Feel-Good Story Mafia Short Stories & Homewrecker Face Slapping Novels

My studio's website receives an appraisal order worth 450 thousand dollars all of a sudden. The original poster of the order claims that this is a pre-wedding gift her fiance has gotten her. The comment section goes wild instantly. "If the appraisal fee alone is already 450 thousand dollars, does this mean the painting is worth 100 million dollars? Your husband really is generous to you!" "I'm so envious of you! You really are lucky to be able to marry such a rich man!" The poster quickly replies, "Luck has nothing to do with this. I fought for this fate with everything I had. I'll be frank with you; back then, my fiance still had a girlfriend. But everything I want in life will eventually be mine. "So, I slandered his girlfriend and pretended to be aggrieved just so my fiance's heart would go out to me. As time went on, his love for his girlfriend faded away. "In the end, all I have to do is lift a finger, and the girlfriend got her limbs crushed. After that, she got discarded like garbage." The Internet users post their replies of disbelief. There's no way someone will hurt their ex-girlfriend to this degree, after all. They all think that the original poster is being excessively dramatic. Someone even berates her for throwing a wrench into a relationship. Not only does she not feel ashamed, but she also finds it an extremely proud thing to have done. Even my assistant, Chiara Belmonte, tells me that this client seems like a nutjob and suggests that I decline this order. I don't say anything. Instead, I just tap "confirm". After all, what the poster said is the truth. The ex-girlfriend that she has described in her post is me.

The Moretti family had an old tradition. Whenever a new Don took over, he raised his first glass to the person he was most grateful to. When Damian Moretti became Don, everyone assumed that first glass would be mine. When he was at his lowest, I married him, bringing with me two of my family's shipping routes and 200 million dollars in cash. I was the one who made him Don. But Damian raised his glass and said softly, "The person I'm most grateful to is Rosie Carter." The whole room broke into an uproar. She was a member of the Moretti family I'd never even noticed before. Beaming with excitement, she took the glass from Damian and punched him playfully on the shoulder. "Don't get all sappy on me. We're practically brothers. We've even shared a bed." Awkward laughter rippled around the room. Damian didn't laugh. "Ten years ago, I was badly wounded and on the run. Rosie hid me in the safe house beneath the nightclub. "We slept in the same bed in that cramped little room for four months. "But without her, I wouldn't have survived." Rosie tipped back her head and drained the glass that should have been mine. Every eye in the room turned to me, waiting to see how the Bellini family's heir would handle it. I removed the brooch symbolizing the alliance between our two families, set it on the table, and texted my father. "Withdraw our votes for Damian." "Starting tonight, Don Moretti can fend for himself."

The news came that Raymond had been shot. I was seven months pregnant, but I flew straight across the country to the family's East Coast compound—and got detained the moment I stepped inside. “Never heard of the Don having a fiancée, and pregnant no less. You've got some nerve running a con on Carraso turf.” The barrel of a gun pressed cold against my temple. My heart was clawing its way up my throat when I caught sight of a familiar figure across the room. “Raffina,” I shouted, “tell them I'm your brother-in-law's fiancée.” Raffina gave a small wave of her hand, and the man holding the gun immediately bent at the waist. “Donna, I didn't know she was a friend of yours. My mistake.” I stared with wide eyes, unable to make sense of what I was seeing. Inside the compound, the same man crossed to where Raymond sat on the couch without a scratch on him, and gave a formal nod. “Don, she claims she's your fiancée.” Raymond took a slow sip of his whiskey and shook his head, just barely. They dragged me out, and on the way the man slapped me across the face, warning me not to try my con act anywhere near the family again. I pulled the engagement ring off my finger and went straight to International Financial Tower.

On the day of my coming-of-age ceremony, I must choose a fiancé from among the heirs of three great families. Everyone believes I will choose Dario Morandi—the man I have pursued for years. Instead, I pick up the photograph of his older brother, Cassiano Morandi. Cassiano is known as the lunatic who was kidnapped by enemies at the age of five and thrown into an underground fighting pit. He survived on his own for ten years before the Morandis brought him back. No one thinks he is worthy of me, the Vito family's Principessa. In my previous life, I choose Dario. On our wedding day, Lina Greco—the daughter of Papa's chauffeur—shows up in a white wedding dress with her pregnant belly on display, crying as she claims the child is Dario's. Enraged, I have her thrown out. But amid the chaos, she suffers a miscarriage. Dario smiles and goes through with the wedding. But in the third year of our marriage, he steals classified intelligence and hands it over to my famiglia's enemies. I die that very night. Now that I have a second chance at life, I decide to fulfill his wish and let him be with Lina. What I never expect is that he has been reborn as well.

