เรื่องสั้นแนว Feel-Good Story Mafia และนิยาย Bias

On the day of the funeral, Marcus asked me to share him with his sisters-in-law. The moment the news broke, Selena, the eldest brother's wife, hurled her wine glass to the floor. Vivian, the second brother's wife, raised her voice and tore into Marcus for having no sense of decency. But the Hartley family's men dropped to their knees, begging the two widows to become Marcus’s mistresses, to carry on the bloodline in honor of their fallen husbands. I stood off to the side watching, and something in me snapped. I shoved through the crowd, slammed my hands on the long table, and demanded to know exactly what Marcus thought I was to him. I called him no better than a thug. Then I turned on the two sisters-in-law, called them frauds in widow's clothing, and by the end I'd said something unforgivable to just about everyone in that room. After that, I couldn't let it go. I hired a lawyer and sued them for fraud, for a staged marriage. They turned it around on me and said I was plotting to swallow the entire Hartley estate and drive what was left of the family into the ground. My father's business was sabotaged again and again. Three key shipping routes went dark. The dockyard was seized. I was thrown out of the estate and died in a damp basement in Sicily, with no doctor and no family. The landlord found me when he came to collect rent. I only learned the truth after I died. They'd been working together all along. His public reveal of the mistress was merely meant to drive me to snap, giving him a valid excuse to end our marriage. Then I opened my eyes. I was back in that living room, on that same day. The portraits of the two brothers sat on the long table. Selena stood in a black dress, eyes rimmed red. "Marcus, your brother's body is barely cold, and you want us to be your mistresses?" Vivian wore a pale blouse, her voice trembling. "I'd sooner die than betray your brother." This time around, I was going to give them exactly what they asked for.

Three years into my arranged marriage with the Valachi family heir, the one that got away came back. He left me for Julia eight times. The ninth time, he left me bleeding on the side of the road with a gunshot wound to go running to Julia, who’d called him because she felt a little dizzy. "She needs me. You get that, right, Leona?" This time, I didn't fight for him. He didn't know about the bet I’d made with Julia. The ninth time he abandoned me, I would be the one to leave for good. So on his birthday, I left a set of signed divorce papers on his desk and got on a plane.

Within 30 days, Niccolò Romano and I registered for divorce 18 times. The first time, Niccolò's adopted sister stole my research results, but he hired a lawyer to fight for her. Afterwards, he held me and coaxed, "If something happens to Lia, no one will dare to hire her in the future. I'm just helping her." The second time, while my plane was in distress, he was traveling around the world with Lia. His tone was helpless: "Lia has depended on me since she was little. I only look after her like a younger sister." The last time, Lia was pregnant with a child no one would claim, and he took responsibility for it. Faced with my accusation, he just sighed, a bit tired: "Lia's career is just starting to take off. If someone blackmails her with the child, her life will be ruined." "You're a woman too. Can't you understand?" This time, I didn't cry or make a scene. Instead, I calmly signed my name on the divorce agreement that he had signed in a fit of pique some time ago. Then I called my professor: "I've thought it over. I'm willing to go with you to Iceland to do research."

Five years into my marriage, my private investigator sent me photos while I was at a foundation gala. Adrian was supposed to be in Paris closing an acquisition. But the photos showed his private jet parked in Aspen. He was walking down the stairs with his arm around a young dancer everyone had been talking about. I looked through them all and forwarded them to my lawyer without making a fuss. [He's broken Clause Seven again.] Adrian had added that clause himself before the wedding, back when we were still in love. For each act of infidelity during our marriage, I could choose one of his personal assets. The first time, I took the penthouse in Tribeca. After that came a winery in Napa, a private island in the Caribbean, and his thoroughbred farm in Kentucky, among other things. It stopped being interesting. He had enough assets to cheat his way through the rest of his life. He sat across from me and asked, without a care in the world, what I wanted this time. I took my time before answering, "Adrian, I want a baby. "Yours."

