Mga Maiikling Kuwento at Nobelang Plot Twists Mafia Golden Finger

Attending the ten-year high school reunion for the cheerleading squad and football team, I arrived in an old domestic Ford, while the parking lot was filled with Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Maybachs, and even a gold Bugatti. It was as if I were the only relic from another era. The moment I stepped out of my car, a former classmate, whose name I could no longer remember, looked at me with a sneer. “Well, if it isn’t the coach’s pet. How is it that after all these years, you’re still driving this beat-up old Ford?” “This thing looks like it belongs in a scrapyard from the last century!” During dinner, everyone gathered around the Bugatti owner, raising their glasses in celebration, while I was left ignored at the side. Only the cheerleading assistant sat next to me, raising a glass in my direction with a comforting smile. “Don’t let it get to you. Your car may be old, but I believe you’ll be driving a luxury car one day.” I let a small smirk curl at the corner of my lips and lowered my voice. “This car may look unimpressive, but it’s been fully upgraded with a carbon fiber body. It’s already worth over half a million dollars. Too bad, none of you even recognized its true value.”

Of the eight women who married into the Ferro family, I was the most useless. The other seven either ran casinos or controlled the docks. All I knew how to do was take the private jet to Paris and pick out jewelry. They talked family business. I only cared about Bulgari's latest high-jewelry collection. To them, I was just Simon Ferro's pretty, free-spending trophy wife, the woman he'd been crazy enough to marry. I didn't care. The family trust paid out every month, and my job was to sparkle. Until a mysterious consortium came after the Ferro family. The consortium put up three South African gold mines as collateral and drained the last of the family's legitimate cash. Everyone was scrambling, and the old Don went gray overnight. The powerful women in the family called in every connection they had, but they couldn't find a single clue about who was behind it. The man sat arrogantly in the seat of honor and demanded that my father-in-law hand over the family signet ring. I came downstairs with a drink in my hand and frowned. "Where'd this nouveau riche nobody come from? He's getting my couch dirty." Elena Ferro yanked me behind her. "Shut up and go back upstairs!" Simon instinctively pulled me into his arms to shield me. When it counted, the whole family closed ranks around me without a word. I reluctantly turned to go, only to catch sight of the antique panther brooch on the stranger's lapel. No way! A big shot with three gold mines, and his Cartier panther has cheap rhinestones for eyes?

I had always needed too much reassurance, and for three years, Dante Romano had given it to me. Whenever he came home late or failed to answer his phone, I imagined the worst. And whenever I couldn’t sleep, I made him leave whatever he was doing and come home to me. During one of those needy episodes, strange lines of text appeared before my eyes. 【The Don of the Romano family is handling family business. You really think he has time to put you to bed?】 【She’s only an ordinary woman he kept because she looks like Bianca DeLuca.】 【The real Bianca is coming back from Europe. Once she does, this substitute is finished.】 Suddenly, Dante’s patience no longer felt like love. It felt like tolerance. When he came home and reached for me, I pulled away. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I finally understand.” “Understand what?” “That real love means giving each other freedom.” From that night on, he no longer had to report his schedule, answer every call, or come home because I couldn’t sleep. If I stopped clinging to him and quietly disappeared when Bianca returned, maybe Dante would let me leave safely. But before I could step away, he pulled me hard against his chest. “Baby,” he said softly, “did I do something to upset you?”

We were in the middle of exchanging rings when Carlo Corvo suddenly let go of my hand. His eyes were locked on the velvet box behind me. Inside sat the founding Don's signet ring, the one everyone said had been lost for ages. "Selena, look at this crest." He called out to his consigliere, Selena Rossi, of all people. I knew this scene by heart. Three years ago, on his birthday, I carried a cake into his room. He and Selena were finalizing an arms-smuggling route, and he told me to get out without even looking up. Last year, I took a bullet for him and nearly died. He was at an auction bidding on antiques. Every voice message he sent was in code, and not one of them asked if I was okay. Every time I came near, he said the same thing. "This is family business. You wouldn't understand." Now they stood together at the altar. He studied the crest while she wrote down the serial number, perfectly in sync. He had made me a promise once. "Elsie, I'll give you the biggest wedding anyone has ever seen. No bride will ever be more honored than you." But now, under the stained glass, he frowned and gave an order. "We're postponing the ceremony. A lead like this doesn't come along often. Elsie, step aside." Just like that, he had turned our wedding into an investigation into family business. But this time, I didn't walk away like a good girl. Right there, I ripped the train off my wedding dress and dragged it through the roses scattered across the floor, just as I had dragged myself through ten bloody years at his side. The moment I turned around, a cold, ancient laugh rang out inside my head. [A signet ring? That's the same iron tag I used for guard dogs and condemned prisoners. How stupid can they get!] The voice belonged to Vittorio Corvo, the legendary Don betrayed by one of his own 100 years ago. His soul had been living inside me, and now he was fully awake. [Poor thing, lend me your body. I'll show them what cleaning house really looks like.]

I could see the countdown above a person’s head when they had already decided to leave their partner. The day my father’s countdown hit zero, he slapped a lawyer’s letter on the breakfast table and walked out on my mother and me. The day my best friend’s countdown hit zero, she finally threw her parasite of a boyfriend out of her apartment and changed the locks before sunset. That was why I’d always been terrified of seeing a countdown above my fiancé, Lucian Bellandi. Luckily, for seven years by his side, the space above his head had stayed clean. Lucian was the youngest Don the Bellandi family had ever seen. He owned the docks, the casinos, and half the South Side’s dirty money, yet he saved every soft part of himself for me. Until last month, when he picked me up after a family auction. I looked up and saw blood-red numbers stabbing into my eyes. [702 days, 14 hours, 22 minutes.] Less than two years. My heart tightened like a cold hand had closed around it. I started searching for an answer like a woman losing her mind. Had I done something wrong? Then, during a blizzard by the lake, we ran into Mia Crane at the back entrance of the Bellandi Hotel. Lucian had just brought her into his charity foundation as a new assistant. Snow clung to her hair and lashes. She was shivering from head to toe, but her smile was bright and painfully innocent. Lucian pulled a black silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to her. His face was calm. There was nothing openly improper in the gesture. But in that exact second, the countdown above his head jumped. [327 days, 4 hours, 47 minutes.] More than three hundred days, gone. And I knew I had found the reason.