Plot Twists Mafia の短編小説 &BiasRegret小説

After three years together, my boyfriend, Walker Ashford, proposed. But right after that, he got cold feet. At our wedding photo shoot, Walker buried his face against my best friend Anna Benedict's shoulder. "The way Valentina looks at me freaks me out," he said. At the jewelry shop, he grabbed Anna's hand and refused to let go. None of it made sense. But my future mother-in-law, Judith Ashford, pulled me aside. "Valentina, why not let Anna take your place in the photos? We can put you in later." Walker's sister, Emma Ashford, pushed Anna forward. "She has better taste. Let her pick the ring for you." I swallowed my hurt and watched in silence as they took my wedding photos and picked out my ring for me. Under the lights, the diamonds glittered so brightly they hurt my eyes. I was about to postpone the wedding when I overheard Judith say to my best friend, "Anna, having Walker pretend to get cold feet was a smart move. Otherwise, how could you two have a wedding of your own without Valentina finding out?" Emma curled her lip. "Valentina is an idiot. She believes everything we tell her." Walker sighed and stroked Anna's hair. "Anna is sick. It's her wish to marry me. If Valentina weren't so controlling, I wouldn't have to keep this wedding a secret from her. Anna gets the wedding. Valentina gets the legal marriage. Sounds fair to me." So that was it. Walker had never gotten cold feet. They had made up the whole thing to fool me. I was done with their lies. I decided to return to Florence and take back my life as a mafia princess. "Dad, I'll marry whoever you choose."

I was once Fiona's consigliere. I put the Falcone Family in her hands，helping her become the untouchable Don. And when a rival family put out a hit, I took the car bomb meant for her. It cost me my eyes. She knelt by my hospital bed and swore a blood oath. She would be my eyes. I would be her only husband. Later, after an operation by a top surgeon, my eyes recovered. I couldn't wait to rush home to surprise her. But when I pushed open the door, I saw her tangled together with Leo, her bodyguard, on the desk I had custom-made for her. Fiona was pressed against Leo in revealing clothing, her face flushed. Crumpled white tissues littered the floor. Between ragged breaths, she called Leo’s name repeatedly. "Fiona, why are you still keeping that useless blind fuck around? Let me take care of him for you." "Leo, shut up. I need more time. Now, get inside me. That's all that matters." The Chicago winter rain was bone-chilling that night. I completely gave up. After walking out of the house in just my shirt, I pulled out my phone and booked a one-way ticket to Sicily. I will cut ties completely with this family and with her.

The heir to the New York mafia family, the Donovitch crime family, chose me as a potential fiancée candidate. But I refused to become his wife and the future Madre of the Donovitch family. Because in my previous life, he missed the desperate call from his childhood sweetheart on our wedding night. That led to the sweetheart being killed by a Mexican cartel in revenge. He vented all his frustration on me, using sulfuric acid to disfigure me, tearing off my limbs. He tormented me for five long years. Finally, he used the punishment method for a traitor to stuff me into a gasoline barrel and burn me alive. In this life, I will definitely change my destiny. He has a thing for his stepsister, so I'll let them have each other. But this time, that cold and arrogant man ends up crying and begging me to come back.

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."

Married seven years, and after my husband Nathaniel broke another promise to me over his new assistant, I set a glass jar on my nightstand. Every time he broke a promise, I dropped a coin inside. Ten disappointments. That was the final line I drew for myself. The first coin was for the anniversary he forgot entirely, all for her birthday. The third coin was for the date night he promised me, then turned around and took his men to clear out a whole venue for her birthday party. The sixth coin was for the time I got shot by accident, and he just told me to bandage it myself while he carried her into the hospital in his arms. By the ninth coin, Nathaniel finally noticed the jar. He picked it up, gave it a shake, and joked: "Audrey, this is dangerous. The last one, you have to remind me. I can't lose you." So when the tenth time came around, I made a point of reminding him before I left. Our seventh wedding anniversary. Nathaniel promised he'd be home before eleven. At eleven-thirty, Victoria sent me a photo. Nathaniel, sitting in the pet ER with her ragdoll cat in his arms, still wearing the shirt I'd ironed for him that morning. Then she sent a voice message. "It's your anniversary today, Don. If you don't head back soon, that coin jar on Donna's nightstand is going to be completely full." On the other end, Nathaniel laughed. "So what if it's full? She's not going anywhere." "I gave her power, status, gave her everything. She's crazy about me. You think she'd dare leave?" A two-second pause in the recording. Victoria let out a dry laugh. "Really?" I laughed too. I loved him too much, so I was willing to put up with anything. But in the end, that just became something he took for granted. I slid the diamond ring off my ring finger and placed it in an envelope, along with ten cold coins. Nathaniel, there really was no "us" anymore.

