Bias Mafia の短編小説 & 小説

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 I'm supposed to try on my wedding dress, Don Aldo Vitale gets the time wrong again. By the time he finally gets to the bridal boutique, I have already chosen my dress. Just like always, Aldo apologizes without thinking. "I've been really busy lately. I hope you understand." But over the past few years, Aldo's taken his childhood sweetheart and assistant, Isabella Berardi, to more than 100 cities for business. He's never forgotten a single flight, meeting, or business dinner. In contrast, Aldo's always forgetting things when it comes to me. I calmly hand the wedding dress back to the sales associate. "It's fine. My friend already helped me pick out a dress. No point in coming here for nothing." Aldo lets out a sigh of relief, but he still looks a little uneasy. After all, everyone knows me as his clingy girlfriend who can't live without him. In the past, I would have been clinging to him, sobbing and throwing a fit out of jealousy. Aldo holds me in his arms. "Babe, you're really starting to act like the perfect wife. I heard from the butler that you went on a trip. Where did you go?" "I went to Sirdon." I calmly pull away from him. "I went there while you were on the flight to Dubmont." Aldo freezes. One of the things Aldo promises is to take me to the City of Light when he first tells me he loves me. He's always saying he'll take me there when he gets the chance. Three years go by. Then four. Even after getting engaged, he keeps putting it off, always using work as an excuse. Then, Aldo takes Isabella to a new city for another business trip. I've been with Aldo for five years. I suddenly grow tired of waiting for him. If he can't keep the promises he's made to me, I'll fulfill them myself.

My family is part of New York's Mafia, and we live by one rule: anyone still unmarried at 30 must accept a match arranged by the family. When I told my boyfriend of ten years, Klaus Brenner, about the rule, he finally agreed to a public engagement. I thought the man who had once taken a beating to protect me was about to become my husband. I thought my life was in my own hands at last. But when it was time for us to kiss at the engagement party, everything changed. In front of every guest, Klaus pulled Linda Moreau, the new designer, into his arms and kissed her without hesitation. Linda blushed bright red. The room erupted. "What kind of backward family in New York still arranges marriages? What century are we in?" He sneered. "Rebecca, I'll marry you someday. But not now, and certainly not because you cornered me into it." I stared at the smug look on his face and felt the last of my love turn cold. I slid the ring off my finger and tossed it to Linda. "Keep it. I don't want him anymore. He's all yours." What he didn't know was that the so-called old rule came from Vittorio Rota, the most ruthless of the five Dons who led New York's Mafia families. And the man I was being forced to marry was Ian Castellano, the heir apparent to New York's underworld.

My fiance, Luca Rossi, cuts off my finger with a cigar cutter to seize Ossuary Signet, my famiglia heirloom. Afterward, he parades it like a trophy and slips the ring onto the finger of Sofia Constanzo, the heiress of the Constanzo famiglia. He mocks me openly. "An orphan like you has no right to wear the ring meant for the future Donna of the Rossi famiglia." Sofia lifts her hand to flaunt the ring, feigning concern as she says, "Alessia, don't be angry. At worst, I will have Luca compensate you with a golden finger later." Everyone present watches me as a joke, yet I laugh out loud. I wipe away my tears and start to applaud. "Congratulations, Luca. You traded one of my fingers for the Rossi famiglia's one and only lifeline." I look at his stunned expression and smile cruelly. "Do you think it's just a ring? No. It is the sole key to unlock the billions in assets under my name. The moment it leaves my hand, the Rossi famiglia begins its countdown to bankruptcy and liquidation."