My Rival Bragged About Her Don Husband, But He Was My Secret Husband I was the heiress of a Mafia family. Since I always kept a low profile, the head cheerleader Selena Hartwell mocked me throughout high school. After graduation, I cut contact with every last classmate and threw myself into family business. Then, just as our family was reestablishing its foothold on the East Coast, an old high school group chat blew up. Selena went crazy tagging me: "Ava Costanzo, I'm getting married — and my husband is a Don! I'm ordering you to come to my wedding!" The wedding photo she posted showed the groom cropped out, but I recognized the cufflinks. The man beside her was Julian Moretti, the second son of the Moretti family, a crew that couldn't even manage two shipping routes without leaning on us.

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.

I was on vacation with my mother at our country vineyard when a message arrived from Ava, my husband's personal secretary. He was the new Don of the Falcone family. The photo showed a woman, bruised and naked, curled up on the floor of a cold cellar. It was followed by a voice message, her tone arrogant: "Helen, is this what you peasants do? Claw your way out of the mud just to leech off the Don?" "Don Lorenzo just acquired this estate, and you have the nerve to let your blind, ill-mannered mother wander in here to freeload? As the Don's personal secretary, it's my job to uphold the Falcone family's dignity." "This is the price for trespassing on the Don's estate!" I froze, my eyes lifting to the other side of the long table where my mother was sipping her red wine, perfectly safe. I zoomed in on the photo. The moment I saw the details, my heart seized. On a pale hand was a familiar ring. It was the heirloom the Falcone Madre never took off. I immediately dialed Ava's number. "Ava, are you insane? That's Lorenzo's mother!" A careless, almost flirtatious laugh came from the other end of the line. "The Don may consider you his property, but he never agreed to take in your dirt-poor family."

Three days ago, Julian Sinclair promised me to my face that he would propose to me tonight, at the family dinner. So when the ballroom doors swung open, every eye in the room turned to me, all of them already knowing why. Someone raised a glass, smiling like they already knew the secret. "Congratulations in advance, Donna." I stood there in the crowd, my fingertips trembling a little, waiting for Julian to come to me. But once he was inside, he walked right past me, straight up to Chloe Ross. And then, in front of everyone, he pinned the underboss's silver badge to her chest. "You did good work on the East Harbor cleanup." The room went still for a beat, and then the applause broke out. Chloe looked up at him, her eyes red, as if she'd finally been handed the place that was meant to be hers. I stood frozen, feeling my smile crack apart on my face, piece by piece. Only then did Julian seem to notice something, and he turned back to me. "Don't overthink it." "Tonight belongs to Chloe. Spoiling her moment with a proposal wouldn't be right." "At the next family dinner, I'll hand you the black ring in front of everyone." I looked at him and let out a soft laugh. Julian didn't know. There wasn't going to be a next time. My engagement banquet with the head of the Vaughn family was set for next week.

I've been married to my Mafia Boss husband for 15 years. When we first got married, he couldn't even afford a ring, but I didn't care; I loved him. I hid my identity. I secretly used my family's influence to help him build his empire from scratch, and I even bore him two children. His adopted sister always mocked me, calling me an old-fashioned housewife and saying I wasn't good enough for him. To avoid embarrassing him, I always endured it. Until our 15th anniversary, because both me and his adopted sister wore red dresses, he told me to stay in the kitchen: "Sofia's right. That red doesn't suit you. Don't come out until the banquet actually ends. Stay in the kitchen. I don't need the Dons from New York seeing you and getting the wrong impression." I was completely heartbroken and didn't argue anymore. I dialed a number I hadn't made in 15 years: "Principessa?" "It's me," I said, my voice steady. "Tell those old fossils on the Council... Isabella Corleone is coming home."

My baby brother was barely a month old when my father's mistress threw him off the upstairs balcony to his death. Then she turned around and said my mother had done it. And my father, the Don, took the mistress at her word and had my mother killed. That woman framed me too, and I was cast out of the house. For the next fifteen years, I clawed my way up through begging and reckless grit, until I became the Donna of the Vanetti family. Then one day, my adopted son Daniel Vanetti brought his new girlfriend to meet me. "Mother, this is Via, the Principessa of the Vitale family. I want to marry her." I looked at Via. Her face was the spitting image of my father's mistress. What a small world. The daughter of the woman who killed my mother had walked right up to my door. So I refused without a second's hesitation. "I don't approve."

