Cerita Pendek Homewrecker Mafia & Novel Karma

Three years ago, Isabella Moretti was the sole heir to the Moretti family, the most powerful of New York's five crime families. She was supposed to inherit the Moretti name and most of the business flowing through New York Harbor. A Mafia shootout changed everything. To save her husband, Matteo De Luca, she deliberately drew the enemy away from him. Matteo got out. But Isabella was shot in the shoulder and captured by the kidnappers. They wanted information about Moretti operations. For three years, they tortured her to get it. She was carrying Matteo's child at the time. She did not know she had already been written off. She kept believing the husband she loved would come for her. The truth was that for three whole years, nobody came. She escaped by faking her death and made it back to New York alive, only to find that she had lost everything. Her loving parents were dead, while the husband she adored was rushing to bury her with his lover and their children at his side!

Just after leaving the shopping district, six months pregnant, I was struck and thrown to the icy pavement by a modified Bentley. I collapsed onto the ground, clutching my lower abdomen in pure terror, desperately crying out for help. Yet the woman driving the car simply locked the doors and sat comfortably inside, casually touching up her makeup. She dialed her phone, complaining into it without a care in the world. “Darling, I think I hit someone. Some crazy woman is on the ground trying to extort us…” Within minutes, a motorcade from a powerful mafia family sealed off the entire block. Heavily armed men surrounded the scene, forcibly turning away every paramedic and ambulance that tried to get close. Clutching my bleeding stomach, I dragged myself along the ground, desperate to crawl past the perimeter, only to be pinned down hard by two men. “Don gave orders that nobody moves until we figure out what happened.” The woman stepped out of the car, her designer boots clicking against the pavement as she looked down at me with disgust. "If you’re looking for a payout, you picked the wrong target. How annoying.” The call was still connected, and from the speaker came a bone-chilling, familiar voice. “Don't be scared. Stay in the car, and I'll have my men clean up the trouble.” As agonizing, tearing cramps ripped through my stomach, hearing that voice felt like grabbing onto my last lifeline. I let out a blood-curdling scream, shouting his name. “Brett! The 'trouble' you're trying to clean up is your own child!”

I had always known my family hated me. Or maybe more accurately—they hated me for taking their real daughter’s place for so long. When they finally found Lily, their real daughter and sister, Matteo, the brother I grew up with, told me to disappear. Father, Don Kane, never looked at me twice again, no matter how hard I tried. Mother treated me like I was invisible. But they never let me leave. They made me stay and suffer. One day, Lily did something horrible, and they threw all the blame onto me. I was locked away in an asylum. When I was finally released two years later, the Kane came looking for me again, smiling as they called me their real daughter after all. A little too late for that, don’t they think?

My boyfriend's mistress posted a pregnancy announcement with him on Instagram. They looked ridiculously happy. Then she tagged me and asked for my blessing in front of everyone. Naturally, the whole internet waited for me to tear her apart. They had every reason to expect bloodshed. I'd dragged myself out of the ruins of a crime family and fought my way to the top of Wall Street. Julian Rhodes, meanwhile, was the son of the nanny who had raised me. And Emily Nash? She was a medical intern who grew up in the slums. Soon, even underground bookies were taking bets on what I'd do. Half bet Emily wouldn't make it out alive. The rest bet Julian would die beside her. I did neither. Instead, I shocked everyone by congratulating them. There was a reason for that. A month earlier, Julian had been badly injured while protecting me during a shootout at the pier. The head injury had left him with an alternate personality. That other Julian had fallen hard for the first person he'd seen when he woke up—Emily. A few days earlier, Emily twisted her ankle as she walked past me. That alone was enough to bring out Julian's other personality. He grabbed an antique vase and smashed it against my forehead. Hot blood ran down my brow and into my eye. My hand went straight to the gun at my hip. Then I stopped myself. He laughed and pointed at me. "Caroline, touch Emily again, and the real Julian will never wake up. You'll never see him again." Julian had saved my life the night my family was wiped out. He also held the access keys to everything I owned. So if I wanted the real Julian back, I had no choice but to endure it.