This was my eighth life. In the first seven, I died horribly because nobody ever noticed me. Every time, I screamed for help at the top of my lungs. No one ever heard me. So this time, I decided to stop fighting and just wait to die. When I was six, people from a rival family kidnapped me and stuffed me into the trunk of a car. I got comfortable and fell asleep. When the kidnappers opened the trunk, they thought I'd suffocated. They panicked, dumped me by the side of the road, and ran. A cop found me on an old mattress at the dump. I waved him off. "Don't bother with an ambulance. Just call a hearse. And hurry." At 17, my birth parents found me. On the way to the Carlisle estate, I climbed into the trunk like a pro. My mother, Isabella Carlisle, pulled me out, heartbroken. "You poor thing. What have you been through all these years?" "It's fine, Mother. I'm going to die sooner or later anyway." My father, Vincent Carlisle, slammed his hand on the steering wheel. "Stop talking nonsense! You're a Carlisle princess. Nobody would dare hurt you!" But the second we got home, Gianna Carlisle, the girl they'd raised as their own, pretended to slip and came flying at me.

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."

Five years into our secret marriage, Alex finally agreed to give me a wedding. But the day before the ceremony, I was the one who called it off. The Castellano Family butler asked me, stunned, "Ma'am, the ceremony is tomorrow. Are you sure you don't want to wait for Mr. Castellano to come home?" I picked up my packed suitcase. My voice came out light, almost relieved. "He isn't coming. Right now he's in a church in New York, saying his vows with his adopted sister."

My seventh year with Luca Bellini coincided with the launch of the Santa Lucia. The South Docks were packed with Bellini relatives, district bosses, and merchants who did business with the Family. Everyone knew I had been by Luca's side from the days when he was just a small-time enforcer collecting protection money at the fish market, all the way to his rise as head of the South Docks. Everyone assumed the launch of this new ship would finally make my place at his side official. Luca stood before the gleaming black hull and raised his glass with a smile. "I've had my eye on this ship for three months. Years ago, I made a girl a promise. Today, I'm giving her the ship and keeping that promise." I clutched the Family silver ring I had just taken from the safe, my heart pounding so hard I could barely hear the ceremonial cannon fire. He had never told me he was going to announce our engagement today, but I had been by his side since I was eighteen. I'd helped him check his first set of off-the-books ledgers, negotiate the deal for his first beachfront hotel, and survive more close calls than I could count over those seven years. Wasn't this the moment I'd been waiting for? Luca took the silver key from the host and looked at the crowd. I had barely stepped forward when Sophia Costa, dressed in white, rushed into his arms and took the key from him. She was the girl Luca had loved when he was young but could never have. She was the only daughter of one of the Family's longtime advisers. Two weeks ago, the heir of a wealthy East Coast businessman had dumped her, and she'd returned to Gray Harbor. Luca put an arm around her as the crowd toasted them. He glanced at me for a moment, then looked away as if I were just another bookkeeper. I stared at the ship's reflection on the water and laughed. Then I texted my mother, "You said Matteo from the Ricci shipyard wanted to meet me. Tell him I said yes."

I was engaged to Silas, Don of the Vance Famiglia, yet in the annual family portrait, I was shoved into the back corner. Standing right beside him was Camilla, his most trusted Capo. He sighed impatiently. "We have plenty of photos together, Scarlett. Missing one won't kill you. You're the future Donna. Stop being so petty." I swallowed my pride and gave up my spot. But my compromise bought me nothing. The necklace meant for me ended up around Camilla's neck. His plus-one to galas became Camilla. His excuse was always the same: "She's a vital part of the syndicate. You shouldn't compete with her." So, I gave him exactly what he wanted. I stopped being petty. I shredded the wedding planner I had poured my heart into, trashed our photos, and left New York for good. And suddenly, the cold, calculating Don was tearing the city apart looking for me.