When I drink the amber-colored poisonous wine, I can hear the joyful melody of a toast song coming from the manor. The wedding between Emanuela Romano and my ex-fiance, Benedetto Martini, is being held there right now. The elderly butler, Vincenzo Romano, puts away the wine glass with a blank expression. The way he speaks is as somber as one sounds when they give a speech at a funeral. "You know the Don's will very well, Ms. Andreotti. Five years are officially up, yet neither Mr. Andreotti, Mr. Martini, nor Dr. Foscari is willing to pledge their loyalty to you via the blood vow. According to the rules, you must take your own life within seven days. "The Don had left the Ashwine to you as a means of protecting… what little pride you have." Scorching pain begins spreading from my throat. I just smile at Vincenzo in return. Pride? Does a bastard spawn of a loose Iernian woman deserve to retain pride of any sort in the cruel Andreotti family? I begin making my way toward the banquet hall, which is brightly lit. As I walk past the shimmering waters of the pond in the family garden, I can tell that the waters are insanely cold. Then again, nothing is as cold as my icy heart right now. After taking a deep breath, I fall face-first into the pond… only to feel an iron-clad grip wrenching me backward. As such, I collapse onto the lawn heavily. My older brother, Alessandro Andreotti, has bits of grass covering his expensive suit. Disgust is written all over his handsome face. "Eva!" he grits out through his teeth, his voice lowered. "Must you spoil the mood on Emanuela's big day?" He then scoots closer to me, his alcohol-tinged breath fanning over my face. "You want to die, huh? Go ahead and do that, but can you die somewhere further? Don't stain the Andreotti land!" Alessandro turns to walk in the direction of the radiant lights, leaving me on the lawn, completely covered in mud. I can feel the countdown of my lifespan burning my insides. Seven days… I only have seven days to live. Meanwhile, my very own brother wants me to die somewhere further away.

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.

When Matteo Morandi divided up the territories, he let my cousin, Chloe Serra, choose first. As always. One was the deep-water port, a gold mine and our safest territory. The other was a stretch of abandoned, crumbling docks in the slums, where rival crews often traded gunfire. For the first time, I stepped forward before Chloe could choose. I pointed to the deep-water port on the map. "I want this one." Matteo rested a warm hand on my shoulder. His voice was gentle, but his words were cruel. "Chloe can't handle the slums. She needs to be in the safest place we've got. "Celia, the slums are more your speed." I was so angry I laughed out loud, but I didn't argue. Instead, my clenched fists slowly loosened. My uncle, Enzo Serra, liked to say Chloe was the Serra family's precious white dove, while I was the vicious dog born to fight in the mud. In his eyes, it was the perfect arrangement. The marriage alliance worked the same way. Matteo needed a respectable woman at his side to clean up his brutal reputation, so Chloe was the obvious choice. But Chloe cried and refused. She dreamed of an artist and a life in the sunshine. She would never marry a Sicilian butcher. So Uncle Enzo picked me. I'd taken a bullet for Matteo and known him for 12 years, yet I was still only ever his second choice. "Then give it all to Chloe. I'm done."

All I did was reach for a pastry Lila had her eye on, and my childhood sweetheart Luca, the Don's heir of Galvani family, had me thrown in the estate cellar for three days and three nights. His voice was as cold. "I've told you before, Lila is like a sister to me. Why can't you just let her be?" This time I didn't cry or beg. I just looked at him. I had been half out of my mind over this man for more than a decade. I had even slashed my own wrist in front of his father, just to force him into marrying me. Luca looked at me like he was disappointed all over again. "With a temper like yours, how could you ever be the Donna of Galvani family?" "Get down to the cellar and think about what you've done. Come back when you've come to your senses." Then, as if he couldn't quite help himself, he dropped his voice: "Look, as long as you come around and stop making Lila's life difficult, everything goes back to how it was. Okay?" I clenched my jaw. It felt like a blade pressed against my chest. "Okay," I said. Next month, the Don of the Ferrara family will marry me as his Donna. This time, I am done with Luca.

My Don husband, just to indulge his little mistress's fantasy of playing Don's wife, pretended to have lost his memory at sea and tried to push me out of the family. By chance, I overheard his mistress teasing him: "Can I borrow Don's wife for a few days? And… Can I borrow the Don too?" My husband, all smiles and indulgence, replied, "Of course. Both are yours for a few days." I froze for a moment, then turned away, pretending it did not bother me. The next day, at the family meeting, he announced that his mistress was then his wife, ordered me out of the family business, and demanded I hand over every ounce of authority I held. The elders all turned to me, silently hoping I would defy his ridiculous decree. I said nothing. I handed over the keys and authority without a word. However, he did not know that our next arms deal was just nine days away, and the other party was Amestia's most powerful mafia, the Romano family. They dealt with no one but me.