Everyone knew Lorenzo Moretti, the undisputed ruler of the estate, was hopelessly in love with me. To prove it, he bought a private paradise and christened it Lucy Island. The rule was simple: once a year, members of the Moretti Empire would spin a grand wheel for a chance to spend a night on the island. Lorenzo swore we would only wed there, throwing a feast for the ages. Yet for seven excruciating years, every time I spun the wheel, it delivered the same mocking verdict: Better Luck Next Year. I became the only woman in the empire forbidden from stepping foot on the island built in my name. Our wedding remained frozen in time. “Rules are rules, Lucy,” Lorenzo would insist. “A Moretti never breaks his word.” Exhausted by the endless waiting, I sneaked into the hall the night before the event, magnet in hand, determined to rig the wheel in my favor. Then I heard his voice, sharp and calculating. “Set the same mechanism. Lucy’s wheel cannot stop on my name.” I froze. “You’ve made her spin a rigged wheel for seven years,” his assistant, Mark, ventured carefully. “Aren't you afraid she’ll leave?” Lorenzo’s cold smirk echoed through the dark room. “Who would dare touch what belongs to me?” “Do you feel nothing for her?” Mark pressed. “Rosaline needs only one more year to recover,” Lorenzo replied smoothly. “Next year, I’ll marry Lucy as promised.” Rosaline. His childhood friend. The woman who mysteriously landed on Lorenzo’s name every single year, spending the night on my island, in my bed, while Lorenzo claimed it was just bad luck. When I argued with him, he would casually say, “One night of love can't erase the passion I have for you, Lucy. You are my fiancée. That will never change.” Standing in the shadows with a magnet in my palm, I finally saw the truth. I wasn’t his grand love—I was his grand illusion.

The day before my engagement, my childhood friend, Leonardo Rossi, took my private yacht without asking and left me stranded on the island where I was vacationing. When I called and demanded he bring it back, he snapped. "Julia, I'm marrying Anna. She's going to be my wife. If you behave yourself, I might keep you around as my mistress." A storm hit, and I barely made it off the island alive. Once I reached shore, I rushed to the most luxurious hotel in Port Haven. Leonardo and Anna Bianchi were there to celebrate the engagement of the Don of the Vaccaro family, the most powerful mafia family in Belloria. He wore a tailored suit, and she wore an elegant gown. When Leonardo spotted me in the lobby in a black coat, he scowled and grabbed my arm. He pulled me into a corner and lowered his voice. "Julia, this is the Vaccaro family's engagement party. If you make a scene, you're only going to embarrass yourself. Anna's going to be my wife. You need to know your place." I pulled my arm free and went back to waiting for my dress to arrive. Little did he know, I was the one marrying the Don of the Vaccaro family.

Elena Shaw is the wife of Henry Leone, the current head of the Monraven-based Mafia family in Newshire. She has been married to him for two years, but he has never once slept with her. Late one night, she inadvertently sees Henry relieving his desires while listening to a woman's voice. The voice belonged to Irene Shaw, her adopted younger sister and Henry's ex-fiancee. The year Elena turned 18, a DNA report changed both hers and Irene's fates. Elena is the real heir of the Shaw family, who had been taken at a young age and discarded abroad in Etolia. Meanwhile, Irene is the one who has taken her place in the Shaw family, receiving all of the love and glory that should've belonged to Elena. When Elena is brought back to the Shaw family, she replaces Irene as Henry's fiancee. However, Henry only marries her to take revenge against her for "ruining Irene's life". Even the fact that he had once saved her life turns out to be part of an elaborate lie. After learning the truth, Elena doesn't hesitate to leave. Once she disappears from Henry's world, the usually calm and collected Henry loses his mind.

Before a gathering of New York's underworld Families, I slipped into the vintage Chanel gown my mother had left me. As I looked in the mirror, my seven-year-old daughter suddenly said, "Mommy, it doesn't matter what you wear. You're always the ugliest one." Just like that, all the joy the gown had brought me disappeared. It wasn't the first time my daughter had said something cruel. Once, the FBI took me in for questioning and kept me for three days. The moment I got home, I wrapped her in my arms and asked if she'd missed me. She only shrugged. "No, Mommy. You're too stupid. Smart people don't get caught." My husband, Vincent, said sternly, "You can't talk to her like that. We're a family." I asked carefully, "If Mommy's so stupid, will you take care of me, sweetheart?" My daughter spread her hands. "Not me. Daddy said this family doesn't feed freeloaders." I was too stunned to speak. She just smiled at me, all innocence. "Don't be mad, Mommy. I'm only telling the truth." Every time she hurt me, she always added those same words. No matter how much it hurt, I kept telling myself she was simply too young to understand. That she didn't truly mean to hurt me. Until the day she smugly posted one of her "honest truths" on TikTok, hoping the whole internet would judge me. This time, she would regret telling the truth for the rest of her life.

