Tragic Love Mafia 단편 소설 & Hypocrisy 소설

Apparently, the mafia heir, Giovanni Alonzi, is on his deathbed. The Alonzi family wants to select a candidate out of all eligible bachelorettes in Monteverde in order to carry his heir and pray for his recovery. The moment the news gets out, my fiance, Riccardo Moretti, instantly proposes to me. He also urges me to register our marriage on the same day. We've been childhood sweethearts since we were kids, and we've already gotten engaged a long time ago. Our initial plan is to get married this year. But on the day I'm supposed to register my marriage with Riccardo, one of the maids drugs me. My half-sister, Elena Ricci, who shares the same father as me, puts on my gown and walks into City Hall with Riccardo on my behalf. When I wake up, I find out that Elena is already Riccardo's legitimate wife. Rage overwhelms my senses immediately. I rush to the bar to confront Riccardo, only to overhear his conversation with his friends outside the private room they are in. "You really are a genius, Riccardo! You're engaged to Marcella, yet you choose to marry Elena! If Marcella refuses to marry Giovanni, she can only remain your secret lover! "This way, you'll have both sisters as your lovers! Wow, you really are lucky!"

Vivian was wheeled out of the delivery room for the third time after a massive hemorrhage. The baby was stillborn. The doctor told her that her womb had been damaged by too many pregnancies. She would never carry another child. Numb and hollowed out, Vivian dragged herself toward the morgue to see her baby one last time, and that was when she saw her husband Ethan standing in the corridor, talking quietly to one of his men. "Don, your wife's baby was a perfect marrow match again. One more extraction and Claire's son will be cured." Vivian froze mid-step, every nerve in her body going still. Then came Ethan's voice, light and almost amused, and it shattered something she didn't know was still whole. His man hesitated, something pained moving across his face,"If Claire's boy pulls through, then losing those three kids was worth it." "Don, if the Donna ever finds out what really happened to those babies…" A cold shudder ran through Vivian, and her eyes locked on Ethan. But the curve of his mouth turned sharp, almost cruel. "She won't. I'll make it up to her, get her pregnant again with a healthy one this time. She'll be too busy with the baby to go digging." "And if she does find out, then what?" "Her mother gave her life for mine. That debt has chained me to her for ten years, and I can barely breathe under it. But now there's someone I actually want to protect. She has no right to stand in the way." Something softened in Ethan's face then, something Vivian had never seen turned toward her. "Claire was my brother's wife, and I'll never forget that he died protecting this family. So protecting his widow and his blood are our family’s and my duty." "She's the only person who's ever made me feel like a husband. Like a father." "I have to take care of her."

At another Sunday dinner at the Bellandi estate, Luca Bellandi's assistant, Ava Marino, was sitting in my seat. It was the first chair to Luca's right at the long walnut table, the seat everyone in Chicago's underworld knew belonged to Mrs. Bellandi. Ava sat there as if she had been born into it, her pale wrist brushing Luca's sleeve while she poured his wine. I stood in the doorway and looked at him. "She's in my seat. You don't have anything to say?" Luca raised his eyes. "You were late. Don't blame someone else for sitting down first. There are empty chairs over there. Sit if you want. If not, get out." The dining room went dead quiet, and before I could answer, his thoughts slipped into my ears. [Vivi, don't go. Come sit beside me. Tell them it's your seat. Tell me you still want to be my wife.] [Please get mad. Please care. Say you need me, and I'll give you the whole world.] In the past, those soft, trembling thoughts would have been enough. I would've swallowed the insult and stayed beside him like a loyal dog that didn't know when to leave. This time, I didn't. I slipped the wedding ring off my finger and laid it on the table. "If the Bellandi family can't even keep a wife's seat for me, then I guess this family doesn't need a wife anymore. Luca, let's get divorced."

When I was five, I was kidnapped, and the people behind it memorized my face. To protect me, my older sister, Julianne, said, "Maddie, you need to stay out of sight for your own safety." From then on, she took my place whenever I was supposed to appear with my fiance, Adrian Moretti. At the grand opening of his casino, she said the crowd would be too dangerous, so she wore my dress and cut the ribbon beside him. At the Conti family's victory gala, she claimed our enemies might be lying in wait, so she took my invitation and danced with Adrian. After every event, she would pat my head and say: "Once the two of you are married, I can finally stop worrying." I always believed she was doing it for my sake. Then, before my wedding to Adrian, she put on my wedding gown and publicly stood in for me at the rehearsal. She posted pictures on her social media page. Wearing the gown that was supposed to be mine, she stood at the end of the aisle with her arm linked through Adrian's. The caption read: [I tested everything for Maddie first. It was all perfect.] The first comment underneath was from Adrian. [That dress suits you.] I stared at those words for a long time as my heart slowly turned cold. It was time to end this game of replacing me in the name of protecting me.

