Tragic Love Mafia Short Stories & Independence Face Slapping Novels

On my birthday, my mafia husband, Alessandro, didn't come home to celebrate with me. He sent a bodyguard with a bouquet of wilting roses and a text message: [Picked these myself from the garden. Happy birthday, love.] A moment later, his right-hand woman, Chloe, posted an Instagram story. It was a fifty-thousand-dollar custom flower box, filled with black roses, their petals embedded with crushed diamonds. The caption read: [My Capo says, "If you love me, you show me devotion that never dies."] I didn't storm the casino to confront him. I just packed my bags and prepared to leave the city. The first day I was gone, word got back to me that Alessandro couldn't care less. He blew a ring of cigar smoke and said, "The world out there is dangerous. She'll be back in a few days, begging me to take her back." The first month I was gone, Alessandro tracked me down with an international call. "I'll buy you a villa in the Heights. Just come back, okay?" But a villa was never what I wanted.

My little sister was murdered by her kidnappers. I watched it all happen and never said a word about who did it. My mother got on her knees and begged me. I didn't flinch. When my father threatened me with his authority as the Don, I walked away from my place as the Family heir. I moved to a small town down south. Eight years later, I was dying of a terminal illness, and my older sister, Beth Turner, had taken over the Family. Under her, the Turners had become the most powerful mafia family on the East Coast. The first thing she did when she found me was have me dragged back to the Family's tribunal. "Selena Turner, you ungrateful snake. Mia called you her sister for all those years, and you still won't name the kidnapper. "Mia's been dead for years. Don't you feel any guilt at all?!" I was on my knees in the great hall. I couldn't speak. "After all these years, I can finally extract your memories. Today, I'm going to see exactly who you've been protecting. I will avenge Mia." She ordered her men to restrain me and hook up the extractor. On the screen above the banquet hall, a face suddenly appeared. The room erupted into chaos, and Beth's face went deathly pale.

The day after my sister broke up with her mafia boyfriend, she went off on vacation to clear her head. She swore she'd find a man even better than her ex, and she sent me a whole stack of profiles of good-looking guys. She wanted me to help her pick. I was about to tap the screen when Dante snatched the phone away, his brow furrowing as he let out a soft laugh. "You are my Donna! Don't pick up her bad habits." Before I could get a good look, Dante deleted every last photo. I explained, "She's not really like that. She was with that boyfriend for eight years, and he hurt her too deeply." "She kept him like a treasure. Even I never got to meet him." Dante raised an eyebrow and, a little stiffly, told me, "Tomorrow I'm going to Sicily to handle Family business. You be good and stay home." I nodded and agreed, waiting for him to return. My sister happened to get back from her own trip right around the time he did. The moment she walked in, she couldn't wait to tell me how her ex had come back to propose to her. I smiled and congratulated her. But when she took out the engagement ring, my heart skipped a beat. That morning, I'd just happened to find a matching men's wedding ring inside Dante's suit.

My husband is a man with powerful emotions. To keep his adopted sister content, he allocates millions annually for her to spend lavishly. He's concerned about her well-being. Each night, he sits by her, ensuring she settles down. Later, when I was shot and bleeding heavily, requiring immediate aid, he remained utterly indifferent.He directed the entire medical team to his distraught adopted sister instead. I used my remaining strength to call my husband. The phone connected. His voice, tinged with irritation, answered: "What is it now? You're fine, perfectly healthy. Why would you need a doctor?" "Listen, Sofia needs me. Our family's medical resources are spread thin. For minor issues, just bear with it." My heart sank, feeling as if it had turned to ice. He truly is a man with powerful emotions. It's just that the one he truly cares about has never been me.

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.

The Don of the Falcieri family was assassinated by a rival family, leaving behind his widowed wife, Livia. His younger brother, my husband Caius, took his place as Don. With the title came a duty: to secure the Falcieri bloodline by putting a child in his brother's widow. "Alessia's been barren for years. It falls to Livia to do what she couldn't. The Falcieri family cannot be without an heir." The Madre's voice dripped with scorn. Caius held me close, whispering promises. "As soon as Livia is pregnant, I swear I'll never touch her again." "Alessia, you're the only one I love." Three months, and he hasn't set foot in our bedroom. After he ignored me in front of everyone, choosing Livia time and time again, I finally left. I took what was mine and left one thing behind: a DNA test. It was my final gift to Caius.