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.]

The day I came back to the Bennett family as the real heiress, Romina, the fake one, looked at me with red-rimmed eyes and said she wanted to give the engagement back to me. "Don't bother. I'm already seeing someone." I rested a hand on my barely noticeable belly and said, half joking, "If you feel that bad about it, how about you just cash me out instead?" The words had barely left my mouth before a few lines of text drifted across my vision. [lmaooo the villainess is still scheming for money at a time like this. can we please skip ahead to the part where the male lead puts her in her place.] [I came for the sweet romance between the lead and the fake heiress heroine, not some side character throwing a fit because she's got a baby bump to wave around] [spoiler from me! the villainess gets thrown out of the family, the lead ends up hating her, and she dies in childbirth. throwing confetti!] I clicked my tongue. How could I possibly cling to a strange man? Then footsteps came from behind me. Romina walked over, crying, and introduced me. "Orlando, this is my sister, Ophelia. The engagement was supposed to be hers." I turned around, and my whole body went rigid. It was the patron who'd kept me for five years, the father of the child I was carrying.

The day I married Dante Moretti, I became the youngest Donna in New York. He took the Family seal from me and put the Family's ledgers and vault keys in the hands of his Underboss Valentina. She was his second-in-command and his lover. Even as Donna, I needed her signature before I could spend a dollar of the Family's money. Then Beatrice Moretti, Dante's mother and the former Donna, was attacked outside a church. The secret clinic demanded half a million dollars in cash before they would operate. I couldn't reach Dante, so I had to go to Valentina for access to the emergency vault. She sat behind Dante's desk, painting her nails. "You want money? Kneel, kiss my instep, and submit a request form." I did as I was told. Because my mother-in-law was lying on that operating table, and she was the only person who had ever treated me like a daughter. Valentina deliberately spilled coffee on the form and tore it to pieces. Not long after, the church bells tolled for the dead. And Dante, with his arm around Valentina, asked, "It's your mother who died. Why should we pay for her?"

My name is Estella Savelli. I'm Severin Savelli's wife, and the Donna of the most feared Mafia family in this city. For ten years, I've devoted myself to managing his family's affairs and raising the two children he had with his ex. Then Valerie came back. His first love. The mother of his children. In just one week, she made my 16-year-old stepchildren, Lucien and Seraphina Savelli, forget who stayed up all night beside them when their fevers wouldn't break. Or how I'd pulled them into my arms when the shooting started and bled to keep them safe. The kids took her side fast. They helped Valerie frame me for stealing the Savelli family signet ring and selling secrets to our enemies. To punish me, Severin locked me in the dungeon. That night, I heard laughter upstairs. They were toasting Valerie. When the dungeon door slammed shut, I thought something inside me would die. But in that pitch darkness, I finally saw my own heart for what it was. I'd spent ten years loving them, and I'd never once loved myself. So I decided to file for divorce and walk away with nothing. Severin thought I'd end up on the street, begging for his pity like an abandoned dog. But when I came back after disappearing for three years, they were the ones on their knees, begging for my love. And this time, I wouldn't spare them so much as a glance.

I use to think that I'm the pillar of this family, but I later realize that in my husband's eyes, I'm merely a machine expected to provide for the family and serve the household. I'm not allowed to ever complain about being tired or exhausted. After flying overseas for business and staying up all night to negotiate deals for Marco Botti, I return home in the early hours of the morning and am still expected to make supper for his mother, Lucia Palmieri. On our wedding anniversary, I get into an accident. The hospital contacts Marco, and he promises that he will be there. But he ends up leaving me to endure the entire emergency rescue procedure alone. When I regain consciousness, I see my seven-year-old daughter, Sofia Botti, holding Marco's phone and showing me the cake from last night. "Mommy, can you always stay out and work overtime every day? I want to play with Claudia every day without you around." She then points at Marco in the photo with a huge smile on her face, showing me how Marco's arm was snaked tightly around Claudia Durante's waist just last night. She was leaning into his embrace, pressing her face against his shoulder. Claudia has been my best friend for more than a decade. I return the phone to Sofia, but the movement tears at my wounds, and it hurts so much that I don't dare to open my mouth in case I cry out in pain. Finally, I no longer need to find an excuse for Marco, nor do I need to find another reason to stay with him. I don't want this home anymore. I just want to leave with the old golden retriever that my Papa, Arturo Vitale, left me before he passed. The moment I'm discharged from the hospital, I immediately file for a divorce. Marco stands at the courthouse exit, tugging at the handle of my car with his eyes reddened and teary. "Erina, how could you just throw away our 12 years of marriage like this?" I don't spare him another look. He should be grateful that all I'm serving him are divorce papers and not an execution order from the Vitales, the biggest Mafia Famiglia in Sivilly.

