قصص وروايات قصيرة من فئة Mafia وتدور في Female Growth

I've been in love for six years, but my wedding has been called off 99 times by the man who claims to love me most, the mafia boss, Daniel Reed. The first time is on a private island off the coast of Sorellia. He promises me a secret wedding. But an hour before the ceremony, he gets a call saying that his new assistant, Emily Jennings, has been taken by a rival family. Without a word, he leaves me behind and sails off into the night. The second time, we're standing at the altar, exchanging vows. His underboss then leans in and whispers, "Emily's in trouble." Daniel tears off his boutonniere and walks out without looking back. Emily has been kidnapped again—this time, near the border district. He leads an armed raid that very night while I'm left behind, becoming the laughingstock in the mafia's VIP lounges. No matter when I schedule the wedding, Emily always ends up in danger. And Daniel always runs to her without hesitation. Eventually, I realize I will never win against the reckless Gen Z assistant who constantly drags him into chaos. After the 99th cancellation, I decide to break up with him and disappear from Valemont. I move out overnight, erase every trace of myself, leaving nothing behind. But I never expect him to go completely mad. He shuts down the ports, searches every villa, and unleashes his entire family's intelligence network just to find me. His eyes burn red like a wild animal on the edge of collapse. "Elara," he growls, "just give me one more chance."

I'm the heiress of the Corleone family, with three childhood sweethearts who used to adore me and watch over me like I was their whole world. Then Daisy Washington, the little maid, showed up—and suddenly I didn't exist anymore. But my father, the don, didn't know. So at the family victory gala, right in the middle of the toast, my father said, "Freya, tell me, who's the one? Point him out, and we'll get you engaged tonight. Right here, right now." The whole room went quiet. Every pair of eyes swung to my three so-called protectors: Nico Gibson, Arlo Mcdonald, and Rhett Owens. But they acted like they hadn't heard a thing. One was feeding Daisy from his fork. One was whispering something that made her giggle. And the third just watched her with that soft, doting look I used to get. The room went dead silent. My father's face stiffened. I quickly jumped in, "Dad, my boyfriend's overseas. I'll bring him to meet you when he's back." The three of them snorted, shooting me mocking looks. I knew they didn't believe me. They thought I was just saving face. But I actually did have a boyfriend.

To protect my boyfriend, Nico, the illegitimate son of our allies, the Moretti family, from their internal power struggles, I agreed to leave New York with him. But on the eve of my adoptive father, the Don of the Falcone family, signing our transfer orders, he backed out. Through the hidden door of the cigar lounge, I heard his right-hand man tease him: "So you really kept up that act for three months just to get rid of the princess?" "But she's your childhood sweetheart. You really have the heart to some miserable fishing village in the Baltics all by herself?" Nico's voice was nonchalant. "It's just an outpost across the pond. How far can it be?" "Scarlett is too controlling. If I don't get her out of the picture, how am I supposed to get any breathing room? Besides, I need to put Chloe at ease." I stood behind that hidden door for a long time that night, my grip on the doorknob tightening until my knuckles were white, before I finally let go. I turned and walked away, pulling out my tablet to change my flight plan. I changed the destination from the official plan of that desolate Baltic outpost to a seat at the High Table in Sicily, which is the absolute center of old-world Mafia power. Everyone seemed to have forgotten. I am the princess of the Falcone family. And he is nothing but filth from the gutter. We were never a match.

A deal between families forced my Fiancé Marco Corvini to marry me. My parents were dead. His obsession was Isabella Falcone, the princess of our rivals. In the end, Marco devoured my family’s empire and threw me to the wolves. He paraded Isabella on his arm like a prize he’d won. Twenty years later, I was on my deathbed. My own son—our son—held the poison. He said I was useless, that his father needed the Falcone family’s power. Then I opened my eyes. I was back. Back on the day of my blood oath. This time, to save my family, I didn’t sign my name on the pact. I signed hers. Isabella Falcone’s. As for me? I took the fortune my parents left me and disappeared. This time, I wouldn’t be the fool bleeding for a man who was never mine.

My fiance, Derrick Lodge, chooses to save me during the typhoon, instead of his first love, Victoria Rayne. My life is saved, but Victoria dies after being struck by flying debris before the rescue team can find her. They aren't even able to find the rest of her body afterward. After going home, Derrick doesn't attend Victoria's funeral and immediately holds a grand wedding for me instead. For the next three years of our marriage, Derrick doesn't stop torturing me because he says that I caused Victoria's death. When I reach my limit and finally ask him for a divorce, Derrick kills me with a gun before killing himself. I open my eyes again and realize that I have traveled back in time. It is the day the typhoon happened, threatening our lives. This time, however, I tell Derrick to save Victoria's life instead.