Through seven years of secret marriage, I was nothing more than an obedient, tirelessly devoted assistant to Don Nathan Harrison. He walked the red carpet at high-profile galas with Susan Ferell, his business partner’s daughter. He booked an entire castle just to host an exclusive rose-themed banquet for her and spent millions at an auction to buy her a crown-jewel diamond necklace once owned by royalty. Their names dominated the headlines daily, dubbed by the Siciamira media as the ultimate power couple of high society. For the first time, I didn't make a scene or shed a single tear. Even when I found that royal diamond necklace intended for Susan tucked away in Nathan’s suit pocket, I simply pulled it out and quietly set it on the vanity. Nathan convinced himself that I had finally grown sensible and understood the overwhelming sacrifices he was making for our future. What he didn't know was that the world's top global syndicate had just tracked me down, crowning me as the sole heir to a century-old empire. And the signed divorce papers were already stamped, processed, and on their way from the courthouse straight to his front door.

I died five years ago. Now my husband, the Don of our Mafia family, wants me to take the fall for his sister again—this time for accidentally killing a British noble's heir during an arms deal. He's holding a fake confession letter with my forged signature, storming into my old apartment in the rust district, only to find it empty. Frustrated, he grabs the corner store owner downstairs, demanding to know where I am. The owner pauses, wiping his hands on his apron, calmly tells him: "Serafine? She died five years ago." "Heard it was retaliation from a rival family during the gang war. They ambushed her in an alley... shot her over a dozen times. She died immediately." My husband, Lucien, refuses to believe it. Convinced the owner is on my payroll, hiding me to help me escape his reach. He scoffs, his eyes filled with scorn: "Oh, so what? Because I called her out for messing up that last job, now she's throwing a tantrum?" "You tell her, if she doesn't come back and take the fall in three days, I'll revoke her grandmother's 'special family protection'! Let the old woman rot!" With that, he storms out, his rage still simmering. The owner watches him leave and sighs, shaking his head. "There's no grandmother left to protect... That woman passed away not long after Serafine did... couldn't survive the winter without our family's medical supplies and protection..."

For three years, I slept with my father’s head of security behind everyone’s back. Last night, with one hand at my throat and the other under my dress, he finally asked for a name, a future, something real. “After graduation,” I whispered against his mouth. “Let me finish my defense first. Then we’ll tell them.” “No.” By then I was shaking beneath him on the leather seat. “Then sooner. On my birthday next Friday. I’ll stop hiding then... Cassian, please—gentler...” That seemed to satisfy him. His mouth softened against my skin, and his voice dropped low against my ear. “Good girl. I just want you too much.” The next afternoon, I met my best friend for tea. The moment she opened the passenger door, she spotted the torn foil packet caught beside the seat and lifted a brow. “Bourbon cherry?” she said, already grinning. “That’s our company’s unreleased line. So this is what you’ve been hiding.” I snatched it up and shoved it into my bag. “It’s not public yet.” She frowned. “That’s the strange part. We only sent those samples to a handful of VIP clients.” Then she pulled out her phone. “I did a product follow-up with one of them yesterday, and his private account was basically a shrine to his girlfriend.” She turned the screen toward me. I only looked once, and my whole body went cold. The man in the photo had a line of Latin script inked low across his abdomen. I knew that tattoo. I had kissed it the night before. My fingers started shaking as I opened the private account Cassian had never shown me. April 4. The conservatory. Me and him. April 7. The upstairs studio. Me and him again. April 11—last night. A six-second clip in the back of the car.

Melville Taylor and I were chasing the northern lights in Alaska when a gang of robbers carjacked us. To make them let Melville go, I let them tie me to the back of the car and drag me six miles for their entertainment. When they finally stopped, I was covered in blood. Large patches of my skin had been scraped away, and I could barely stand. Then the woman leading the gang pulled off her mask and untied Melville. "Surprise!" Melville beamed at me. "Congratulations, babe. You passed my test! I'm the next head of the Taylor family. I'm sorry I kept that from you. Cecilia and I bet on whether you loved me enough to die for me." His bright blue eyes shone with love. "I'm so glad I didn't lose." I stared at my blood-soaked hands and the wounds covering my body as my last illusion shattered. From start to finish, what I'd believed was a sacrifice for love had been nothing but some absurd test. Then I laughed too. I wasn't the poor little nobody they thought they could push around. I was the only heir to the Calvetti family, the most powerful mafia family in North America. If he didn't value my love, I'd take it all back. "Melville, we're done."