My husband Matteo is the Don of the Moretti family, the kind of man who makes everyone bow their heads. Except when it comes to Chiara, his genius hacker of an adopted sister. She's the one person he can't control. At least, that's what he's always told me. One causes trouble, the other cleans it up. They've been doing it for five years. Until she tampered with my brake system. The car crashed. I nearly died. He didn't show up at the hospital the entire time I was in surgery. After it was over, he rushed in to explain: "Don't blame Chiara. She just thought it'd be fun. She wasn't really trying to kill you." "She knew I'd set you up with the best medical team. She was only trying to scare you." He'd barely finished signing the papers when his assistant told him Chiara was being harassed at a bar. And Matteo rushed off again. What he didn't know was that because of this crash, we'd lost the baby we'd been longing for. But he didn't need to know. In seven days, I was going back to my own family.

For six years, I used countless offshore trusts and hidden laundering pipelines for Dominic. I turned him from an East Side underboss into the undisputed king of New York's underworld. Then came our wedding anniversary. He got attacked. He woke up remembering nothing about me. I searched frantically for the family doctor to find a cure. That same night, I walked in on him. He had his newly hooked-up art curator, Sienna, pinned against the floor-to-ceiling window, taking her from behind. She moaned breathlessly, begging for power. Dominic gripped her jaw, laughing in her face. "Relax. I put on this trauma amnesia act. I told them my brain got rattled and I only know you as my wife. It gives me an excuse to strip Camilla of her financial power and lend it to you for a few days. She won't even have a reason to throw a fit. Look at her. Didn't she fall for it today?" The next morning at the family round table, he put on his little show without blinking an eye. Right in front of the council, he slammed the table and swore he didn't know me. With his own hands, he ripped the black diamond signet ring of the matriarch off my finger and shoved it onto his new girl's hand. He ordered me out of the inner circle. A room full of armed outlaws waited to laugh at my breakdown. I didn't even twitch an eyebrow. I gave up all my authority on the spot, turned around, and walked downstairs. Dominic assumed I was blind to his game. He still thought I was the obedient tool on call, waiting for him to snap his fingers once his memory came back in a few days to coax me back home. He had no idea. The St. Petersburg godfather pushed a sixty-million-dollar high-purity diamond wash onto us. The drop deadline hits in three days. That lockbox and darknet routing recognize my voiceprint alone. Without me holding the line, those accounts are the death warrant for the entire Corvin family.

The day Joss Carver was named the next Don of the Holden family, his childhood sweetheart Lydia Moss showed up. After that, I lost the little home Joss and I shared because Lydia needed a place to stay. Our dates were canceled, and our wedding was postponed, all because Lydia needed someone to look after her. In the end, Joss gave Lydia the top score I'd earned on the Mafia Commission's selection exam and the risk analyst job that came with it. He explained it to me like it was nothing. "You're Viscount Girard's daughter. You'll have plenty of other chances. But Lydia's an orphan. She needs this job more. "Once she's settled in, I'll come to your family and ask for your hand." I looked at him, and my gaze slowly cooled. He was right about one thing: as Viscount Girard's daughter, I had other options. Rigel Norton, the new Don of the Norton family, was young and successful, and he wanted a marriage alliance. I didn't have to cling to a love that had gone sour and keep swallowing my pride.

My fiancé stood me up at our rehearsal dinner at the Sterling family estate. Just before midnight, I got a message from Miles. Kate's pregnant. It's not my kid. But I have to marry her. The kid needs the Sterling name to be seen as legitimate. Our wedding is off for the next three years. We have to keep our distance until then. You need to handle the Alliance elders. Whatever you do, protect Kate from them. Tell everyone you're the one who called it off. I stared at the screen and typed back a single word. Fine. I was done with him. I never wanted to marry him in the first place.

