قصص وروايات قصيرة من فئة Mafia وعن Obsessive وتضم Homewrecker وتدور في Regret

Five years into our secret marriage, Alex finally agreed to give me a wedding. But the day before the ceremony, I was the one who called it off. The Castellano Family butler asked me, stunned, "Ma'am, the ceremony is tomorrow. Are you sure you don't want to wait for Mr. Castellano to come home?" I picked up my packed suitcase. My voice came out light, almost relieved. "He isn't coming. Right now he's in a church in New York, saying his vows with his adopted sister."

My mother, Diane Sutton, was helping me into the bridal suite when she suddenly stumbled forward. Someone had smeared strong adhesive across the red carpet. Her shoe came off, and four of her toes poked through her torn stocking. My father, Martin Sutton, rushed over to help her, but as soon as he turned, everyone saw the sticky note on his back. "Clearance! 99 cents!" The room fell silent. Chiara Lombardi, Enzo Valli's assistant, couldn't hold back anymore. She burst out laughing, then said, "Look how embarrassing they look! I hereby declare the 100th test officially underway!" I froze. "Wasn't it already over?" Three years ago, Enzo told me he wanted to marry me. His father, Don Marco Valli, respected me as an attorney but believed my family background made me unfit to marry his son. So Marco and his advisor came up with 99 tests and put Chiara in charge of them. They hoped I'd eventually give up and call off the wedding myself. Over the next three years, Chiara replaced my toothpaste with mustard, swapped my shampoo for depilatory cream, and even released rats into my room at night. Whenever I felt like I couldn't take it anymore, Enzo would pull me into his arms and murmur, "Nora, just hang on a little longer. Once the tests are over, I promise no one will ever hurt you again." He could not openly defy the procedure the advisor had set, but he never once bothered to ask what Chiara had put me through. As long as we got married in the end, what I endured along the way didn't matter. Last night was the 99th test. I thought the nightmare was finally over. Then Chiara announced, "You passed. But your parents haven't! You're going to be the Donna one day. Your parents represent the Family too. If they can't handle something this minor, what good are they?" I turned to Enzo for help. He ruffled my hair as if soothing a petulant child. "Do as Chiara says. Just hang on a little longer." I'd put up with this for three years. I was done enduring it.

The day my husband kicked me off the Rinaldi family council, Irene Costa was sitting in my chair. She had been engaged to his late brother. She was wearing my pearl necklace, and the brooch pinned to her chest was reserved for the Donna of the Rinaldi family. My mother had left me that necklace. I kept it in a safe, and the only person who knew the combination was my husband, Victor Rinaldi. He looked at me, his voice cold. "Irene is taking your place at tonight's South Port negotiation. When you learn to control your jealousy, I'll give you your seat back." No one at the table said a word. My pin, my necklace, and the South Port proposal I'd spent three months working on now lay in front of Irene. Everyone had forgotten that when I married Victor three years earlier, I brought my father's port and connections with me. I was the reason he still held the Don's seat. I was the reason the Rinaldi family had risen again. I reached for my necklace. Victor thought I was reaching for the pin instead and stepped in front of Irene. "It's just a pin. You're still the Donna. Be generous. Don't embarrass Irene." I said nothing else. Four days later, I set a stack of documents in front of him. "The South Port agreements. They need your signature." He was replying to a message from Irene. He picked up the pen without glancing at the documents. "You've checked them, haven't you?" Victor had always trusted my work. He had also always believed that no matter how badly he humiliated me, I would never leave. I watched him finish signing, then pulled the dissolution of our marriage contract from beneath the South Port agreements. In seven days, I would leave with the port my father had left me, the people loyal to me, and everything Victor had spent years mistaking for Rinaldi property.