In my last life, I single-handedly wiped out a rival gang, winning great honor for the Family. My mother handed me control of her private arsenal, worth hundreds of millions. Before I could even take inventory, the convent orphan my family had adopted quietly changed the codes, and handed the entire shipment to homeless men in slums controlled by our enemies. Staring down my gun, she crossed herself, her face full of pity. "God tells us to love the world, Alessia. Sitting on all those instruments of murder is a sin. I am only atoning for you." I scoffed, but one second before I pulled the trigger, my childhood friend, the Family's top killer, shot the gun from my hand and denounced me as bloodthirsty, cruel, and incapable of empathy. My older brother, the new Don, only sneered and stripped me of my inheritance on the spot. He threw me into the lowest end of the red-light district to wash dishes until the violence had been ground out of me. That same night, addicts from the rival gang cornered me at the end of an alley, stabbed me more than twenty times, then dumped me into the Thames. I opened my eyes, and I was back on the day the orphan girl walked toward the arsenal with my key in her hand.

Five years ago, at a family council meeting, the old Don forced his son Victor Caceres and me to marry under a blood pact to stop the riots in the streets. As we exchanged rings, Victor spoke softly enough that only I could hear. "I can't defy my father's orders. But since I'm marrying you, I'll give you all the protection a Donna deserves, as long as you don't cross any lines." Over the next five years, he'd shielded me with his body during an air raid by a rival family and taken a knife meant for me in a gang fight. I'd been naive enough to believe that even a blood-soaked contract marriage could turn into something real. Then the old Don died unexpectedly, and Victor took control of New York's entire underworld. That night, Victor brought his first love, Selena Morelli, back to the estate from a safe house. He handed me an agreement to end our marriage pact. "Carl Lombardi has worked for me for ten years. He runs a clean operation, controls a wealthy territory, and has no children out of wedlock." I stared at the terms written on the parchment. After a long moment, I forced a smile. "If you need to make room for your true love, I'll leave. But why do you get to decide the rest of my life like you’re dividing up the spoils?" Victor frowned, his voice hard and final. "I've already settled the terms with the Lombardi family. They're more than happy to welcome you. "You wouldn't last long on your own without me. If you marry Carl and a gang war breaks out, I'll have every right to step in and save your life." So as power changed hands in the underworld, I was just a loose end to be tied up. Without a second's hesitation, I cut my fingertip, pressed my bloody print onto the agreement, and picked up the crest.

After I was diagnosed with cancer, my family stopped visiting, and the man I had been dating disappeared. Even when I had almost given up on myself, only Dante Russo stayed. He was my childhood friend, the boy who emptied his savings, sold his apartment, and spent ten years dragging me back from the edge of death. By some miracle, I recovered. Soon after, I became pregnant with his child. On the anniversary of our first kiss, I planned to tell him the news and ask when he was finally going to marry me. Instead, I found another woman's pregnancy report in his car. When I confronted him, Dante only sighed. “Serena De Luca is the Godfather’s daughter. She helped me secure the Russo family. If people find out she’s pregnant before marriage, her reputation will be ruined.” “You’re the only one I love. I’ll hold a fake wedding with her first. Once the child’s situation is settled, we’ll get married immediately.” At that moment, the pain was worse than any treatment I had survived. I only wanted to ask him one thing. What was love supposed to mean? Later, while Dante and Serena stood at the altar, Serena’s parents forced me to have an abortion. By the time Dante found out, I had already left.