The year I returned to the Moretti family, everyone expected the biological daughter and the adopted daughter to fight for their place in the family. But Gianna was different. She was the first to learn sign language so she could communicate with me. She knew I hated sitting with my back to a door. She also knew I didn't want anyone asking why I still refused to speak after two years back home. That night, at a charity gala, my father was supposed to sign an agreement that would end our family's involvement in the port's illegal operations. Instead, Luca Vitale stormed in with representatives from eight families and proposed a toast to my father. He took one sip and collapsed. A second later, the ballroom screen lit up. Gianna's payment to a pharmacist and chat messages mentioning "Dad's wine" had been used to make it look like she'd bought drugs to murder our father. She really had made that payment. She handed over her phone for everyone to see, but the original messages had been deleted, and she couldn't recover them. Luca gave us ten minutes: hand over Gianna or hand over the port. All the while, Luca's doctor stood beside my father with a syringe in his hand. He refused to say where he'd gotten it. My mother told Luca, "You can have the port. You can't have either of my daughters." Gianna pulled away from her anyway and walked straight to Luca. All she asked was that he let our father go to the hospital first. As she passed me, she signed with trembling hands, "Don't tell them about your past for my sake." I stared at the syringe. I'd seen that same medical kit at the clinic in Malta. I'd also seen what happened to patients once they became bargaining chips. If Gianna was willing to go that far for me, then I was willing to risk everything for her, just this once.

I served three years in federal prison for the Don's precious Sophia, and then he suddenly fell for me. The day he came to pick me up, he had a sapphire necklace ready, the kind I'd begged him for once and never got. I dropped it onto the back seat without a second glance. His expression darkened. "If you have something to say, just say it. Don't take it out on things." I smiled. "Three years inside taught me never to keep anything valuable on me. It would only bring trouble." He swallowed hard and pulled me close. "That's over now. You have me. Whatever you want, I'll get it for you." I pushed him back. "Then give me my wedding ring." I'd told him once: if the day ever came that I was leaving, I'd take that ring with me. Three years had been more than enough to kill whatever love I had left.

Ten rounds of IVF. That’s what it took to have a baby with my boyfriend, Cormac Brown, the Godfather. On the tenth try, I finally got pregnant. Triplets. I was crying with joy, about to tell him, when I got a call from a woman claiming to be me from the future. Her voice was hoarse, exhausted. “Don’t have those kids!” “Cormac doesn’t love you. He’ll dump you the second they’re born, and your career will be over!” I thought it was a sick joke. How could Cormac not love me? Until I heard him talking to one of his men. “Godfather, aren’t you worried Miss Victoria will find out you secretly swapped her eggs for Bianca’s?” “And the doctor said her body can’t handle triplets. It could kill her.” Through the crack in the door, I saw Cormac’s face, cold and emotionless. “Her being weak after having triplets is the only way Bianca gets the lead in that Hollywood movie.” “The day Victoria gives birth, I’m proposing to Bianca.” “And Victoria? She’s just the incubator.” Standing outside, I clamped a hand over my mouth, choking back a sob. Once I calmed down, I called my agent. “I’ll take the role. I’ll be at the movie’s press conference in a week.”

When mafia heir Alaric Gallo had nothing but a dying legacy and a target on his back, I became his wife. I gave him everything. My fortune. My loyalty. I destroyed myself trying to have his baby. Even when I couldn't, he swore a blood oath in my ear. He would love me until death. So when he begged me to sign a "fake divorce" to hide from our enemies, I believed him. Without a second thought. Until I came home early one day. I found another woman in our bed... wearing the silk robe Alaric bought for me. And Alaric was inside her, mocking me. "Alessia, that sweet, stupid, infertile girl. She believes anything I say. She already signed the papers. In a few days, I'll marry you." The sickest part? The woman moaning under him wasn't just a stripper from his club. She was the mother of his secret son. Overnight, my perfect marriage became a joke. The laughingstock of the Chicago underworld. Alaric thought I was weak. A pushover. He thought I'd take his pathetic hush money, cry in a corner, and disappear from his world. He was wrong. Because I'm not just Alessia Ricci. I am Alessia Rinaldi. The hidden heir to Chicago's most powerful syndicate. Alaric wanted a fake divorce. Now, he's going to lose everything. For real.

