Cerita Pendek Tragic Love Mafia & Novel Countdown

My husband, Cillian Burke. King of the New York underworld. He runs his life on strict orders. Every second counts. Break his rules for more than three minutes? He strips my access. Instantly. Not a single second of grace. Today is our anniversary. I walk into the core lab three minutes late. Morning sickness. And just like that, I lose the purity test for my new drug. Liliana Croft is already sitting at my station. Taking my place. This is the fourth time. I fall one step behind. He punishes me without hesitation. He gives my world to Liliana. The first time. A Family meeting. I was two minutes late checking the books. He flew to the Vegas underground trade. He took Liliana instead of me. Second time. Prenatal checkup. Five minutes late. He took Liliana to our lakeside safe house. We were supposed to spend the weekend there. Third time. Morning sickness. Ninety seconds late coming downstairs. He left with Liliana. They went to a family dinner. Only core members were allowed. "You always ruin my schedule, Ava. I gave you a time. You are my wife. You are also a Burke. Obey my rules. Absolutely." I stand alone outside the lab. A sudden cramp hits my stomach. My hands shake. I call Cillian. No answer. I call again. No answer. Third time. He finally picks up. "The alarm terrified Liliana. She is unstable. I am not leaving her. Call the Family doctor yourself. Ava, listen to me. Stop wasting my time with petty drama." I look down. Dark blood spreads at my feet. I drop my phone. Cillian. Your ironclad rules never bend for me. Not once. Fine. My turn. I am cutting you out of my world. Forever.

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."

I am someone with a strong desire to share every little detail with my lover. The blush of dawn outside the safe house window, a slightly-too-bitter espresso, the new flower shop on the corner. Even if Carlo's shadow just flickered through my mind for a moment, I couldn't stop myself from hitting send. His replies were always brief, but they were instant. I used to think that was just how a cold man like him showed his love. That all changed seven days before the wedding, when I found an AI auto-responder on the burner phone he never let out of his sight. It broke down every sentence I sent, categorizing them and extracting keywords to generate the most perfectly dismissive answers. When I said I missed him, it replied, "Behave." When I said I was scared, it replied, "I'll handle it." When I wanted to argue, it replied, "Be sensible." So, for half a year, the one replying to my messages was never Carlo. Meanwhile, in another chat window, the messages between him and another woman were piled high. From simple good mornings to random midnight thoughts, From secret talks about family business to whether they should take the yacht out on the weekend. I finally understood. Carlo wasn't a cold person. It wasn't that he didn't like to share his life; he just didn't want to share it with me. And I finally decided to make a heartbroken exit from this absurd charade.

Louis, the Cascino family's Don, canceled the wedding celebration he had promised me for the twelfth time so he could look after his adoptive father's daughter, Jenny. As the family's Donna, I was left to clean up the mess from yet another canceled wedding. When I returned to the estate, I found Jenny lying weakly in Louis's arms. I asked, "Louis, did you cancel our wedding just to stay with her?" Louis cut me off immediately. "Shirley, can't you be a little more understanding? Jenny's father adopted me when I was young. Now that he has passed away, I can't abandon her when she has come to me for help." Jenny started coughing again. Louis immediately lowered his head to comfort her, treating me like I wasn't even there. Just one month earlier, I had taken a bullet for Louis during an ambush and had been badly wounded. And yet, he had barely glanced at me. "Jenny gets scared easily. I need to spend more time with her. A wound like that is nothing to you." With that, he turned and headed for the VIP hospital room next door, reserved for the still shaken Jenny. Even now, Louis was still whispering reassurances to the woman in his arms. "Don't be scared. I'll always take care of you. I won't let anyone push you around." Watching all of this, I turned and walked out of the room. I no longer wanted to give everything to someone who treated me like I didn't exist. This time, I chose to leave.

I canceled the wedding to the Sicilian Mafia don. The wedding planner was stunned after hearing this. “Are you sure? Mr. Moretti specially reserved an entire private island for this wedding.” I nodded. “I’m sure. He’s still accompanying his childhood sweetheart to watch fireworks over the sea.” For five years of our relationship, Luca Moretti had never let me suffer any grievance. He had shielded me from gunfire and once declared in front of the entire family that he would marry no one but me in this lifetime. Everyone believed that cold-blooded man loved me to the extreme. Even I believed it. Until today, when he said his business trip needed to be extended and he couldn’t make our agreed wedding date, telling me to postpone the arrangements. Then I received a video from an unknown number. Under a sky full of fireworks, his childhood sweetheart Vera stood barefoot in the waves, turning to smile at the camera. Vera: “But tomorrow is the day you’re supposed to marry Chloe. Maybe we should leave now.” Luca stopped her: “The wedding can be any day. But this is the first time we’ve watched fireworks together since you returned home. I don’t want you to have any regrets.” In that moment, I finally understood. The wedding I had waited five years for could be postponed at any time for Vera. I repeated to the planner: “Cancel everything.” I had already completed the resignation procedures, and the plane ticket out of this city was booked. Luca thought the wedding could be rescheduled. He didn’t know that I had already decided I would wait no longer.