My husband was an elite mercenary. Three years ago, shortly after we got engaged, he accepted an S-Rank emergency mission. Before he left, he held me close and said, "This is my last mission. After this, I'm done being a mercenary. When I come back, we'll get married." I believed him. And I waited for more than a thousand days and nights. Three months ago, he finally came home. I thought my three years of waiting had finally come to an end. But just moments ago, I was on my way to tell him that I was pregnant with his child when I overheard his conversation with his lieutenant outside the study. "What about Vivian and Ethan? Ethan is already over two years old. He's your biological son. You can't hide this forever. If Miss Moretti ever finds out..." My husband shot his lieutenant a cold glare. "She'll never find out. The only child I'll ever acknowledge publicly is the one Isabella gives birth to. Tell Vivian to keep both herself and Ethan quiet." His lieutenant hesitated. "Aren't you afraid she'll leave you if she ever finds out the truth?" Adrian looked confident. "Isabella loves me too much. She won't leave." Ethan? His biological son? So while I had been waiting all those years for him to come back and marry me, he had already built another family. He even had a two-year-old son with another woman. I stumbled back to my bedroom and called my father. "Dad, I want to come back to the family."

I was with Don Silas for seven years. From when he had nothing to when he ruled Chicago's entire underworld. To everyone else, I was just his dirty little secret. His men humiliated me in public. His Commission members spat insults at my face. The few friends who knew the truth couldn't stand it. They confronted him. "Are you really going to let Alessia be your shadow forever? You won't even give her a proper title?" Silas was silent for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was like ice. "Carina's husband was my most loyal underboss. He took a bullet meant for me. The Outfit demands I honor his sacrifice. I have to pay it." "Alessia loves me. A title is just a title. She'll accept it." My friend felt a chill run down his spine. "But I heard your engagement party with Carina is next week. Alessia is pregnant with your heir. What if she finds out..." Silas's voice was sharp. Final. "Alessia will endure it. For me." I stood in front of my apartment's floor-to-ceiling windows, staring at a picture of the "Heart of Sicily" on my phone. I felt like a fool. The man who whispered in my ear, promising to place this ring—the symbol of the Family's true Donna—on my finger, was Silas. And the man now preparing to give it to another woman in front of all of Chicago was also Silas. The glittering diamond in the photo felt like it was laughing at me. I think Silas was wrong. I won't bet my life, or our child's future, on a man who always expects me to be the one to step aside.

I grew up alongside the Don of the Vitale family. I took a bullet for him and lost the son I was carrying. I helped move the family’s operations from Sicily to Milan and built the Vitale name into one no one dared look down on. The day Matteo took over as Don, he kissed me in front of everyone and declared that I would be his one and only Donna for the rest of his life. For six years, there had never been another woman by his side. Everyone said Matteo loved me more than anything. Every summer, he returned to Sicily for a family gathering. I asked to go with him three times, and each time something happened that kept me in Milan. This year, on the eve of his birthday, I secretly flew to Sicily alone. I wanted to surprise him. In the familiar courtyard of the old estate, Matteo was sitting beneath an orange tree with a little boy in his arms. The boy called him “Papà.” A woman in a long dress walked toward them carrying a freshly baked tart. “You come back every year for your birthday just to be with us. Aren’t you afraid she’ll find out?” Matteo smiled at her. “No. The family needs her.” “She’s the Donna of the Vitale family. She knows she has to put the family first. You’re the one waiting for me at home.” Standing outside the courtyard gate, I suddenly understood. Matteo had left me to run the family. He had given her a home with him. And I no longer wanted to put his family first. So I booked a one-way ticket to Albania for seven days later.

Everyone knew I was severely allergic to cinnamon. Yet when I was four months pregnant, the family’s newly appointed Consigliere personally brought me an apple pie with cinnamon in it. By the time I was rushed to the hospital, I had nearly lost my unborn child. When Damian Luccese heard what happened, he canceled his appointments and stayed by my side, refusing to leave me for even a moment. However, just as he was coaxing me to sleep, his phone suddenly rang. “Don Luccese, Vivian claims the Donna framed her! She’s threatening to kill herself!” Damian’s expression darkened instantly. “She nearly killed my wife and child, and now, she has the nerve to make a scene?” He strode toward the door, only to turn back and press a kiss to my forehead. Guilt filled his eyes. “Honey, I’m going to make her answer for what she’s done. Wait for me.” I waited until the next day, when I was finally discharged from the hospital, yet he still had not returned. When I got back home and stepped into the study, I saw Vivian Sorrento crawling out from beneath his desk. “Donna…” She looked flustered and panicked. “I swear, I had no idea there was cinnamon in the pie! If you still can’t forgive me, I’m willing to resign as the family Consigliere…” Before I could say a word, my husband caught her by the wrist. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve done so much for this family. Until we get to the bottom of what happened, no one has the right to force you out.” His gaze shifted to me, and when he spoke again, his voice had softened. “Elena, something about this doesn’t add up. Don’t worry, I’ll find the person responsible. Vivian was being used too. She’s been so consumed with guilt that she hasn’t slept all night. Please don’t make things harder for her. Can you do that for me?” I lowered my gaze to their tightly clasped hands, feeling the blood in my veins turn to ice. Swallowing back my tears, I said nothing. Instead, I replied to my father’s message: [Dad, I’ve lost. I’m ready to return and take over the family.]