On my five-hundred-and-twentieth flight into Chicago, my boyfriend finally came to the airport for me. He held a bouquet of air-flown Blue Moon roses, and the diamond ring inside the velvet box caught the terminal lights. The moment he dropped to one knee, I heard the shocked gasps around us. “Eliana Lowe,” he said, his gray-blue eyes lifted to mine. “Marry me.” My fingers tightened around the handle of my suitcase. I held out my hand, my voice already shaking. "Luca, we--" The ring had barely slid over my finger when Luca laughed. He wasn't looking at me anymore. He was looking over my shoulder at the row of black SUVs idling by the curb. "Told you she'd say yes. Hand over the key to Warehouse Three." Laughter burst from the SUVs. Luca's circle spilled into view: casino managers, dock supervisors, rich kids who lived off the Moretti name, and Vivian Gray at the front in pale fur, laughing hard enough to wipe at the corner of her eye. “No wonder she stayed at your heels for ten years. If I had a pet this obedient, I wouldn’t have the heart to throw it out either.” Luca smiled and patted my head soothingly.“Eliana, it was just a joke. Don't be angry. I’ll make it up to you later.” I looked at the ring on my finger, then at the people laughing behind him. For ten years, I had played along with his games. This time, I didn’t want to anymore.

I've been married to Sylvia Fuller, a mafia donna, for ten years. I'm there with her in every life-and-death situation. My hands, which are meant for playing the piano, have developed calluses from using guns. They are also stained with blood from the enemies. But when Sylvia turns 28, she falls head over heels in love with Wilson Hink, the young man she's brought back from the slums. Sylvia has hidden him very well… right until the moment I bump into him accompanying her to a prenatal check-up. Mad with jealousy, I demand Sylvia for answers, but she just passes me a divorce agreement in a lackadaisical manner. "Wilson is a man of religion. He can't sire a child without getting married, so I have to give him a legitimate status. Sign this agreement, and I'll give you 40% of my shares." I refuse to give my position away, so Sylvia keeps forcing my hand. In the end, she even kidnaps my younger brother, who's paralyzed from waist down, and drags him to the spot beneath a hydraulic press. "Sebastian Chance, either you sign the agreement, or watch him get crushed. Your choice." I kneel on the ground and beg Sylvia to stop. But soon, I hear the hydraulic press being activated. It doesn't take long before I'm completely covered in my brother's flesh and blood. I end up collapsing onto the gore-splattered ground. When I open my eyes again, I realize I've gone back in time—back to the time when Wilson has accompanied Sylvia to the prenatal check-up. This time, I don't say anything. Instead, I contact a rehabilitation center located overseas before filing for a divorce and leaving Sylvia behind. But once I'm gone for real, Sylvia actually goes crazy.

During an argument with my fiancé, he lost his temper and slapped me across the face in front of the entire family and guests. That same day, I called off the engagement and blocked him on every last platform so that he could not reach me. No one could believe it. After all, we grew up together. Everyone knew I had been in love with him since we were kids, and we were supposed to get married right after college. He just stood there, looking lost. "Why, Gia? Over a slap?" I held his gaze. "Sì. Over a slap."

I used to think that what Derek Shelby and I had could survive any test of trust. Then an ambush at the docks nearly wiped out the Shelby family. Vincent Shelby, the old Don, survived an assassination attempt but was left in a coma. Everyone said I was the one who'd leaked Vincent's whereabouts. So the night before our wedding, Derek himself dragged me out of the fitting room in my wedding dress and forced me to my knees. His eyes were bloodshot as he demanded, "Sylvia Loren, I offered to make you the Donna. Why did you betray the Shelby family?" I tried desperately to explain, but he didn't believe a word. For the next ten years, he kept me alive but trapped in his territory, punishing me relentlessly. Then Vincent woke from his coma, and everyone waited for him to condemn me himself. But he struggled to grab Derek's hand and said hoarsely, "Where's Sylvia? She didn't betray the Shelby family. "Back then, she risked her life to warn me there was a mole in the family. "If it weren't for her, I would've died on those docks!" Derek froze. The color slowly drained from his face. Only three months earlier, he'd casually handed me over to the most vicious fighter in the underground ring.

