Melodramatic Mafia Short Stories & Homewrecker Novels

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.

On the first day of our honeymoon, Dante Moretti, the Mafia Don I had just married, and his childhood sweetheart left me at a gas station. They had driven for twenty minutes before realizing I wasn’t in the car. When he called, panic filled his voice. “Ariana, why didn’t you get back in? I thought you were in the back seat.” Bianca’s voice came clearly through the phone. “She isn’t a child, Dante. You don’t have to turn around for her.” I laughed bitterly. I had lost count of how many times he had left me behind for his childhood sweetheart. When I remained silent, irritation crept into his voice. “Don’t start, Ariana. I’ve sent one of the guards to pick you up. Just wait for the guard.” In the past, I would have forgiven him and waited. But this time, I didn’t want to. I canceled the rest of our honeymoon and removed the wedding ring I had worn for less than three days. Then I called my father for the first time in five years. “Father, I want to come home.” His voice trembled. “Ariana, the Bellini family has been waiting for you.”

After my younger sister went abroad, I married the mafia Don in her place. Five years after we married, we became each other’s greatest enemies. He hated me for driving my sister away and scheming my way into becoming his wife. I hated him for always treating me as a stand-in, never once acknowledging me in front of the world. My lack of status brought humiliation to my vain parents, and from that moment on, their love for me turned into hatred. In the end, he and my parents left me behind on a snowy mountain while celebrating Christmas with my sister. In the bitter cold, I died together with the child I never got to meet. Meanwhile, my sister basked in everyone’s love and had the happiest Christmas of her life. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day my sister returned from abroad. This time, I would not beg Gideon or my parents to love me ever again.

I'm the Donna of the Vitale family, the wife of Domenico Vitale, the woman everyone is expected to bow to. Yet whether I need to access family funds, arrange a car, make a doctor's appointment, or even prepare a gown for a party, I must submit an application first. The woman who approves every request is Camilla Marino, Domenico's most trusted secretary. He says this is family protocol. As the Donna, I should be the first to follow the rules. Things change when I suffer a massive hemorrhage during my pregnancy. My request for emergency medical treatment is pending approval, yet I have already waited longer than I should have. I call Domenico and beg, "Domenico, please. Tell Camilla to approve it. We're going to lose our baby." He gently scolds me for trying to bypass family protocol. "Do as Camilla says." Just like that, he hangs up. That night, I lose my baby, as well as whatever love I have left for Domenico. I file for divorce and leave with nothing but a few clothes I owned before the marriage. He's convinced I'm doing this out of jealousy toward Camilla, that it is a calculated scheme to make him come crawling after me. He even tracks me down at my new place of work and publicly orders my medical treatment to be stopped, certain that once I lose the Vitale family's money and protection, I'll have no choice but to beg him. Trembling, our private physician tells him the truth. "Don Vitale, Signora miscarried a long time ago."