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 the fourth year of our marriage, and a few days for our bond to be deemed permanent by the Mafia council, I found out my babies' deaths were never just a miscarriage. My husband, the same man who swore to protect me, had murdered my babies to please my cousin. They didn't know I had found out, and so nothing could prepare them for the revenge I planned. Hurt me once, shame on me. Hurt me twice… I'd make you wish you were never born.

Everyone in the underworld knew Daniel Taylor loved me more than anything. He was a powerful mafia Don. Yet every year, he set aside a whole month to go to the monastery of San Colombano, climb its 102 stone steps one by one, and pray for me and the child we'd lost. And I had always believed I was the happiest woman in the world. Until the day I saw the video my best friend, Talia Marino, posted on Facebook for her son Renzo's fifth birthday. In the video, Renzo kept calling out for his daddy in a singsong voice. A moment later, a pair of hands reached into the frame and picked him up. Gentle, practiced hands. But I recognized the four-leaf clover bracelet on one wrist. I'd searched the whole city to find it for Daniel. I sat in front of a warm fire, but a chill crept through me. Just then, Rosa Santos, our housekeeper, came over. She took the 4D ultrasound printout from my hand. It had already started to yellow. "Donna, are you thinking about your daughter again?" I looked up. I hadn't even noticed the tears on my face. Yes. I was thinking about her again. Today was the anniversary of her death. I closed the video and called the cemetery office at the monastery. "Hello, this is Lucia Capello. I'd like to arrange for my daughter, Emma Taylor, to be reburied..." "Of course. You'll need to submit the paperwork, and the process takes three days." When I hung up, I booked a flight to Malmö for three days later.

My world fell apart over an encrypted link from the dark web. My husband, Don Marcello, was there on our marriage bed, pounding into another woman. All the top bosses in North America were watching. He held her in his arms, laughing about me. His fragile, naive little trophy wife who could never leave him. Even the live chat was a stream of insults. Calling me the useless wife who couldn't even get her husband into bed. But the worst part? The way he acted when I found out. He grabbed my chin. Told me the whole disgusting betrayal was just "an act to keep our allies happy." He even let his mistress brag about it to every socialite in the city. My humiliation became their afternoon entertainment. And me—the good wife who washed the blood from his shirts, the woman he decided was too weak to survive without him—I had to smile at family dinners. He didn't know. When he crushed my loyalty like trash under his heel, I had already started making my move. He thought this was his game to win. His hostile takeover. But when the hammer clicks back, Marcello will understand. His "sweet little wife who only knows how to paint" is the one holding the blade to the entire North American underworld.

The Mad Donna He Never Really Married For three years, I was Donna of the rising Valenti family. One day, Enzo was holding a meeting at a private cigar club. I worried about his stomach issues, so I went to bring him his usual antacids. Standing outside the private room, I heard his men laughing. “Don Enzo, are you really going to keep Clara hidden away at the Silver Lake villa forever?” “That mad Moretti heiress in the main house is still parading around as Donna of the Valenti family.” Enzo rubbed the bridge of his nose and scoffed. “If she hadn’t taken a bullet to the head for me and gone insane, and if I hadn’t desperately needed her family’s capital, I never would have married a woman with no blood ties to the life.” “But Clara is my legal wife. The family trust, the marriage certificate at City Hall, it’s all in her name.” “Stella’s just a plaything I keep at the main house. Once Clara gives birth to an heir, I’ll bring her home for good.” My knuckles turned white as I squeezed the small box of medicine, the cardboard crumpling in my hand. He had exchanged blood oaths and rings with me in the church, yet it was Clara who had signed the papers at City Hall. He played me for a fool, all to keep Clara’s reputation clean. Clutching the box, I turned and melted back into the shadows. He had no idea my sanity had returned three days ago. He would never guess I had already sent an encrypted message to my brother, who runs a business empire from our home in Solaria, far across the sea. I was done with this goddamn Valenti title.