I've been in a secret relationship with Luca Alfonso for seven years. I watched his transformation from a fresh graduate to the Don of a famiglia. I know he hates stupid people and bothersome things. So, in the dark of night, I silently clear out traitors within the family and take life-threatening injuries on his behalf. Yet, I never once ask him to disclose the nature of our relationship. I know that doing so will only cause him trouble and paint a target on my back. But later, when his Underboss, Lorenzo Forti, jokingly calls Margherita Vitale his Donna, he simply smiles without refuting it. When I question him about it, his expression darkens. He says, "Her father sacrificed his life for the family. She's suffered enough already. Must you be so suspicious of us?" So, I tell myself that Luca is just such a person. He loathes stupid people and bothersome things, so he's always unwilling to elaborate. It works until the day that Margherita tosses our encrypted list of core family members into the fireplace. With that move, she's burned the list of undercover operatives we've deployed over the past three years to ashes. She falls to her knees in terror. My heart skips a beat. A mistake this serious will, at worst, end with a severed finger and expulsion from the family. I speak up in her defense, "Don Alfonso, I have a backup of the documents." Luca gently helps Margherita to her feet and says, "Don't be afraid. It is what it is." Everyone present exchanges glances, marvelling at his marked difference in attitude today. But in the very next moment, Luca looks at me and asks, "Who gave you permission to make a backup of a top-secret document? Do you know that you've overstepped your authority?" He casts me a glance, then continues, "Go receive your punishment, and don't do anything foolish next time." I watch his retreating figure with growing despair. "Yes, Don Alfonso." It turns out that Luca doesn't actually hate stupid people. He just hates my stupidity.

It had taken me seven whole years to help Leonardo Caruso become Don. The night he took the title, he held my hand tightly and announced to everyone, "From now on, no matter what happens, forget about me if you have to. The Donna stays safe." That night, everyone envied what we had. Then his childhood friend, Isabella Greco, returned from Sorrenza. He still escorted me to dinners and galas on his arm, but he handed the family business to Isabella and told me to focus on resting and caring for our baby. Isabella's father had died for him. Whenever she needed him, I had to come second. I believed that after surviving so many brushes with death together, he would never truly abandon me. That belief lasted until the night of our wedding anniversary, when our convoy was ambushed on the way back to the estate. I was trapped inside the overturned car, cradling my stomach as I begged him for help. The guard who had already reached my car was about to pull me out. Yet Leonardo called him away and ordered him to save Isabella first, even though she had only a few scratches. When I woke up, the baby was gone, and so was my chance of ever becoming pregnant again. Leonardo sat beside my bed with bloodshot eyes and ordered his men to hunt down every attacker and make them pay. Yet the order that had called the guard away from me had come from his own mouth. Years earlier, he had given up his chance to seize power just to turn back and save me. Now that he was Don, the baby and I had to wait while he saved someone else first. I faked my death and left him for good. From that moment on, I was going to live a life that belonged only to me.

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.

I am someone with a strong desire to share every little detail with my lover. The blush of dawn outside the safe house window, a slightly-too-bitter espresso, the new flower shop on the corner. Even if Carlo's shadow just flickered through my mind for a moment, I couldn't stop myself from hitting send. His replies were always brief, but they were instant. I used to think that was just how a cold man like him showed his love. That all changed seven days before the wedding, when I found an AI auto-responder on the burner phone he never let out of his sight. It broke down every sentence I sent, categorizing them and extracting keywords to generate the most perfectly dismissive answers. When I said I missed him, it replied, "Behave." When I said I was scared, it replied, "I'll handle it." When I wanted to argue, it replied, "Be sensible." So, for half a year, the one replying to my messages was never Carlo. Meanwhile, in another chat window, the messages between him and another woman were piled high. From simple good mornings to random midnight thoughts, From secret talks about family business to whether they should take the yacht out on the weekend. I finally understood. Carlo wasn't a cold person. It wasn't that he didn't like to share his life; he just didn't want to share it with me. And I finally decided to make a heartbroken exit from this absurd charade.

