Cerita Pendek Independence Mafia & Novel Face Slapping

I'm the heiress of the Corleone family, with three childhood sweethearts who used to adore me and watch over me like I was their whole world. Then Daisy Washington, the little maid, showed up—and suddenly I didn't exist anymore. But my father, the don, didn't know. So at the family victory gala, right in the middle of the toast, my father said, "Freya, tell me, who's the one? Point him out, and we'll get you engaged tonight. Right here, right now." The whole room went quiet. Every pair of eyes swung to my three so-called protectors: Nico Gibson, Arlo Mcdonald, and Rhett Owens. But they acted like they hadn't heard a thing. One was feeding Daisy from his fork. One was whispering something that made her giggle. And the third just watched her with that soft, doting look I used to get. The room went dead silent. My father's face stiffened. I quickly jumped in, "Dad, my boyfriend's overseas. I'll bring him to meet you when he's back." The three of them snorted, shooting me mocking looks. I knew they didn't believe me. They thought I was just saving face. But I actually did have a boyfriend.

Every time Soren Sinclair and I had a fight, he would strip me of one of my rights as his fiancée and hand it over to my best friend, Kaelin. The first time, he took away the right to hold hands. When the three of us walked together, his fingers would be tightly intertwined with hers, leaving me trailing behind like a total stranger. It never stopped until I broke down, sobbing and begging for his forgiveness. With every fight that followed, Soren’s punishments grew increasingly cruel. Hugs, access to his private spaces... he gave Kaelin more and more of what was mine. But every time we made up, he would say gently, "It was just a joke. I just wanted to make you jealous. I care about you too much. She’s your best friend. No matter how close we get, it’s not a betrayal." That is, until our fifth anniversary, when we fought again. This time, his punishment was giving Kaelin the right to kiss him. Kaelin went out of her way to video call me. Soren was sitting right next to her, a bright red lipstick mark on his cheek. She leaned into his chest and blinked playfully at the camera: "Maeve, if you don't apologize soon, who knows? In a week, your place as his fiancée might just be given to me too." They were both waiting for me to act like I always did—to get jealous, to cry, to beg Soren to end this punishment. Instead, I just smiled and said, "Sure. You can have it."

The first thing my brother did after returning from his studies in Europe was drag me before the family council. I ran the rundown bar our Capo father left me, stocking shelves at dawn and scrubbing counters past midnight. I even took on debt from loan sharks to keep him afloat. "Just one last time," he always promised over the phone. "I'll pay you back once I marry rich." But today, a summons from the family arrived at his request. It demanded I be stripped of my birthright and forced to hand over the bar and our territory. My phone pinged. A photo flashed on the screen: my brother in a silk shirt, sitting close to a woman, her hand digging into his thigh. The message followed: Meet my fiancée, the daughter of the Valenti family boss and their Chief Legal Counsel. She says you don't stand a chance. I stared at that hand for a long, long time. Then I crouched down and pried open the hidden compartment beneath the bar.

I have a secret. When I was a child, I became very sick. When I finally woke up, I realized I could see the true colors hidden in people's hearts. Candy pink meant tenderness. Magenta meant desire. Pale gold meant longing for something you could never have. Slate blue meant lies. Dark brown meant hurt and resentment. At our engagement party, when my fiancé, Luca Vitali, kissed me, I saw the room fill with soft candy pink. But a second later, a wave of vivid magenta rushed in and swallowed the pink completely. I looked up in shock. His arms were around me, but his eyes were fixed on someone at the far end of the banquet hall. It was his childhood sweetheart, Charlotte. I thought it was just my imagination, until he pulled Charlotte into a dressing room. He kissed the side of Charlotte's neck. "After the wedding, I'll send Nicole overseas. You know I'm only marrying her because I promised my father. Please, Charlotte. You're the only one I want to be with." After five years of loving him, I finally realized I had been nothing more than a stepping stone to him. I turned around, canceled the wedding, and vanished into the rainy night. From that moment on, I would be someone they could never hope to reach.