In the Santoro family, there was one rule: the heir marries a daughter from another powerful Family. But Alessio Santoro was crazy. He wanted to marry me, a nobody from a flower shop. He knelt in the family chapel for ten days straight. He even took a bullet fired by his own father, the Don. All just to walk away from his title and run away with me. I held him, crying, begging him to stop. He just smiled and kissed my eyes, wiping my tears. "Don't cry, Thea. As long as I can marry you, it's all worth it." In the end, the Santoros relented. But they had one condition: Alessio would still produce the next heir. Just not with me. He had to have a son with Aurelia Rossi. So I endured. I endured listening to them through the wall, night after agonizing night. I endured the smell of her perfume on his skin, the sight of her marks on his neck every time he kissed me. A year later, Aurelia got pregnant. It was a girl. Alessio begged me, his eyes red. "Just a little longer, Thea." So I waited another year. Finally, news came. Aurelia was pregnant with a boy. I thought we could finally leave, finally be free. But then disaster struck. Aurelia’s daughter had a sudden, violent allergic reaction. Everyone blamed me. They threw me in the cellar and left me to die. And Alessio? He believed them. This time, I was the one who gave up. I walked away from everything.

On the night the family manor was set on fire, my husband Don Luciano Cacciola whisked Loretta Peri away. "Be a good girl and wait for me here, Tati. I'll send my men over to pick you up soon." As soon as he left, the explosions buried around the villa were set off instantly. That's when I sent Luciano one last text. "Luciano, we're even now." Rumors had it that Luciano had gone mad after that incident. As he gripped the burned ring, he purged the entire mafia family on his own. After that, he kneeled before my grave for three long days. When Luciano found out that there was a possibility of my surviving the explosion, he decided to give away half of his family fortune just so he could track me down. Three years later, Luciano stares at the woman, who's toying with a pistol, with red-rimmed eyes at the family's negotiation table. "Tati… Is that you?" I pull the trigger in response, causing a bullet to ricochet past Luciano's ear. "You got the wrong person, Mr. Cacciola. I'm here to take your life." As I watch Luciano kneel by my feet and press a kiss onto the tip of my high heel, I can't help but laugh. This time, it's my turn to choose.

I had been secretly dating my brother’s best friend, the heir to the Moretti family, for seven years, and I was planning to propose to him at the family banquet. Following his location, I found him at a drinking party, only to overhear their laughter through a crack in the private room door. “Vito, your Cinderella is back. What are you planning to do with the little stand-in?” The room fell silent for a few seconds. Then another underboss sneered. “Vito’s got some nerve. You even dared to touch the most beloved princess of the current Sicilian Mafia Don. Now that you’ve had your fill of sweetness, Lucia has come back…” “She left so heartlessly back then. She deserved to be pissed off with a replacement!” The next day, Vito took me to Lucia’s welcome-back banquet, putting on an extravagant show of affection for me. But when Lucia rushed into the rain with tears in her eyes, he shoved me aside and chased after her in a panic. Covered in soup stains and burns, I went home and opened the secret door he had never allowed me to enter. Photographs of him and Lucia, once inseparable, covered the desk. My heart turned to ash as I picked up the encrypted line to my brother in Sicily. “Brother, I’ve thought it over. About the arranged marriage in Chicago—I agree!”

