packed his bags and said wearily, "We should have slept in separate rooms. If we had, your mother would still be here. I'll take her to the house outside the city for now. Once she's stable, I'll move back. That way, she can't hurt you again." I simply nodded. Part of me was even grateful that Colton had thought everything through so carefully. Then one day, I went to a private hospital for a prenatal checkup. As I walked out with the report in my hand, I froze. My supposedly dead mother was standing there, gently stroking Beth's hair. "A healthy baby. When it's born, it'll look just like Colton." Colton laughed. "Better if it looks like Beth." My mother nodded, satisfied. "At least all that acting wasn't for nothing. Once the baby is here, I can stop worrying." The blood drained from my face as my heart pounded against my ribs. So it had all been a lie. After they left, I forced myself to calm down, walked back into the hospital, and scheduled an abortion.

We have a family group chat meant for the core members only. It's named "the Coppola family". The ones in the group are my father, my mother, my oldest brother, Fabio Coppola; my second brother, Luca Coppola, and my little sister, Francesca Coppola. Oh, that's not all. Fabio's bloodhound, Fido; Luca's ragdoll, Neve; and Francesca's fancy rat, Pico, are members of the group chat too. I'm the only one who's not included in that group. There's once when I ask Francesca, "Can you add me into the group?" She's in the middle of feeding Pico at that time. Without bothering to glance at me, she replies, "That group is meant for insiders only. Wouldn't you feel awkward if you were to join the group, Valentina?" I just look at Pico, who keeps screeching in Francesca's arms. It has a special nickname and the right to speak up in the family group. To think that I, the Coppolas' biological daughter, am nothing compared to a fancy rat.

My twin sister and I were supposed to celebrate our succession on the same night. Beth Moretti would inherit the family's weapons business in Naples. Her portrait towered over the banquet hall on a massive screen as the elders gathered around her, showering her with praise. Our parents, Vincent Moretti and Elena Moretti, couldn't have looked prouder. "Beth has always been exceptional. She was at the top of her class, won countless awards, and was already managing the family stables at eighteen." I stood alone in the corner, completely ignored. By the time anyone remembered me, the gala was almost over. One of the elders happened to spot me. "What about Monica? What will she be taking over?" My parents froze. For a moment, neither of them had an answer. Beth gave a small laugh. "Nothing important, I think?" Everyone laughed with her. I kept quiet. I had apparently been put in charge of the family armory, though no one had even bothered to tell me themselves. My father finally looked my way. "At least she stays out of trouble. That's good enough." Of course I stayed out of trouble. They had sent me to boarding school when I was four and left me to grow up on my own. I learned early how to take care of myself because no one else would. During school breaks, my parents would take Beth on vacation while I stayed behind. To them, I had always been the daughter they could forget. So yes, I was easy. I had learned a long time ago not to expect anything from them. After the gala, I went looking for my family. They were nowhere to be found. Then I learned they had already gone home with Beth. I took a deep breath, pulled up the Turner family's invitation from two months ago, and typed, "I accept." Then I booked the earliest flight out. This family had forgotten me for years. Now they could forget me for good.

Because my little sister Sofia loved playing games of chance, everything in our family was decided by drawing lots. Dinner. School events. New clothes. Even Mom and Dad’s hugs and kisses. Mother kept colored wooden sticks inside a small box. Draw gold, and you won. Draw black, and Sofia got whatever we were competing for. For ten years, I drew black every single time. Mother said she created the game to treat us equally. Whenever I cried or said it wasn’t fair, she told me to stop blaming everyone else for my bad luck. So I practiced every night, shaking the box and listening to the sticks move inside, convinced that one day I would finally draw gold and earn my parents’ love. I never did. On my thirteenth birthday, Sofia wanted the whole family to go to an amusement park. Terrified they would leave me behind again, I secretly painted one of the black sticks gold. Mother caught me. She slapped me, called me a cheat, and left with Sofia. I fell, and one of the wooden sticks pierced my throat. I’m sorry, Mom. If there’s a next life, I’ll try harder to draw the gold stick.