My boyfriend, Don Alessandro Moretti, wanted a Donna who never got jealous. Whenever I disobeyed, he used silence to teach me my place. When he started taking his childhood sweetheart, Lucia,everywhere on his arm, I confronted him. He froze me out for a week. At one family dinner, Alessandro seated Lucia at his right hand, the place meant for his future wife. When I objected, he shut me out for two weeks. “Lucia and I are only friends. I love you, Eva.”He told me afterward. “But a Donna must be above petty jealousy.” Every time, I remembered the man I had fallen in love with and apologized first. But this time, two muggers cornered me in a parking lot. Still punishing me, Alessandro declined my call. During the twenty minutes I spent alone at the police station, I finally understood something. There was no future in twisting myself into the woman someone else wanted. I opened the offer from a leading research institute in Zurich wanted me to direct its five-year neuroprosthetics program and signed it. Alessandro thought my silence meant his lesson had finally worked. He didn’t know I had stopped trying to become the woman he wanted. I was leaving in seven days, and choosing my own life.

I’ve been in love with the Don of the Moretti family for ten years, and everyone knows he loves me more than life itself. In seven days, he’s throwing me a massive, grand wedding that will be live-streamed to the entire world. But I’m the only one who knows the truth: he’s been keeping a mistress behind my back. He’s kept her for two whole years, and he’s lied to my face for just as long. I didn't call him out on it. Instead, I planned a fake death. At our wedding in seven days, he’s going to lose me forever.

Vincent,the Don of the Mafia,and I had just exchanged our vows in church when he brought home an orphan. He said it was to repay a life debt. From that day on,whenever it came to that girl,Lila,I always came second. Lila framed me.She claimed I forced her to touch drugs.In a fit of rage,Vincent locked me in the Family's underground water dungeon for three full days and nights. "The freezing water of the dungeon will teach you what mercy means!" The bone-chilling cold was absolute torture.My heart completely died.I begged him through a high fever and pure despair. Yet Lila just nestled into his chest,her voice dripping with fake concern. "Elena is the Donna of the Family,after all.When she suffers,your heart hurts too.I really can't bear to see you like this." Later,just to coax a smile out of Lila,Vincent publicly handed over my West Coast smuggling docks to her—a clueless little brat who couldn't even read a ledger. This time,I didn't say a single word. I simply took off my wedding ring. A few days later,on the verge of a breakdown over my complete disappearance and tearing the city apart like a madman looking for me,he finally got the news. I had been accepted into an Ivy League medical research institute,directly joining their highest-level,top-secret,closed-off medical program. And I was never coming back. He completely lost his mind.

I took a bullet meant for my uncle, Don Matteo Doria. His mother, Maria Doria, was so moved by what I'd done that she suggested I marry Matteo. But when I woke in the ICU, I learned he was about to get engaged to a young starlet, Claire Russo. When I showed up at their engagement party, every guest expected me to cause a scene. After all, I was the girl the Doria family had spoiled rotten. Matteo ordered his men to protect Claire, then pointed his gun at me. "Vivian, Claire is my old friend's daughter. I won't let you hurt her." Instead, I handed Claire a gift. "I was immature before. This is a little welcome gift for you, Claire." The room went dead silent. Matteo slowly lowered his gun, his eyes full of surprise. I smiled at Matteo and pretended I was fine, even as the pain tore at my heart. "Since you're marrying someone else, give me back the necklace my father left me. "From now on, I'll stay out of your life." In my last life, I caused a huge scene at the engagement party and used Maria's promise to force Matteo to marry me. Without his protection, Claire was murdered by people who were after her parents' inheritance. For the next three years, Matteo kept me locked away on his empty estate while he drowned in grief over Claire's death. Even when I got into a car accident on the way to the hospital and lost the baby, he never came to see me once. Now that I'd been given a second chance, I knew better. I would never chase after Matteo's love again.