We'd been together seven years before Damian Caruso finally agreed to the wedding. Inside St. Patrick's Cathedral, I stood at the aisle in a lace gown, surrounded by the most dangerous mafia elders from New York and New Jersey. Three minutes, and the Don would take his vows and take over the rest of my life. Then he answered a phone call. "Bella got into a car accident. In Brooklyn." Bella. The orphan of a dead servant. The "life debt" Damian owed her. Her needs always came before mine. When a gun was to my head, he was at her therapy. When I nearly went into shock from fever, he missed my call because he was staying the night with Bella, who's afraid of the dark. Now, at our vows, Damian turned to the priest. "Apologies. Something's come up. The wedding is postponed." The room erupted. Young lieutenants laughed openly, their whispers crawling up the aisle. "$100,000 says our future Donna lets the Don go to Bella. She's been trained too well." Damian heard them. His head snapped toward the row of young lieutenants, and the laughter died instantly. No one moved. No one breathed. He turned to the priest. "Apologies. Something's come up. The wedding is postponed." Then he saw me. Something flickered in his eyes—not guilt, not hesitation. Just the calm expectation of a man who had never once doubted I would still be there when he returned. He draped his coat over my shoulders. "Viola, I have to go. You've always been the sensible one. As future Donna, you know how to handle this. Don't let them make a joke of us." Yeah. I used to be so "sensible." For seven years, I swallowed every grievance and cleaned up his messes. "Go. I'll wait here." My voice was calm. He nodded, satisfied, and strode out. The bells rang seven times—seven years of me bleeding for him. When the seventh fell, his car had vanished around the corner. And with it, the last of my hope. Damian thought I'd be waiting, like always. But this time, I was done.

My anxiety spiked during our wedding photoshoot. A sharp pain stabbed through my chest. My fiancé, Caius—the Falcone family heir—was helping his adoptive sister, Fiorella, try on my wedding dress. He didn't even spare me a glance. He was on one knee, focused on adjusting the lace on Fiorella’s hem. Before we’d even left the shop, Fiorella posted a selfie in the dress. She was all smiles, my fiancé standing beside her, posed like her groom. Calmly, I pulled out my phone. I sent a message to a painter I keep on retainer. "A royal portrait. The two of them. Old-world style. Use the cheapest materials you can find. I want the frame dripping with fake diamonds. Make it look like trash." I'll have it sent to Fiorella. A wedding present. The note will be simple. "A work of art as priceless as your bond. Best wishes on your wedding."

My name is Elena Valesi Moretti. I'm a Brooklyn mob bride, a pawn in everyone's game. My father Enzo traded me for an alliance. My sister Isabella played the saint while secretly selling our baby sister Sofia to the Bianchi family behind closed doors. And my husband, Dante Moretti—the man with winter in his eyes who whispered “Try to run, I’ll break your legs” on our wedding day—he married me because when I was fifteen years old, I once pointed a gun at him inside a burning building. The only rule in this marriage was simple: stay out of his way. I spent three years breaking it. I sat in on council meetings and memorized every traitor's secret. I stood and watched a man's finger be severed to teach my own brother the price of betrayal. I turned myself into a blade. Then I uncovered the truth—Dante knew everything from the start. He knew my father had planted a mole inside his inner circle. He knew my sister was a trafficker's broker. He knew the woman he married was meant to be disposable from the very beginning. But there's one thing he never accounted for. He didn't marry a lamb. He married a wolf who learned how to draw blood. Now someone is trying to sell my little sister, and I have six weeks to stop it. I'm going to beat this man at every game he ever taught me.