Charles Romano and I had applied together to take over the Caruso family's arms route in Boston. I'd just closed the family's transfer portal. Then a video from an unknown sender popped up on my phone. I opened it, and my stomach dropped. It was me, ten years in the future. My face was streaked with tears, and I sounded frantic as I spoke into the camera. "Charles changed your request! He switched it to the local docks! You'll be stuck on the docks for life. You'll never get ahead. "He's doing it because he and Susie have been together for a long time. Susie doesn't want you in the inner circle, and she doesn't want you hanging around him! "No matter how hard you fight to move up, you'll never get anywhere. You'll even take the fall for a problem with the books, and in the end you'll die a horrible death in the council hall!" My heart was pounding. Chills kept running down my spine. The second the video cut off, my head snapped up. My hands were shaking as I opened my laptop. Sure enough, my request had been changed to the local docks. I clenched my fists. My palms were slick with sweat. It took me a while to pull myself together. When I did, I withdrew my request and accepted the Turner family's offer. They wanted me in Miami as their underboss.

At the family meeting, my mafia Don husband spared his secretary one glance. I turned and walked away, canceled our wedding anniversary celebration, and decided I was done with him. I signed my name on the divorce papers I had prepared long ago. When Matteo Santoro saw the agreement, he called me at once, his voice tight with restrained anger. "What are you trying to pull this time? Is this really because I looked at Elena?" "Yes," I said. "Because you looked at her."

As the only daughter and sole heir of the Romano family, I was born into a world of blood and gunfire. To protect me, my father handpicked nine boys from our allied families and raised them to take a bullet for me When I came of age, he told me to choose one of them as my fiancé. The man I chose would be groomed to become the future Don and rule beside me. I chose Luca De Santis, the man I had loved for years. But on our wedding day, his childhood sweetheart, Bianca Ricci, threw herself into the sea. In the suicide note she left behind, she accused me of tormenting her for years. Luca believed every word. After he became Don, he used the power my family had placed in his hands to imprison me while I was pregnant. I told him that every accusation in Bianca's letter was a lie. He refused to listen. "She's already dead, and you still can't leave her alone?" Then he locked me in the estate basement for four days and four nights. On the fourth night, I lost our baby on the basement floor. I screamed for help until I had no strength left. No one came. I bled to death alone. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my father's study on the day he asked me to choose my future husband. This time, Luca De Santis was the first name I crossed off the list.

I took a bullet for my boyfriend, Leo. When I woke up, I decided to play a little game. I told him I had amnesia. I wanted to see what he'd do. Instead, I saw a flash of excitement in his eyes. Next thing I know, he brings in his cousin. Dante. The Don of the family. "This is your fiancé, Dante. You've been engaged for two years." Dante. The man who supposedly hated me. Now he was staring at me like I was his whole world. "Yes," he said. "I'm your fiancé." Fine. I'll play along. I need to know what game Leo is playing. That night, I saw it. Security footage in Dante's mansion. Leo, in bed with another woman. He kissed her like he was starving. Pushed inside her. And he talked trash about me. "Let my cousin watch Bella for a while. She's so damn needy. You're what I really need, Scarlett." My heart shattered. He pawned me off on another man. Just so he could screw around. Fine. Two can play at that game. I'll get myself a new fiancé. I put on the wedding dress. I kissed Dante—a deep, devouring kiss, right in front of Leo. And that's when he finally broke. He lost his mind. Told me he was wrong and begged me to come back.