My father was critically ill. I begged my fiancé to keep his post-wedding promise—to withdraw emergency funds from the medical trust fund he had sworn to protect me forever. He refused. The next day, he announced his engagement to Pera. Overnight, I became the laughingstock of everyone. In my deepest despair, my childhood friend Seamus— The heir to a long-established Mafia family— Knelt down in the park and proposed to me in front of everyone. That night, he transferred a large sum of money to my account. I said yes without hesitation and rushed to the hospital to pay for my father's treatment. But he never woke up again. The hospital said he had suffered "unexpected complications." Everything after that—the lawyers, the funeral, all the arrangements—was handled by Seamus. Under the Mafia family's protection, everything went smoothly, and my father was able to be quietly buried. The wedding proceeded as planned. Years later, I overheard a conversation between him and the doctor who treated my father. “Seamus,” the doctor said in a low voice, “You tampered with the organ allocation priority list. You delayed Shirley’s father’s transplant so that Pera’s father could receive an organ transplant in time. You falsified the urgency level. Do you know what will happen if this is exposed?” “The list itself was legal,” Seamus replied after a pause. “I just…adjusted the urgency level.” “You committed medical fraud,” the doctor said sharply. “You ruined his only chance to live. All for Pera. Don’t you regret it?” “I don’t regret it,” Seamus answered without hesitation. “I would do anything for her. Even my life, even the honor of the Mafia family.” “Throughout our marriage, I’ve been trying to make up for everything I owed Shirley. That should be enough.” My vision blurred. Only then did I finally understand— The woman he truly loved was always Pera. "If that's really the case," I thought numbly,"Then I should leave."

The Cecil family has a century-old rule: on the day a daughter marries, her father gives her a list. It lists the names of twelve bodyguards her father has trained for her since she was a child. They will serve the bride for life as her last line of defense in her husband's household. My twin sister Valentina and I married on the same day. At the ceremony, she held the contract, which was covered in red handprints. Our father patted her shoulder. "I chose every one of them for you. If anyone mistreats my darling girl, these men will make them pay." Our mother beamed. "Valentina will always be the treasure of our family." All I received was a single flimsy, worthless sheet of paper. It didn't even bear a seal. "Father, where is my list?" His gaze darted away for a moment. Then he looked back at me, his expression brazen and self-righteous. "Your sister is marrying Don Moretti's oldest son. The Moretti family is one of Sicily's most powerful Mafia families. Of course she needs more men. "I added your twelve men to her list. She needs twenty-four guards to make sure no one looks down on the Cecil family." Our mother backed him up. "The outsider you're marrying can't even fire a gun. Why would you need bodyguards? Stop thinking only of yourself." I looked at the worthless sheet of paper and smiled bitterly. In their eyes, I was nothing more than a disposable pawn.

After three years together, my boyfriend, Walker Ashford, proposed. But right after that, he got cold feet. At our wedding photo shoot, Walker buried his face against my best friend Anna Benedict's shoulder. "The way Valentina looks at me freaks me out," he said. At the jewelry shop, he grabbed Anna's hand and refused to let go. None of it made sense. But my future mother-in-law, Judith Ashford, pulled me aside. "Valentina, why not let Anna take your place in the photos? We can put you in later." Walker's sister, Emma Ashford, pushed Anna forward. "She has better taste. Let her pick the ring for you." I swallowed my hurt and watched in silence as they took my wedding photos and picked out my ring for me. Under the lights, the diamonds glittered so brightly they hurt my eyes. I was about to postpone the wedding when I overheard Judith say to my best friend, "Anna, having Walker pretend to get cold feet was a smart move. Otherwise, how could you two have a wedding of your own without Valentina finding out?" Emma curled her lip. "Valentina is an idiot. She believes everything we tell her." Walker sighed and stroked Anna's hair. "Anna is sick. It's her wish to marry me. If Valentina weren't so controlling, I wouldn't have to keep this wedding a secret from her. Anna gets the wedding. Valentina gets the legal marriage. Sounds fair to me." So that was it. Walker had never gotten cold feet. They had made up the whole thing to fool me. I was done with their lies. I decided to return to Florence and take back my life as a mafia princess. "Dad, I'll marry whoever you choose."