For the five years I was married to my mafia husband, Dante, I never once showed my face to the Moretti family. I thought it was Dante’s way of protecting me. Until a family meeting record landed in my hands by mistake. It said Dante Moretti had formally married Gianna Romano. The date was five years ago. When I saw that name, I froze. She was Dante’s most trusted capo. She’d saved his life. She was also in love with him. Five years ago, she’d been against Dante marrying me. While I was performing on stage, she deliberately sent a spotlight crashing down and destroyed my career as a pianist. Afterward, she cried and said she hadn’t meant to. Dante believed her. He couldn’t send her to prison, but he swore that from then on, he’d never let Gianna appear in front of me again. I didn’t trust Gianna, but I trusted Dante. Now I’d found out that on the very day my husband made that promise to me, he married her. I clutched that thin sheet of paper as the warmth slowly drained from my body. I didn’t go into hysterics or demand answers. Instead, I took out my phone and opened an email I’d received three days earlier—an invitation from the Aurellian Ministry of Culture to apply for citizenship through its exceptional talent program. I tapped “Accept.” Seven days from now, my name would vanish from this country without a trace.

Three months into our marriage, I was cooking dinner when I noticed that every plate, bowl, and cup in the house was smaller than standard dinnerware. That slight difference mattered. Every time I lifted a bowl or wrapped my hand around a cup, I had to adjust my grip to the tighter curve. I held up two bowls of different sizes and asked Damian Moretti why. He said they had simply been custom-made for the Family. That night, a torrential downpour left me stranded at the station after I finished handling Family business. Across the street, inside a restaurant, Damian held a bite of steak to the lips of the young woman opposite him, then gently wiped the sauce from the corner of her mouth. The young woman was the Family's new secretary. One look at the custom dinnerware in front of her, and I understood everything. So that smaller size had been designed for her. I checked my phone. "It's pouring. My old wrist injury is acting up, and I can't hold an umbrella. Can you come get me?" I had sent that message three hours ago. Nothing had come back. He never let me ride in his private armored car or appear at his side at society dinners. In public, he always kept his distance. "As Don, I have to keep my public and private lives separate. The Donna can't draw too much attention, or my men will talk." He held to those boundaries of his so faithfully. It turned out the boundaries only applied to some people. Through the rain, I saw a small plaque on the front passenger seat: CECE ONLY. And suddenly, I no longer wanted to stay in this marriage.

At my engagement party to Matthew, the Don of the Gambino family, he said he had business to handle. Two hours later, he still wasn't back. I went to look for him. Around the corner of the hallway, his men were whispering in Sicilian dialect. "Poor thing. The future Donna has no idea Don's been screwing Ruth." "The Don's out of his mind. Can't even keep it together on his engagement night." Ruth Martin. His childhood friend. His business partner. I stood there, frozen. Then I walked back to the ballroom. A while later, Matthew pushed through the door. One button missing from his shirt. Sweat on his forehead. Someone clapped his shoulder, asked in Sicilian. "Ha! So? How was it with Ruth? Fucking intense, right? You're a madman." Matthew laughed and answered. "Of course. Couldn't get enough." What Matthew didn't know—I used to be Sicilian. I understood every word. What he also didn't know—I was about to tell him I was carrying his child. I took a sip of my juice. Didn't call him out. Instead, I pulled out my phone and opened the confirmation from the lab in Paris. Hit Confirm. Seven days from now, I'd be on a flight to Paris. Gone from his world for good.

When the wedding bells rang, my groom, Adrian Moretti, was gone. He was the Don of the Moretti family, and the man I had loved for seven years. By Moretti tradition, today I was meant to be acknowledged as the Don’s wife. Instead, I stood alone before the altar. At the same time, my mother sent a video to our family chat. In it, Adrian knelt in the banquet hall next door and slid my ring onto the finger of my twin sister, Livia Vale. Relatives cheered. My father smiled beside them. Livia cried against Adrian’s shoulder, and he comforted her as if she had always been the bride. I pulled off my veil, ready to demand an explanation, when my mother tagged me. Elena, Livia is your sister. She has always been weak, and she has always given way to you. Let her have this once. I called her with shaking hands. “Why did everyone hide this from me?” “Because you’ve fought with Livia since childhood. If we told you earlier, you would have caused a scene. What if she cut herself again?” “You’re healthy. You can have another wedding later.” “We’re family. Don’t make this ugly over a man.” I held the phone and could not speak. So it was not only my wedding they could give away. They could give me away with it. Then I was done with them.

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.

In New York’s Upper East Side, there were two heirs. One was a speed-obsessed daredevil dominating the racetracks, the other was a brilliant actuary who controlled the flow of capital. Born into powerful families and polar opposites in temperament, yet they grew up side by side as each other’s only best friend. They had fought over girls and bickered endlessly over racing bets. However, at fifteen, there was one thing they did in perfect unison. They each put on the same roughly carved bronze badge. They were trinkets Mia had idly made during a craft class, marked only by a faint “M” scratched on the back. Back then, Mia was seated in the last row of the classroom. Her background was a complete mystery to everyone. Yet they wore that badge for ten whole years. Whether standing on the F1 podium or locking in billion-dollar trades at the exchange, the cheap little badge on their chests never changed. Until Ella showed up. She was the cherished daughter of a rising conglomerate family. She hand-stitched two gold-thread fabric patches and gifted them to them. The patches looked so ordinary they looked like the kind of trinket you would find three for a dollar at a flea market. And yet, they both replaced their bronze badges with her plain patches. Mia did not say anything. She simply folded away an old newspaper clipping with a photo of the three of them smiling together. That night, she called her father in Sicily. Her voice was emotionless. “Papa, I accept the marriage arrangement.”