I had planned a family vacation to Caspian Isola for the upcoming break, including a trip aboard a private luxury yacht. Apparently moved by how busy I was, my husband, Matteo Grieco, offered to purchase the necessary tickets on my behalf. It wasn't until the day before our scheduled departure that I realized everyone, from his parents and cousins to even the maid, had a ticket. Everyone except me. Then, his childhood friend, Sophia Bamonte, posted a family photo on social media and tagged me. Sophia: [Madam Camilla has graciously offered to let us go in her place!] I demanded an explanation from Matteo, but he told me Sophia was like a little sister to him, and he wanted to bring her along. Since there were limited seats on the plane, he had given her mine. "Besides, you still have a lot of things to take care of, don't you? I know you'd rather enjoy some peace and quiet at home by yourself!" Matteo claimed. Well, well, well. He had actually come up with such a ridiculous excuse to justify himself, almost as if he'd forgotten who the real breadwinner of this family was! Without another word, I took my daughter and returned to my mother's house. I switched off my phone and didn't turn it back on until the following afternoon. The first thing that greeted me was a notification of 137 missed calls. My dear mother-in-law had also sent me a dozen voice messages, each about a minute long. The last message was from my own husband. "Camilla, please answer! We can't pay our bills!"

My fiancé of three years, Julius, sold me. To a black market auction in Vegas. I was sold to another man for five million dollars. Julius was begging me. "I owe five million," he pleaded. "If I don't pay up, they're gonna dump me in the river." "You're a dead ringer for the Don of the Norling family's late wife. All you have to do is keep him happy, and my debt gets wiped clean." "Don't worry," he said. "When he gets tired of you, I won't think any less of you. We'll still get married." So they drugged me and delivered me to an estate that was all too familiar. But here’s what he didn't know. The Don of the Norling family would kill for his daughter. And I'm that daughter. The one he’s kept hidden all these years.

I came back from picking up takeout to find the fingerprint lock on our front door wouldn't recognize me. The passcode had been changed too. I was about to call my boyfriend Lawrence when I remembered he'd just broken up with me. I looked down at myself, wearing nothing but loungewear and slippers, a coffee stain splashed across my shirt. After a moment's thought, I caved again and sent Lawrence an apology. But the red exclamation mark beside it told me he'd already blocked me. This was the ninth time he'd broken up with me, and the ninth time he'd blocked me. I wanted to knock, but my hand rose only to hang in the air for a few seconds before dropping limply to my side. That closed door might as well have shut out my love along with it. Too many breakups. I was tired. Maybe it was time to let it end. Give him what he wanted, and set myself free.

The night before our engagement, my best man Reese suggested we play Never Have I Ever — our version, where you name something you have that you think no one else does, and anyone who doesn't have it puts a finger down. "Sitting in this room is someone I can't have," he said. Everyone else's fingers went down, except Reese's and my fiancée Molly's. The others erupted in whistles and teasing, not caring that I was right there. "I have the most loyal fiancé," Molly said. "Boring and dull." Everyone glanced at me, and the private room fell into an awkward silence. I was suddenly exhausted. Molly and I had been together for two years. Tomorrow was our engagement party, yet she'd just publicly admitted there was someone she wanted but couldn't have. And in her eyes, the only redeeming quality her fiancé had was loyalty. When my turn came, I said calmly, "I have a grand wedding of the century." I turned to Molly beside me. "But as of now, it's canceled."

The night Victor Ferrante, heir to the Ferrante family, brought the management agreement to our house, he didn't speak to my father first. Instead, he smiled at me, over in the corner. "Don Romano, how nice of you to let your idiot daughter stay and witness this." I was the youngest daughter of the Romano family, and the most famous good-for-nothing in the mafia world. I'd been slow ever since I was a kid. You had to call my name three times before I'd look up. My brother, Adrian Romano, took over the casino at 18. My sister, Valeria Romano, was running our family's foundation by 20. I couldn't even remember what the different-colored poker chips were worth. My father tried every doctor and priest he could find. After more than a decade, the whole family finally accepted that I would never get better. But it wasn't that I couldn't speak. I didn't want to. In my last life, I reviewed contracts for crime families. Trusts, inheritance, management agreements. I'd seen plenty of takeovers dressed up to look respectable. In this life, I just wanted to stay quiet. Until tonight. Our seat on the Committee had been frozen, our casino license suspended. All our banks had pulled their support at once. My brother couldn't find a way out, and Lorenzo Bassi, the advisor we'd trusted for ten years, had already been bought off. He urged my father to sign, playing the loyal advisor. "Don, sign it. At least the Romano family will still have a seat on the Committee tomorrow." My father picked up the pen with a shaking hand. I couldn't stand listening anymore. I was done pretending. As my family stared in shock, I walked over and turned to page three. "The main agreement says this is temporary. But the attachment gives the Ferrante family a way to take our seat for good. Sign this, and we'll never get it back." I looked at Lorenzo. "How much did the Ferrante family pay you to put a takeover agreement in front of my father?"