On the night of our ninth wedding anniversary, my husband—Damian Grant, the man who ruled the mafia by day and once ruled my heart by night—did not bring me roses. He gave the bouquet that should have been mine to Serena Lane, his personal assistant. Beneath the chandelier where we once danced on our wedding night, he turned to me with that same cold charm he once used to whisper sweet nothings in my ear. “She's pregnant.” Finally, everything fell into place. “She's a picky eater. From today onward, you’ll cook three meals a day for her. And no repeats. “She’s sensitive and hates sleeping alone, so you’ll need to move your things into the guest room.” The room fell silent. I did not raise my voice, nor did I shed a single tear. I simply picked up my packed suitcase and walked to the door. The butler tried to stop me, but Damian did not even blink. “She’ll come back.” He lazily swirled the wine in his glass. “She’ll come back crying and begging within three days.” Our guests burst out laughing. They placed a million-dollar bet right in front of me. They were betting on whether I would be back before the night was over, begging Damian to let me back in like a pathetic stray dog with my tail between my legs. However, they did not know I had already received the family heirloom from my real father. I booked my flight to get far, far away from everyone I used to know. This time, I really left.

All of New York knew that Caspian Solis, the Don of the Solis family, worshipped the ground I walked on. Then an ambush left him with amnesia. Not only did he forget me and our twenty years together, but he also mistook his secretary, Ivy, for the love of his life. He tossed our matching bracelets and stared at me with dead eyes. "You are not my type. Ivy is the woman I love." My heart shattered. I tried everything to help him remember. Until I overheard a conversation between him and his right-hand man: "Don, how long are you going to keep this up? What if your wife finds out you are faking the amnesia?" Caspian exhaled a cloud of cigar smoke, completely unbothered. "She won't." "I just want to have some fun while I am young. Eating the same meal every day gets stale, doesn't it?" "When I have had my fill, I will tell her my memory came back. After all, Lorelai is the one I truly love." Standing outside the door, I felt violently sick. A thought sparked in my mind: If Caspian could fake amnesia to play me, why couldn't I? So, I accidentally fell down a flight of stairs. When I woke up, I locked eyes with Caspian's ally and biggest rival—Zane, the most feared Don in New York. I smiled and threw myself into his arms. "There you are, darling."

Ten days after giving birth, I told my husband, Ethan Reed, that something was wrong with me. He turned his phone face-down on the coffee table and looked at me for a full three seconds. "Sophia, you just had a baby. It's normal to feel tired." Then he flipped the phone back over and went on texting his office nurse, Serena Blake. That was the last time I brought it up. Everything that happened after that, I assumed was my own fault. That changed when I reached into his coat pocket and felt a collar I'd never seen before. Real leather, brand new, with a round metal tag hanging from it. It wasn't my size.

In New York’s Upper East Side, there were two heirs. One was a speed-obsessed daredevil dominating the racetracks, the other was a brilliant actuary who controlled the flow of capital. Born into powerful families and polar opposites in temperament, yet they grew up side by side as each other’s only best friend. They had fought over girls and bickered endlessly over racing bets. However, at fifteen, there was one thing they did in perfect unison. They each put on the same roughly carved bronze badge. They were trinkets Mia had idly made during a craft class, marked only by a faint “M” scratched on the back. Back then, Mia was seated in the last row of the classroom. Her background was a complete mystery to everyone. Yet they wore that badge for ten whole years. Whether standing on the F1 podium or locking in billion-dollar trades at the exchange, the cheap little badge on their chests never changed. Until Ella showed up. She was the cherished daughter of a rising conglomerate family. She hand-stitched two gold-thread fabric patches and gifted them to them. The patches looked so ordinary they looked like the kind of trinket you would find three for a dollar at a flea market. And yet, they both replaced their bronze badges with her plain patches. Mia did not say anything. She simply folded away an old newspaper clipping with a photo of the three of them smiling together. That night, she called her father in Sicily. Her voice was emotionless. “Papa, I accept the marriage arrangement.”

In the seventh year of holding down the Chicago arms trade for Matteo, he finally came back from the Mediterranean. The night the Five Families threw him his coronation ball, I put on my custom gown. I was ready to see the man I had waited seven years for. Right before my entrance, my cousin Vivienne barged into the dressing room. She did our books, and she snatched the head-table nameplate off my table. She looked at me with cold pity. "Camilla, don't embarrass yourself. The seat for the Don's wife was never meant for you." She slammed a yellowed betting slip from a Vegas underground bookmaker onto the table. The wager was a hundred grand. The name on the ticket was Matteo. The betting line had just one sentence: Let's see how many years the ruined Bellini princess will stay faithful to my old love letters. Vivienne told me the truth. He kept a stripper overseas years ago. His bastard daughter was almost five now. The Commission knew. His capos looked the other way. Even my own mother, living on his handouts, helped him keep it completely quiet. For seven years, he sent handwritten letters sealed with wax. Every single one went on and on about the Sicilian rain. He wrote about how much he missed me. He told me to keep the house safe. Just for those sweet words, I took bullets for him. I stayed by the bedside of the dying old Don until his last breath. I survived firefight after firefight. The entire underworld knew about this bet. I was the only fool in the dark. My eyes burned, and I laughed. Fine. I would walk right out of his empire, in front of every boss in America.