Five years married to Marcello, and I find out he's no street punk. He's the Don. The head of New York's McCarthy family. While I was pinching every penny, he was dropping millions at auction, buying a fortune in diamonds for Camilla, his dead best friend's widow. He even took the baby I nearly died giving birth to. Gave him to Camilla. He stroked my hair, his voice soft and cruel. "Camilla and I, we grew up together. She was carrying Ethan's kid. If she knew her baby died... she couldn't take it." "We'll have other kids," he said. I said no. So he threatened my family. I gave in. But I made a promise to myself: I was leaving this man. I secretly signed the papers to be a combat medic. I ship out in seven days.

On our seventh anniversary, Don Leonardo Luciano gave me an eight-carat pigeon's-blood ruby ring. He told me it was a family heirloom, passed from one Donna to the next. "Camilla, I can't give you a wedding yet, but in my heart, you're already my wife." My eyes filled with tears as I slipped it onto my finger. Then I asked my best friend, Nora Bennett, to examine it after her shift at the auction house. She held it under a lamp and slowly turned the stone. A ring of crimson light appeared inside it. "This isn't a natural ruby." "How is that possible? Leonardo gave it to me. It's a family heirloom." Nora frowned. "Really? I heard every piece of Luciano family jewelry bears a gold lion crest. Does yours have one?" I took off the ring and checked. Nothing. Just then, a new story from Victoria Moretti popped up on my feed. She was the daughter of another powerful mafia family. The photo showed her aboard Leonardo's private yacht. And on her finger was a ring identical to mine. A man stood beside her, his face hidden from view. But I recognized the watch on his wrist. I'd given it to Leonardo. Then I saw the caption. "After all this time, you finally put the family ring on my finger."

Half a year ago, I barely survived being kidnapped by rival enemies, leaving me too terrified to leave the house alone again. On our wedding anniversary, Charles said he had prepared a surprise and asked me to meet him in the underground garage. His gentle, soothing voice over the phone slowly lowered my guard as I stepped into Section B32. Charles stood in front of his car holding a massive bouquet of red roses. Just as I was about to run into his arms, a figure wearing a baseball cap suddenly rushed out from behind, locking an arm tightly around my neck. I screamed out to Charles for help, but the attacker's chokehold only tightened. In a desperate, violent struggle, I slammed my elbow hard into their chest. With a sharp gasp of pain from the attacker, the blinding floodlights suddenly snapped on. Charles’ right-hand woman, Susie, pulled off her cap, while a nearby video camera was still flashing a red recording light. Charles rushed over, but he immediately leaned down to check if Susie was injured first. "As donna, you don't even dare to step out the front door! She was only trying to help you build up your courage. Why did you have to hit her so hard?" Susie let out a laugh. "See, Selena? You're just a coward. Stop pretending to have trauma." I froze on the spot. Was everything I had suffered for the family just a joke in their eyes? A bitter laugh escaped my lips as I slammed my wedding ring down violently at Charles’ feet. "Don't waste any more effort trying to build up my courage. I'm done being donna!"

The private jet touched down in Solverno well past midnight. Behind me, an explosion rattled the terminal windows hard enough to make the glass shudder. Three days earlier, my husband, Damiano Salvato, had flown to Solverno to negotiate a deal. The city was now caught in crossfire, and his phone did not connect no matter how many times I tried. I dialed his Underboss, Enzo Conti, with shaking hands. The line rang for a long time before he picked up. His voice sounded strained. "Y-You're really in Solverno right now?" Another explosion hit, and the panic in my chest tightened another notch. "Where is Damiano? Which zone is he in?" The line went quiet for a moment before Enzo answered, almost reluctantly. "He never left Havenport." A second later, a photo flashed across my screen. Damiano was underwater with a woman, the two of them tangled together, laughing. I recognized her immediately. It was Valeria Caine. Three years ago, Damiano had stood before every Capo in the family and sworn he would never see that woman again. He had probably forgotten that today was our third wedding anniversary. "Signora Salvato, the truth is... they never stopped seeing each other. But the Don has treated you so well all these years that no one dared say a word." On the other end of the line, Enzo's voice trailed off into nothing. I looked down at the unsent message still sitting in the text box, the six words I had typed out for him. "I'm coming to bring you home." The cursor kept blinking. If that was how things stood, then there was no reason to keep waiting for him.