In the Santoro family, there was one rule: the heir marries a daughter from another powerful Family. But Alessio Santoro was crazy. He wanted to marry me, a nobody from a flower shop. He knelt in the family chapel for ten days straight. He even took a bullet fired by his own father, the Don. All just to walk away from his title and run away with me. I held him, crying, begging him to stop. He just smiled and kissed my eyes, wiping my tears. "Don't cry, Thea. As long as I can marry you, it's all worth it." In the end, the Santoros relented. But they had one condition: Alessio would still produce the next heir. Just not with me. He had to have a son with Aurelia Rossi. So I endured. I endured listening to them through the wall, night after agonizing night. I endured the smell of her perfume on his skin, the sight of her marks on his neck every time he kissed me. A year later, Aurelia got pregnant. It was a girl. Alessio begged me, his eyes red. "Just a little longer, Thea." So I waited another year. Finally, news came. Aurelia was pregnant with a boy. I thought we could finally leave, finally be free. But then disaster struck. Aurelia’s daughter had a sudden, violent allergic reaction. Everyone blamed me. They threw me in the cellar and left me to die. And Alessio? He believed them. This time, I was the one who gave up. I walked away from everything.

I was the late Don's favorite daughter. Marrying into the Rossi family, one of the four great families, was an honor they scarcely deserved. On my wedding day, the Rolls-Royce had barely pulled up at the church when a woman in a plain cotton dress knelt on the steps, a baby in her arms. My groom, Carlos Rossi, stepped into my path in his tailored suit, looking torn. "Isabella, Lily was with me during a shootout in the South District... She gave me a son, and now she has nowhere else to go. "We're standing before God today. Why not let her come back to the estate with us? "You'll be the lady of the house. Lily can be my mistress. That way, the Rossi family will have its heir." The mob bosses and guests gathered at the church entrance broke into shocked murmurs. Carlos's grandmother, Maria Rossi, spoke without so much as raising her eyes. "Ms. Marino has standing of her own. She hardly needs to fight for a title. "But for generations, the Rossi family has had only one heir. This boy is our future. We can't let him grow up a bastard, can we?" The Rossi family's enforcers dropped to one knee in unison. "Please, Ms. Marino, show mercy!" I glanced down at the swaddled baby, then at Carlos's pleading eyes. Then I smiled. I took off my diamond tiara, rested it on the car's window ledge, and got back into my own bulletproof car. "Carlos, if you want to carry on your bloodline, I won't stop you. "But my father's will was clear: I was marrying down. He wasn't handing me over as a gift. "If the Rossi family can't handle the honor, I'll take it back." Before I'd even finished speaking, 12 Maybachs pulled up in perfect formation in the square outside the church. A man as handsome as a Greek god strode up to the car door. "Ms. Marino, I'm here to take you home."

It was our wedding anniversary. But my husband's precious childhood sweetheart just had to go bungee jumping. Even though I'm terrified of heights,my husband forced me to come along to the edge of the cliff with the two of them. Nobody saw it coming when the main safety cable suddenly snapped. In my last life,I risked everything to tackle my husband,Dominic,just as he lunged forward to save her. With no one to catch her,Vanessa plummeted onto the jagged rocks below and ended up paralyzed. That was the start of my living hell. Dominic's revenge was brutal and bloody. In the end,he locked me inside a dark basement freezer at twenty below,freezing me alive into a solid block of ice. Now,I'm back at the exact second crisis strikes. Just like before,Dominic lunges toward Vanessa without a second thought. This time,I smile. And I let go. I'll let their pathetic "true love" rot in hell.