For five years, I believed my husband was a mechanic—until the day that belief shattered. On a luxury yacht, I saw him standing there with our son and my best friend, the three of them together like a picture-perfect family. That was when I learned he was the heir to a mafia family. My best friend was his fiancée. And my son called her Mom. I thought that was the worst betrayal I'd ever know. I was wrong. My best friend faked my son's kidnapping, forced me to my knees in a warehouse, and sprayed chemicals on my right hand, trying to destroy the hand I used to design. I left, burning with hatred, and boarded a flight to Milan. When we crossed paths again, my ex-husband begged for forgiveness, drowning in regret. I turned and walked away. Some wounds cut too deep to ever heal. And I would never beg for anyone's love again.

After Stefan Grimaldi's first love died, he hated me for five years. I did everything I could to please him, but he never softened. The only thing he ever said was, "If you really want to make me happy, go die. Go keep Sienna company in her grave." It cut deep every time. I told myself it would always be this way, that he would carry that hatred until one of us was gone. I was wrong. When assassins came for us, Stefan stepped in front of the bullet without hesitation. He went down in my arms. With the little breath he had left, he looked up at me and said, "Annie, if there's a next life, I hope I never meet you again." At his funeral, his father stood over the casket, barely holding himself together. "Stefan, I was wrong. I never should have forced you to marry Annie. If I had listened to you back then and let you marry Sienna, none of this would have happened," he said. His mother turned on me, tears streaming, her eyes filled with blame. "This is all your fault. Every time, Stefan ended up in danger because of you. What have you ever given him besides disaster?" I kept my head down and said nothing. They were not the only ones with regrets. I regretted marrying Stefan too. On the night of the full moon, I climbed to the top of the church tower and jumped. I woke five years in the past. This time, I was done.

After my sister's death, I signed a five-year contract marriage with her mafia husband, Horton Falcone. I became the stepmother to my five-year-old nephew, Luca. On my birthday, I wore my late sister's diamond cross necklace, not realizing what it was. At the family dinner, Luca walked up to me with a glass of red wine and threw the wine in my face. The red wine dripped down my cheeks, its sharp scent stinging my eyes and staining my white dress. He tilted his head back to look up at me, his eyes as cold and cruel as his father's. "Don't think you can replace my mom just because you married into the Falcone family," he said with a malicious grin. "You're the reason she's dead." "I wish you were the one who died. Then I could smash your gravestone instead of celebrating this stupid birthday." "I swear, when I grow up, the first thing I'll do is dump you in the Hudson River myself!" The memory stung as sharply as the wine, and all I could taste was despair. I stared at the child I had spent five years raising as my own, a sharp pain pulsing in my chest. I had thought I could devote myself to the Falcone family, that I could win him over with my love. But now, I was just so tired of it all. It was a family with no love, a child who saw me as his mortal enemy. I stopped deluding myself. It was time to let go. But after I left, that arrogant father and son came crawling back to me like whipped dogs, begging for my forgiveness.

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."

I married Don Caspian Serrano. The King of the New York Underworld. But I didn't know his ex-wife took more than just full custody of their daughter. She extracted an ironclad vow from him. Every quarter, he had to take them on a two-week vacation. All over the world. Right under the eyes of the Five Families. She called the shots. She wanted to prove one thing: the alliance between Serrano and her family was bulletproof. So on my wedding night? I slept alone. For three years, he missed every single anniversary. Until this year. His daughter sent me a prank gift. I tripped. I rolled down the stairs. Blood soaked the rug. I was hemorrhaging. Miscarrying. The doctors wouldn't operate without Caspian's approval. I called his encrypted line over a dozen times. He finally answered. His voice was exhausted. Annoyed. "Aria. Are you really making up this sick lie for attention? Framing my daughter?" "I just landed in Vegas. Tonight decides the survival of the West Coast syndicate. I am not ditching them for your petty games." "And another thing. Schedule your surgery tomorrow. Make sure you can't get pregnant. I swore a blood oath to her family. The only heir to the Serrano empire will ever be Nora." So that was it. Even if I wasn't bleeding out. He never wanted my baby. I hung up. Calmly. I touched my empty stomach. I signed the surgery consent form myself. He was loyal to his vow. Loyal to that woman. Fine. I didn't want to be his Donna anymore.

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.