The second I opened my eyes, I knew. I was twenty-seven again. Back when I was the Leone heiress. The golden girl of Arezzo. Engaged to the Don of the Grimaldis—Marco Grimaldi. Handsome. Loaded. Time magazine's "No.1 Most Desirable Husband in the World." Even the royal family of Inglane had tried to marry a princess off to him. Everyone called me the luckiest woman alive. Yeah. Right. The first thing I did after coming back? I grabbed the marriage contract and walked straight to my father's affair daughter— the fiancée Marco had actually wanted all along. Bella Leone. I slid the contract across the table. "It's yours. You're marrying Marco." She just stared at me. Six years. That's how long I'd chased him. And now I was handing over the contract like it meant nothing. "Everyone thinks you're the better match anyway," I said. "So go ahead. Convince Dad to get the Grimaldis to switch the contract. You can have the Grimaldi Donna title." Not this time. I'm not becoming that suffocated, invisible Don's wife ever again.

As my puppy accidentally tore up my marriage certificate, I went to the related register to get a replacement. Having checked the information, the clerk looked at me with a complex expression: "Sorry, the certificate is fake.” I was astonished: "That's impossible. We’re going to have a wedding ceremony next week.” The clerk sighed and turned the computer screen toward me: "Please look. Your ‘husband’ Leon Romano obtained a marriage certificate with Amy Smith two weeks ago." I stood frozen. Amy was Romano’s childhood friend. Feeling betrayed and deeply hurt, I rushed straight to Romano’s office to get a clear answer. Faced with my rage and questioning, Romano hugged me from the back and comforted me: “All of Amy’s family members gave their lives to protect me. The enemies are still looking for an opportunity to assassinate her.” “Only by registering her as my wife can I protect her as Don Romano.” In his embrace, I only found his words disgusting. Romano pressed a soft kiss on my cheek: “Don’t worry, sweetheart. The wedding ceremony still belongs to you. You will always be the Donna and enjoy the respect from everyone.” He still wanted me to manage a Family that I was not legally related to at all. Overwhelmed by grief, I tried to hold my tears. It was time to drop the curtain of the eight-year relationship with him. I returned to my own Family and told my father: “I am willing to accept the marriage alliance.”

My husband, Severo Falcone, is the Don who rules Sicara's criminal underworld. His days are filled with high-stakes negotiations and bloody turf wars. So, over the years, I've grown accustomed to his absence from our lives. On our wedding anniversary, he was negotiating by the docks. When our daughter, Lucia Falcone, attended her first family gathering, he was called away to deal with a territorial dispute. Even on Lucia's fifth birthday, all he offers is a promise over the phone. "Something's come up tonight. I'll make it up to her when I'm done." I think nothing of it. Then, half an hour later, Ylenia Bianchi sends me a photo. At a private clinic, Severo is sitting by her bed, personally tending to her wounds. The message attached to her photo is just as brazen. "Whenever I need him, he will always show up." In that moment, everything falls into place. I've always believed the family business was keeping him away from us. Turns out, he's been spending that time with her all along. He isn't too busy. He simply prioritizes Ylenia over his own wife and daughter every single time. Holding back tears, I turn to Lucia after she blows out her birthday candles. "What did you wish for, Lucia?" Lucia flashes me a sweet, innocent smile. "I wish for the two of us to stay together forever! I want you to be happy every day, Mamma. I hope you can go wherever you want and do whatever you want!" I smile and kiss her forehead. "I'll make sure your wish comes true." That very night, I book two plane tickets to leave Sicara in seven days.

Everyone knew that I was the treasure Lorenzo Vitali held in the palm of his hand. When I said I wanted to see the stars, he would have every light outside the estate shut off, leaving the whole night sky just for me. Any emerald I glanced at twice at a private auction, he would win for me, no matter the competition, no matter the price. Back then, I believed, and so did everyone else, that I would walk into the Vitali family chapel in a wedding gown and become Lorenzo's wife. Until that dinner party. I accidentally cut Bianca Rossi's cheek with a shattered wine glass. And everything fell apart. Lorenzo didn't hear me out. He had his men take me down to the wine cellar beneath the estate. There were no windows, only damp stone walls, and an iron door as thick as a coffin lid. For three days I had no water, no food. When the pain made me shake, all I could do was curl up on the ground and claw at the cold cracks in the stone with my nails.