Vincenzo Moretti was Stonehaven’s youngest financial titan— a tech mogul commanding a multibillion-dollar empire, gracing the covers of business magazines as a modern legend. But only a select few knew the truth: he was also the ruthless Don controlling the East Coast mafia. To him, wealth and power were mere chips in a game. And I? I was just another pawn used to stabilize a fragile family alliance. In our ten-year marriage, he slept with my friends, my coworkers… every single person I once trusted. Then one morning, as I took our one-month-old baby for a routine checkup, Sienna Newton, his latest mistress, ran me down with her car. The baby screamed endlessly. I begged her to take us to the hospital, and when Vincenzo arrived, he looked at me with cold disdain. “Isabella,” he sneered, “when did you learn to stage accidents? “Even if you died here, I wouldn’t bat an eye.” Then he took Sienna’s hand and walked away without a backward glance. By the time I was rushed to the hospital, the child in my arms had suffocated. Upon hearing the news, my mother suffered a heart attack. She didn’t survive. I slipped into a coma for two days. When I finally woke up, I found out that Vincenzo never visited. Instead, his father, Renato Moretti, the true king of the Moretti empire, stood by my bedside. I looked at him calmly and said, “Let me go. Whatever I owed your family, I’ve repaid in full with two lives.” Later, that same Don who had once looked down on me knelt before me, begging me to come home. But I was no longer the woman who waited, silent and broken, for his change of heart. I was the Don’s wife who turned away and never looked back.

In all the eight years after Mamma died, Father hated me. He hated me for causing Mamma’s death, and he hated me even more because I didn’t resemble her at all. So he adopted a girl who looked eighty percent like Mamma and raised her as the principessa of the Vitale family. He brought her to banquets hosted by the five Mafia families of Corholt and seated her beside him at negotiation tables. In front of the entire family, he publicly declared that his adopted daughter, Bianca Vitale, was his only heir. Meanwhile, I wore a servant’s apron and lived in a cellar beneath the estate. He allowed Bianca to break my fingers, slash my face, and lock me inside the morgue freezer. “This is what you deserve.” I believed it, too. Until my sixteenth birthday, when Mamma came back.

In the Valenti Family, you're born with a chip. It's fused into the bio-watch on your wrist, its digital face counting down every second you have left to live. Everyone could see the numbers ticking down on my twin sister's watch. And on mine. They all knew she would die on our 18th birthday. So Vivian became the untouchable princess of our brutal world. Every diamond-stitched gown was hers. The rarest jewels were hers. Even our father's last shred of humanity was hers. That single sliver of warmth he showed only after his gun was holstered. I used to pity her. Her time was running out. But God, I envied her. She had everything I never did: our parents' love. Then, the night of her 18th birthday party. My parents worried I'd make a scene. That I'd piss off the Don of an allied Family. So they locked me in the cellar. Damp. Cold. While a deadly fever burned through me. I pounded on the heavy oak door, my voice cracking. "Mamma, please! Let me out! I'm burning up. My head is splitting open…" Outside, my mother's voice was a steel trap. "Enough, Sienna! Today is your sister’s 18th birthday. Her last day alive! Stop the theatrics! Can't you suffer in silence for the Family's honor?" "But I'm really sick..." Her footsteps clicked away, fading into nothing. Then the darkness swallowed me whole. And on my wrist, the bio-watch was flashing a critical alert. CRITICAL ALERT: Vital signs mismatch. Paired chip data incompatible. Please verify user.

The Volkovs. The most brutal family in Russia. Their Don was holding our arms deal hostage. He wanted the De Luca princess. Isla. My adopted sister. I was their biological daughter. The blood heir they found in the slums twenty years too late. But Isla was the one they actually loved. The news broke. My mother walked into my room for the first time in forever. “Aurora, my best girl. You know how fragile Isla is. If she marries him… that man will break her. He’ll kill her.” My fiancé, Julian Caldwell, heir to the Caldwell family, made me a candlelit dinner. He held me, kissing me softly. “You’re so much stronger than her, Aurora. Please. Do this for her. I’ll give you a private wedding. Just us. Even if I can’t marry you for real, you’ll always be my wife.” Even my father—a man who never smiled at me, the Don of the De Luca family—actually slid a blank check across the desk. “Take her place instead of Isla. Name your price. Anything you want.” They were so sure I’d say yes. Because I’d always been that pathetic girl. Desperate for their approval. Willing to do anything. But not this time. I was done. I looked at the blank check and laughed. “A blank check? Not even close. I want one hundred million dollars. And a blood contract that cuts all ties. Forever.” They had no idea. I wanted more than that. In seven days, I was going to give them a gift. I wanted their lives.