Everyone who has ever met me says no man could possibly resist me. It is because I am a natural seductress. My hourglass figure is too sensual to even hide. But my fiancé, Enzo Vitale, the Don of the Vitale family, is the exception. He dislikes my full lips and my curving hips. Not only that, he thinks my ample chest and narrow waist lack dignity and elegance. He says everything about me screams promiscuity, and that I am like a flirtatious prostitute, making me unfit to be his wife. So, he brings in the strictest etiquette mentore from Cicaro to teach me proper manners. I study diligently for an entire year, but I still fail to become the perfect wife he wants. When he once again complains that I am too seductive and improper, even going so far as to threaten to break off our engagement, I grow tired of it all. I say, "Then let's cancel our engagement."

Five years ago, my family died in a car crash. My parents. My adopted sister, Liz. Everyone but me. They left behind grief, an empty house, and a debt so large it swallowed my life. When the collectors came, I turned to the only person I had left—my husband, Adrian. He told me he had cut ties with his own family to marry me and had nothing left. I believed him. For five years, I worked every job I could find, paid every dollar I earned, and told myself love was worth the suffering. When the balance dropped to its final $18,000, I signed up for a paid drug trial at a private clinic. They handed me a waiver, warned me about possible delayed reactions, and promised fast money if I swallowed the experimental dose. I thought it would buy us a new beginning. Instead, I came home early and heard Adrian on the phone. “Let Liz use the card. Evelyn still doesn’t know. She took away Liz’s money five years ago, so she has to earn every dollar back herself.” Then he laughed softly. “One more year, and her punishment is over.” That was how I learned the dead were alive. The debt was fake. My husband had never been poor. And the life I had fought so hard to survive was only a sentence they had given me.

The night before my wedding, my drink was spiked with an aphrodisiac. In my past life, I pinpointed my fiancé, Cassius, in the crowded room. We spent a passionate night together, and the wedding went off without a hitch the next day. I thought I had chosen happiness. That was until his assistant, Valerie, died in a yacht explosion. He went insane, pushed me off a cliff, and roared, "Valerie and I had a pact! I was supposed to leave the day before the wedding to travel the world with her! If you hadn't clung to me all night, I wouldn't have missed it, and she wouldn't be dead!" When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the night I was drugged. This time, I threw myself into the arms of Cassius's twin brother, Saul. I whimpered, "Baby, I feel so hot." Seeing the visible relief on Cassius's face, I sneered inwardly. He didn't know yet—the old Godfather had promised me that whoever became my husband would inherit the title of Godfather. In this life, I didn't want Cassius anymore. And he could kiss the Godfather title goodbye, too.

My mom passed away when I was twelve, leaving everything she had to me. My dad cried at her bedside, swearing he'd never remarry and that he'd take care of me no matter what. But six months later, my stepmother moved into the villa my mom had left me, with her daughter. She told me, "I'll love you like you're my own." It didn't take long before my room, my clothes, everything, was taken over by her daughter. I got shipped off to a boarding school and was only allowed home on weekends. That went on for four years. After my father had been away on business for months, her abuse only got worse. She even tried to make me take the fall for her daughter. When I refused, she locked me in the basement and left me there to die. I fought with everything I had, found the old phone my mom had left behind, and called my grandfather. On the other end of the line, his voice was pure fury: "No one messes with a granddaughter of the Moretti family!"

I was eight months pregnant when I slipped in the bathroom. I lay bleeding on the floor, unable to move. My Apple Watch sent a fall alert to my husband, Gabriel, the mafia don. I waited on the cold tiles for forty minutes. He never came. A maid bringing my dinner heard me calling for help. She called the guards, who broke down the door and rushed me to the hospital. When Gabriel arrived, he held my hand. “I’m sorry, Nora. I won’t let this happen to you or our baby again. I promise.” After I came home, he replaced the tiles in every bathroom so I wouldn’t slip again. Everyone said he loved me more than anything. But we both knew where he’d been during those forty minutes. He was at his late brother’s wife Celeste’s house, taking care of her son, Aaron. Before I fell, he’d sent me a text. “Aaron fell. I need to go check on him.” When my alert came through, he tapped to confirm he’d seen it. Then he went back to cleaning his nephew’s scraped knee. He thought I’d forgive him like I always did. A month later, he was about to name Aaron his heir until our son was old enough to take over. He sent the butler to bring us down for the announcement. The butler returned with divorce papers. “Don, I’m afraid Donna has already left for Zurich.”