I was scrubbing a mountain of dishes in a restaurant kitchen when I spotted my fiancé, Matteo DeLuca, who'd sworn he was buried in debt. He sat in a private dining room on the top floor of a three-Michelin-star restaurant. His tailored suit only added to his cold, intimidating air. Beside him, his right-hand man leaned forward to light the Don's cigar with practiced deference. Across from him, his legal advisor held a glass of red wine. "Matteo, isn't it time to put an end to this test? She even pawned her precious cello to pay off your debts." Matteo blew out a smoke ring and said nothing. The woman raised an eyebrow. "Then test her one more time. Tell her your enemies are going to cut off one of your hands, then see if she'll step in front of the blade for you." Hesitation flickered in Matteo's eyes. His fingers tightened around the cigar. After a long silence, he answered in a low voice. "This is the last test. If she passes, I'll give her the DeLuca name and all the honor that comes with it." I stood behind the glass partition, still clutching the $100 I'd just earned that day. To pay off his fake gambling debt, I'd given up my summer orchestra audition. I juggled three jobs, and the chilblains on my hands kept splitting open and scabbing over. I'd believed that if I could just get through it all, I'd be able to play my cello again. All that struggling just to survive, and it turned out I was only auditioning to become a Donna. I straightened the crumpled $100 bill, slipped it into my bag, and calmly untied my apron. If I still hadn't passed his loyalty test after everything I'd done, then I was done playing his game.

When I was six, a car crash wiped out most of my memory. My foster parents told me my parents had died that night. They said they had taken me in, given me their name, their home, and the protection of one of New York's most powerful families. So I spent twelve years proving I deserved to stay. I cleaned up my younger sister Bianca's messes, handed her the credit for my work, and locked every trophy I earned in a wooden archive box because my success made the family's real daughter uncomfortable. Then, at eighteen, I ordered a certified birth record for my student visa. The clerk looked at me and said, "Your parents have always been Vittorio and Elena Romano. There's no adoption on file." I had never been an orphan. Bianca knew. My relatives knew. The family attorney knew. Even the old butler who carried me home from the hospital knew. For twelve years, everyone had played a part in the same lie. So I hid the birth certificate and kept playing the grateful adopted daughter. I fixed Bianca's speech, prepared her heir's gala, and smiled while my family erased my name one last time. They had no idea I'd already booked a one-way flight out of their lives.

Introduction Even when Victor Ravelli, the Don, picked out a gift for me, he bought two and let my sister Diana choose first. One was a black diamond signet ring he'd paid a fortune for at an auction in Russia. The other was an obsidian brooch that came free with the diamond. It didn't go with my wedding dress at all. For once, I spoke up, pointing to the black diamond ring before Diana could claim it. "This time, can I choose first?" Victor twisted the family's bone ring around his thumb and ruffled my hair. "Diana's always been competitive. If she can't have her first choice, she doesn't want anything at all. You're just filling in for her. What you wear doesn't matter." I fell silent, staring at the brooch as a hollow feeling settled in my chest. I'd spent ten years with Victor in this war-torn territory, but to him, I'd always be Diana's replacement. Whenever someone tried to assassinate a member of the Ravelli family, Victor would send Diana straight to the safest underground bunker. Then he would shove a fully loaded Beretta into my hand. "Cover me out here. If you make it back alive, I'll reward you." At Mafia council meetings, he let Diana choose her seat first too. Diana took the second-in-command's seat beside him, a sign of absolute trust. Then Victor pointed me to a seat at the far end of the council table. "The one in the back is a little far, but it doesn't matter where you sit." When we won a territory war, he let her pick her district first too. She claimed the lucrative West District, where she could rake in the profits without getting her hands dirty. Then Victor put me in charge of the North District, where gunfights could erupt at any moment. "The North District's rough, but you're a good shot. You're perfect for it." Later, the same thing happened with our marriage. He loved Diana, but she chose power and the position of family heir. Devastated, Victor fastened a necklace bearing the family insignia around my neck instead. He worshipped Diana. I was nothing more than a tool to him. I looked at the obsidian brooch and pushed it away. "She can have both. I'm done choosing." It was time to tear up the marriage contract too.

Less than a week after calling off our engagement, Vincent Moretti, the new Don of the Moretti family, married Bianca Marino—the woman I'd once risked my life to save from a firefight. I gave back my family crest and walked away without a fight. The family elders were all waiting for me to fall apart. None of them thought Vincent's "mad dog" could make it without him. For seven years, I'd been his blade, and I'd done it willingly. I betrayed my own family to help him reclaim his territory. I stopped countless attempts on his life and was wounded so many times protecting him that there was barely a patch of unscarred skin left on my body. But the moment he became Don, everything changed. The blood on my hands suddenly disgusted him. He said someone like me had no right to wear the Donna's ring or stand beside him as the face of the family. After that, no one in New York would hire me. I ended up taking jobs cleaning up murder scenes for Brooklyn's underworld. Then I took the blame for someone else and got jumped by a group of gangsters. They shoved my face into the mud and beat me until I could barely move. I thought I was going to die there. Then Vincent came charging in like a madman. He shot one of them in the head, rushed to me, and pulled me into his arms with trembling hands. That familiar cologne hit me at once. I struggled to breathe. I wiped the blood from my eye and gave him a faint, bitter smile. "Thanks for the help, Mr. Moretti. Need someone to clean this up? I'm taking cash only today."