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

Every time I texted my husband, Dominic, the rising Mafia Don, all I got in return was a bank transfer. This time, my brain cancer had reached its final stage. The doctor asked if I wanted to go ahead with the surgery. Gasping for air, I clutched my phone. I hesitated before finally sending Dominic a text. [The doctor says surgery could buy me another year. Should I do it?] Right before they wheeled me into the operating room, my screen finally lit up. [Deposit Alert: $50,000] Just like every other time over the last three years. He answered me with money. I put my phone down. I had nothing left to say. On our wedding night, I asked to borrow three hundred thousand dollars. From then on, he was convinced I was a gold digger. His brothers said I only wanted his name and money. He believed them. I even took a bullet for him once during a shootout. He just had his accountant wire me money. I begged him to attend my father's funeral. All I got was another massive transfer. Six months ago, I was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. It was hereditary. Soon, I would be just like my dad. Covered in tubes. Rotting away in a hospital bed. I broke down and left him ninety-nine voicemails. I only got ninety-nine deposit notifications in return. Now they were about to crack my skull open just to keep me alive. Then my phone buzzed. A news alert popped up on a dark web gossip site. He was with Vivian, the Mafia princess. They had been up all night drinking and playing pool in her penthouse. I stared at his gentle profile in the photo. I smiled bitterly and pulled the IV needle from my vein. Dominic once asked me where we went wrong. His voice was full of disappointment. He asked what our marriage even meant. Well, Dominic. This time, I will give you the answer with my death. I will finally set you free.

I woke up, and I was 28 again. I had twin heirs, and my husband was Santino, Veridia's most feared Mafia Don. He sat at the head of the Commission of the Five Families. His sharp profile was a fixture on the cover of the underworld's most exclusive magazine for several consecutive issues. Even the oldest Valerian families were lining up to offer him their daughters. All the women in Altoria envied my good fortune. But the first thing I did after waking up was pick up the divorce papers, the ink still fresh, and handed them to his childhood sweetheart, Jessy. "My lawyer will handle the divorce. The properties and assets are yours. Santino is yours. The children are yours, too." Sitting across from me, Jessy couldn't believe it, her eyes wide with shock. "Are you crazy, Alessia? Is this some kind of trick?" "How could the woman who has been Donna for six years give it all up so easily?" I lowered my gaze, my tone calm. "Since they all prefer you, I figured it was time to step aside." "Just have Santino sign it and press his signet ring into the wax seal." "Once the divorce is final, I'll leave Veridia for good." This time, I would not make the same mistake. I would never again be a Donna in name only.

They say Don Julian Marconi would burn the world for one tear of mine. Five years ago, at the Met Gala, he spent millions to hang emeralds around my neck and swore I was his Madonna. Five years later, beneath the velvet boxes of our anniversary, I found a lace strap soaked in sin—and a fresh, crimson smear on his collar that told me exactly whose bed he’d left. I smiled. I asked him to sign a blank sheet of paper. And that meant he was agreeing to whatever I wanted. He called it love. I called it the death warrant for his empire. In fifteen days, I finalized our divorce papers. I boarded the Stella d’Oro as Serena Cole and burned Celeste Marconi to ash on the deck. Then I vanished with his fortune, his power and the one secret that would destroy him. I was the saint he worshipped. Now I am the ghost who haunts him. No groveling. No forgiveness. No second chance. Just ashes.

Lucien Varelli loved me best when my madness belonged to him. I tracked his convoy routes, checked his burner phones, and almost turned the city upside down whenever he disappeared for more than five minutes. At first, Lucien loved it. He kissed the signet ring on my hand and swore no woman, no family, no power in the city could ever take him from me. Until the night I cut off a call from Celeste Ardian. After that, I was no longer his wife. I was a problem. A scandal. A woman too unstable to stand beside the heir of a ruling house. So Lucien signed the papers and sent me to St. Dymphna House. They called it a private residential clinic. What it really was, was a place where inconvenient women were broken down and rebuilt into something quieter. Five years later, Lucien came to take me home. The director told him I had done beautifully. I no longer screamed. I no longer fought. I knew how to lower my eyes, soften my voice, keep my hands still, and smile like a proper Donna. Lucien thought they had cured me. He was wrong. They had not cured my madness. They had only killed the part of me that once loved him.