Three years into my arranged marriage with the Valachi family heir, the one that got away came back. He left me for Julia eight times. The ninth time, he left me bleeding on the side of the road with a gunshot wound to go running to Julia, who’d called him because she felt a little dizzy. "She needs me. You get that, right, Leona?" This time, I didn't fight for him. He didn't know about the bet I’d made with Julia. The ninth time he abandoned me, I would be the one to leave for good. So on his birthday, I left a set of signed divorce papers on his desk and got on a plane.

To restore my crush's right to inherit his mafia family, I gave him one of my corneas. But when he regained his sight, my family chose to have my older sister marry him instead of me. In my past life, I tried to find him and explain everything, but he rejected me. My own family exiled me, and I died on the night of wedding between him and my sister. Then I'm reborn—back before I was exiled . This time, I choose to leave my Mafia pack and my crush willingly.. But that cold, heartless Mafia Boss? He completely fell apart.

The contractions tore through me. I called my husband, Maxim Volkov, the ruthless Don of Chicago. He didn't answer. I dragged myself out of the penthouse, crawling, and begged a stranger to get me to the Volkov family's private hospital. "I'm Maxim's wife. Get me a delivery room! He'll pay." I pleaded with the nurse, my water breaking. She just stared, shocked. "You? The Donna? Nice try. Don Volkov is already upstairs with his wife. She's in labor." Wife? Since when did Maxim have a second wife? Before I could ask, another contraction ripped through me. Everything went black. When I woke in the recovery room, the real betrayal hit. My baby was gone. All I got was a cold, "The baby wasn't breathing. We couldn't save him. I'm sorry." I searched the whole hospital, sobbing, and ended up outside the VIP maternity suite on the top floor. That's when I heard the truth that shattered my soul. "With the kidney from Seraphina's kid… a perfect match… our son is saved. You can rest now, Isla." Maxim's voice. So gentle, from behind the door. His other wife… was my adoptive sister, Isla? Then I heard my so-called mother's voice, cold. "We had no choice. We took Seraphina in for exactly this reason. It's the least she owes us." My newborn son. Sacrificed. Used as medicine to save another child. I stumbled back, ice in my veins. And there was Isla, victory glowing in her eyes. "My baby was never sick," she whispered, sweet and venomous. "I just wanted everything you had. Why should a stray like you get the Don's love?" The tears stopped. They thought I'd just take it. Give up my place as Donna. They were wrong. I picked up my phone and dialed the number I'd refused a hundred times. My voice was calm. "Brother. I'm coming home. I'm ready to take my rightful place as head of the Ricci family. And I will marry Dante Romano."

I grew up fatherless, clawing my way through the Chicago underbelly with my mom. She always said he loved us. That he just had to go far, far away. Until she got terminally ill. I dropped out of design school and rushed back, ready to drain our life savings to treat her. But she put a pair of scissors to her own throat. She told me not to touch the cash. It was the only thing she had to leave me. I pretended to agree. But the second I turned around, I took our fifty grand and ran to Mr. Sal, the neighborhood's back-alley doctor. I begged him to save her. "Fifty grand? This buys her three months. Tops." He lit a cigarette. Through the smoke, his eyes bored into me. Like he was looking at a ghost. "Your mother... she was once the brightest jewel in Chicago. Gave it all up for a man. That man took her money and became the city's real estate king. He's Mob-connected. Maybe you should go ask him for help." I took that poison home with me. And I didn't breathe a word. When she found out I spent the money, she held me and cried. "My foolish girl, why are you so stubborn? I'm dying anyway. What about your school? How will you pay for it?" But while I took care of her, I tore through all her old things, looking for proof of that bastard's betrayal. On the night of his empire's 20th-anniversary gala, I crashed his party. I brought two things: a blood-stained marriage certificate, and a lawyer. "I'm looking for Nico Russo. He can either honor a twenty-year-old marriage... or he can sign these divorce papers."