I am the sole heir of the Corsini family, the biggest mafia family in North America. The first Don left behind one ironclad rule: blood comes before everything. But ever since I was a kid, I've fainted at the sight of blood. Even the smell of gun oil makes me sick. So my father chose Arthur Cole, who had once saved my life, to sit at the negotiating table for me. He'd serve as acting Don, one year at a time. Every Christmas Eve, I had to press my signet ring into the wax before he could run the family for another year. In those ten years, I never once interfered in family business. Everyone thought the annual seal was just a formality. Then Arthur fell for Vivian Miller, a senator's daughter. But her family looked down on him for coming from the mob. So I signed over our most profitable shipping company to Vivian as a gift. Only then did the senator give his blessing. Before the wedding, Vivian sweetly told me we'd be real family from then on. But not long after the wedding, she threw an agreement at me. She wanted to marry me off to a Mexican drug lord. "Marrying General Juárez is the only way you can be of any use to this family." I looked at the agreement and laughed. They'd forgotten who really ran this place. Christmas Eve was five days away. This year, I was planning to pick a new Don.

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.

Five years ago, I took the blame for every crime my family had committed and was thrown out of Black City like a stray dog. Five years later, I returned as the Donna—the head of Raven, one of the world's most powerful mafia organizations. Only to find that my family had been framed and destroyed, and our stronghold burned to the ground. In an abandoned slaughterhouse, blood ran across the floor. Isabella, the arrogant heiress of the newly powerful Leoni family, was grinding her red-soled heel into my cousin Marco Franco's face. "You Franco piece of trash. Kneel and beg me, be my dog, and I'll toss you a scrap of food." Blood ran from Marco's nose and mouth, but he clutched the Zippo lighter—my lighter—to his chest and refused to give in. "Get away. Get away from me. Don't put your filthy hands on what Chiara left me." Isabella flew into a rage and slapped him. "You're still mooning over that disowned bitch? "She was disowned and driven out years ago. She's probably selling herself in some red-light district right now!" She raised her hand, signaling her thugs to break Marco's arm. Just then, an armored Humvee smashed through the slaughterhouse's metal doors. I walked across the broken glass to Isabella and backhanded her off her feet. "You lay a hand on a Franco? Who the hell do you think you are?"

I pushed the door open and saw Giovanna standing there in my silk robe—my gift from Enzo—and wearing my heirloom pendant. She lifted a brow and mocked me, “The robe fits, the pendant’s mine, and you—get out.” I grabbed Enzo, demanding an explanation, but he shoved a fake contract in my face, saying, “You signed it.” “I did not. Stop lying!” I snapped. He snapped at me, “This is family business. You know nothing.” It seemed three years together was nothing but an act. That very night, I ran away to Milan. I had nowhere to go and no one to turn to until Mark showed up out of nowhere. “Don’t be scared,” he said. “I’ve got you. As long as I’m around, no one touches you.” He protected me, and for a moment, I really thought I’d finally found someone I could rely on. However, when we were practicing at the shooting range later, I stared at him. “Why are you helping me?” I asked. “And don’t tell me it’s because of that mess I left behind.” His eyes flickered for a second before he answered, “Just trust me. That’s all you need to do.” Something about the way he said it made my stomach twist. This whole disaster was all one giant setup. And now here I am, gripping a gun, fighting for justice, but am I really avenging myself? Or was I already someone else’s pawn from the very beginning?

Everyone knew I’d do anything for Lucius Falcone. I was his shadow, his most devoted follower… or, to be blunt, his lapdog. For three years, I trailed after him, indulging his every mafia-heir whim. When he went street racing at midnight, I was in the passenger seat, even when I was burning up with a 104-degree fever. When he was screwing some other woman, he’d call me to bring toys, and I’d show up, no questions asked. Finally, Lucius started to soften. Just when everyone thought I was about to finally get what I’d been working for… At the party celebrating his taking over as Don of the Falcone family, he showed up with some bombshell on his arm. He gave me a bored look and said, "You're dull in bed. Tina, on the other hand, knows how to get me off." The whole room was waiting for me to break down. Instead, I just gave a small smile. "Then congratulations to you both." Then I turned, walked out, and got on a plane to Paris. Lucius was already making bets that I’d come crawling back within three days. What he didn't know was that his mother had paid me five million dollars to do it all. The contract was up. The money was in my account. I was finally free to leave him and to finally chase my own dream in Paris.