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

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?

I've always been lucky. I grew up in foster care, but every family I was placed with was either rich or powerful. Later, two of the wealthiest families around even took me in, both convinced I was their biological daughter. The first was the Kennedy family, an old aristocratic house. Their fake daughter, Sophia Kennedy, was an expert at framing people. Whenever she accused me of something, I'd happily take the blame, but my new parents never believed I'd done it. In the end, I got all the designer goods and even a share of the family profits. The second was the Percival family, a financial dynasty. Their fake daughter, Scarlett Percival, was a master at playing the victim. She played the victim, and I gave it right back. Somehow, every new piece of evidence ended up proving me right. My new parents felt so guilty that they gave me a trust fund and property after property. Two families claimed me as their long-lost daughter, and both times, I walked away unscathed. The two fake heiresses, however, ended up disgraced and ruined. The third time, a DNA test finally revealed the truth: I was the long-lost daughter of Don Bertoni. On my first night at the estate, Jennifer Bertoni—the girl who'd been living in my place for eighteen years—clutched her chest and collapsed at my feet, her face deathly pale. "Sis, I was born with an irregular heartbeat. I could drop dead at any moment." "I've been living your life, and that's on me. If you blame me for it, I'll go and die right now." My birth mother wrapped her arms protectively around Jennifer and glared at me. My brother, Adrian Bertoni, slammed his fist down on the coffee table, his eyes cold and vicious. "Jennifer's been sick her whole life. Can't you cut her some slack?" Even Bryce Sedgwick, the arms dealer I was engaged to, turned cold. "Upset Jennifer again, and the Bertonis can forget about this month's weapons deal. Consider it canceled." I crouched beside her and gently wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Don't be sill

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.

I spent eight years raising Dante's children. Three of them, and every single one belonged to him and his arranged wife Bianca. Not one was mine. I fought against it. I really did. But the Costello family needed heirs, and my background was too ordinary. The family would never accept me. Dante always had something to say about it. "Nora, once Bianca has the baby, I'll take you to the States. You can go to art school, open your own gallery. It's what your mother always wanted, isn't it?" Then Bianca had a son, and suddenly the family needed a daughter too, someone they could marry off to another faction. When the daughter came, the elders stepped in and said the mob was a bloody business and you needed enough children to guarantee the line would continue. Eight years. I went from Dante's lover to something worse than a servant. Then I got pregnant. I was so happy I could barely breathe when I told him. I thought this baby would finally be our way out. But there was no smile on his face. Just a look that was pained and apologetic, like he already knew what he was going to say. "Nora, you don't have a place in this family. Neither does your child. He'd disrupt the line of succession. We can't let him be born." I pressed my hand to my stomach, just barely starting to show. Hot tears hit the floor. Fine. If we couldn't leave together, I would leave alone.

In New York's Cosa Nostra, girls were lining up to marry Matteo Rinaldi. The Don’s heir. My sister, Stella, and I both attended the selection gala. Stella was the favorite. The future Donna. But she wasn't chosen. The family swarmed her. Comforting her. I stood in the corner with the diamond ring in my hand. The one from Matteo. I wanted to tell them. He chose me. But the words wouldn't come out. Because a nightmare had just flashed through my mind. A vision of my future. In that vision, I told them everything that Matteo picked me. Stella, humiliated, bought a ticket to Europe the next day. I married Matteo. But my family wasn't happy for me. They saw me in my wedding dress at the church. Their first words: "If you hadn't stolen Matteo, Stella would still be here. She wouldn't be suffering in Europe." Later, Stella met Nolan in Europe. The Pakhan of the Russian Bratva. The Rinaldi family's mortal enemy. My parents used me. They spied on the Rinaldis, feeding intel to Stella to help her marry Nolan. Matteo found out. He called me a traitor. Threw me in a dungeon. Ruined my face. I finally escaped. I begged my parents to save me. But they were gone. They had a new life in Russia. That's when I knew they never loved me. And now, I clutched the ring in my hand. A bitter taste in my mouth. I'll give the ring back. I’m not marrying into the Rinaldi family. If they never loved me, then I’m gone for good.