My parents think I'm not ladylike enough, so they buy themselves a docile and sweet AI daughter called Serafina Moretti. On the day Serafina is brought home, I get bullied by the entire family. Papa hates the fact that I'm really bad at studying, unlike Serafina, who's quick to pick up on the knowledge after being taught for the first time. Mamma wrinkles her nose at my bright and active personality. Apparently, I'm not quiet enough, which annoys her and gives her a pounding headache all the time. My older brother, Dario Moretti, even berates me all the time. "You're a disgrace to the Moretti family! What else are you capable of doing other than eating and sleeping?" Even Serafina has the gall to make fun of me, so I shove her to the floor out of anger. Mamma's expression darkens immediately. Then, she delivers a heavy slap across my cheek. "Serafina is your sister! If you're as docile as she is, you won't annoy me to the point I keep having headaches! "It's time for you to learn how to be a docile and understanding daughter in a behavioral correction academy!" So, I'm forced to study there. Two years later, my family picks me up from the academy. They keep calling my name, and yet I never respond to them. Professor Luca Caruso corrects them smilingly, "Mrs. Moretti, you must say the words, 'Activate.' Only then will NS-5 boot up on her own."

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 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.

When I was fourteen, my brother—the Don—brought home an orphan girl to settle a debt of gratitude. From then on, my life within the Corleone family always took a backseat to hers. The girl framed me, claiming I was trying to poison her. My brother slapped me across the face and locked me in the attic. To make it up to her, he even gave her the position that was meant for me. This time, I didn't say a word. I just packed my bags and left. It took a few days for him to realize I hadn't returned to the family estate. Only then did he find out that I’d joined an international medical aid organization—and that I was never coming back to New York. After that, he completely broke down.

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.

From the age of ten, every dollar my parents spent on me became a debt. Tuition. Clothes. Food. Even medical bills. By eighteen, I had signed one hundred and ninety-nine promissory notes. But Camilla—the daughter of the man who died protecting my parents—received everything for free. They gave her my bedroom, my inheritance bracelet, a Manhattan apartment, a Maserati, and eventually even the attention of my fiancé, Nick. My parents called it repaying her father’s sacrifice. They called my suffering “heir training.” On the eighteenth birthday Camilla and I shared, I was seriously injured in a car accident. While my family celebrated her aboard a Caribbean yacht, I begged them for three thousand dollars to pay for emergency surgery. They accused me of inventing the accident to ruin her party. Then Mom told me to sign another promissory note. That became number two hundred. I finally understood that no amount of obedience would make them choose me. So I gave myself seven days to repay every cent, surrender the DeLuca name, and end my engagement.

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.

When I was having a heart attack, my parents, my brother, and my fiancé were all at our family casino—celebrating Eva, our adopted daughter, at her twenty-first birthday, her official debut into the mafia world. The doctor refused to operate without a legal guardian’s signature. So I called them. My father’s assistant answered. “Sorry, Miss. The Don is in the middle of a toast.” My brother and mother let it ring until it went silent. Finally, my fiancé, Adam, picked up. Music roared behind him. I could hear laughter, glasses clinking. “Cecilia,” he said, impatient. “If you can’t even show up for Eva’s party, stop causing trouble. Today is Eva’s debut. Every Don from three territories is here. Whatever drama you’re playing can wait.” I lost count of how many times they chose her over me. So after this call, I stopped calling. I signed my own name. My family thought I’d finally learned to be obedient. But they should’ve known that in our world, silence only means one thing—I was preparing to disappear for good.