For the past ten years, all of Boston society had been guessing whether I would end up marrying Alexander Grant, Nathan Cole, or Julian Vale. One of them took care of every problem that came my way. One remembered every allergy I had. One built me an observatory with a view of the whole city. I never once doubted that I was loved. I had always been the spoiled little princess everyone doted on. Then my mother found her older daughter, Vivian Ashford, who had been missing for twenty-two years. Vivian was the one expected to marry into Black Harbor for the Ashford family. To make up for the life she had lost, the three men started asking me to give up a little at a time. Alexander missed the fitting he had promised to come to, because Vivian needed the practice in front of the cameras more than I did. Nathan canceled the follow-up on my old injury because Vivian had a panic attack when she heard about the medical exam before the wedding. Julian booked the entire observatory to make up for my birthday, then, while I sat there alone until closing, sent me a text that read, "You're the sensible one. Go home by yourself tonight." When I got back to the estate, I asked them why none of them had told me beforehand. But Vivian cried and said she didn't want to be the reason they lost me. So Alexander stepped in front of her, Nathan told me to stop upsetting her, and Julian said I shouldn't be using one broken promise to test whether they loved me. As I turned to leave, I heard them making a pact in that room. "Until the engagement is settled, no more coddling Evelyn." "She'll be angry." "She'll sulk for a few days and get over it. She could never bring herself to leave us for real." They weren't wrong. Back then, I really couldn't bring myself to leave. What they didn't know was that I had already let go, and I was never coming back.

I had just climbed into the armored SUV leaving the Moretti estate when the gatekeeper hurried after me with a black encrypted phone in his hand. "Mrs. Westmore, Don Moretti asked me to give you this." I took it. One unread message glowed on the screen. [Selena only had a scare. I'll come home tomorrow. Don't overthink it.] I stared at it for two seconds, popped out the SIM card, snapped it in half, and tossed it into the rain outside the window. The next day, I had just reached the abandoned shipyard in North Harbor when encrypted messages started hitting my backup phone one after another. [Vivian, where are you?] [Why aren't you home? Where the hell did you go this late?] [Answer me. Don't make me send men all over the city looking for you.] The last one was exactly his style: soft on the surface, arrogant underneath. [Your family survives under my protection. Don't test my patience.] I didn't answer. After countless messages sank without a reply, my husband finally drove to the old Westmore grounds at North Harbor. He knew that if anything was left of my family, I would be there. But when Damon pushed through the broken iron gate, he found no guards, no household staff, and no Westmore men waiting for orders. The old house stood hollow in the rain. Its windows were blown out, the front steps were black with soot, and the air still carried the bitter smell of smoke and gunpowder. Damon grabbed a passing harbor guard by the sleeve. "Where are the Westmores?" The guard looked at him as if he should already know. "Gone. The family was hit two nights ago. Whoever came for them knew exactly when Moretti protection would be pulled from the harbor." "Miss Westmore came back before dawn," the guard added. "She took the black-gold signet, a few boxes of ledgers, and whatever papers survived the fire." "After that, she left. And no one has seen her since."

When I was five, I was kidnapped, and the people behind it memorized my face. To protect me, my older sister, Julianne, said, "Maddie, you need to stay out of sight for your own safety." From then on, she took my place whenever I was supposed to appear with my fiance, Adrian Moretti. At the grand opening of his casino, she said the crowd would be too dangerous, so she wore my dress and cut the ribbon beside him. At the Conti family's victory gala, she claimed our enemies might be lying in wait, so she took my invitation and danced with Adrian. After every event, she would pat my head and say: "Once the two of you are married, I can finally stop worrying." I always believed she was doing it for my sake. Then, before my wedding to Adrian, she put on my wedding gown and publicly stood in for me at the rehearsal. She posted pictures on her social media page. Wearing the gown that was supposed to be mine, she stood at the end of the aisle with her arm linked through Adrian's. The caption read: [I tested everything for Maddie first. It was all perfect.] The first comment underneath was from Adrian. [That dress suits you.] I stared at those words for a long time as my heart slowly turned cold. It was time to end this game of replacing me in the name of protecting me.