Plot Twists Mafia Short Stories & Independence Revenge Novels

For three years, I used my family's mob ties and my own money to pave the way for Declan's crew. He was the boy I survived the streets with as a kid. But at this month's sit-down, his newly hired secretary, Roxy, tossed my casino ledgers and club records onto the table in front of all the guys. She accused me of skimming profits and slacking off. "These underground banks, these smuggling docks," she read the numbers out loud, her voice full of fake outrage. "Every time she bribes someone, she skims thousands of dollars! She's lining her own pockets." "I say the Boss strips her of her club manager title right now to save our cash flow." I glanced at Declan, the boss of the crew. He knew better than anyone what that missing money actually paid for. He knew how much dock security it covered. He knew how many nods of approval it bought from politicians and cops. He also knew what I was doing when I wasn't at the club. I was making deals with dangerous gun runners. I was drinking hard liquor to secure guns and ammo for his boys. But he just stared at me coldly. "Katerina, do you have anything to say about these ledgers and the proof Roxy just showed us?" I smiled. "I have nothing to explain." Very soon, all of them would find out exactly what happens when you pull a stunt like this on a Principessa's turf.

The day I came of age, I had to honor the pact: marry a son of the Blackwood family. In my first life, I chose Julian, the man I’d loved for years. But after we were married, he treated me as nothing more than a tool for his pleasure and cheated on me with my adopted sister, Seraphina. They flaunted their affair right in front of me. In the end, they poisoned me, leaving me to die a bitter, hateful death. Reborn, when the Don Blackwood asked who I would choose for the marriage pact, I didn’t hesitate. I pointed to the sickly Damien. This time, I’d let Julian and Seraphina have each other. But this time, Julian was the one filled with regret.

I was in the living room, handling some work, and casually asked the smart assistant to play some music. "Alexa, play some jazz." "Sure. By the way, just a reminder—four days from now, at ten in the morning, you're scheduled to accompany Sienna to her prenatal checkup." My hand froze midair. My name is Victoria. And I'm not pregnant. Jonathan was walking out of the bathroom, towel-drying his hair. He saw the look on my face and pulled me into his arms. "What's wrong, sweetheart?" I casually darkened my phone screen and smiled. "Nothing. Just a little tired." Jonathan kissed my forehead, his eyes tender and full of love. "Go get some sleep. Don't miss your birthday party tomorrow—you're the star of the night. I can't wait to spend it with you." I leaned into his chest, my lips curling into a cold little smile. My dear husband, you'd better not have done anything to betray me. Otherwise, you're about to find out exactly what it costs to betray the daughter of a mafia family.

At 11:00 AM, my husband, Silas Vexille, slowly drowned in our indoor thermal pool. At the time, I was having my usual morning tea with the other mafia wives in the estate's back garden. The pool room was directly above the garden, barely a dozen feet away. Originally, if I had gone back to the main house at 11:00 as usual, I would have had plenty of time to save him. But as fate would have it, Victoria Harrison insisted on inviting us over to her nearby home to see her new pink diamond. At 11:20 AM, my daughter April and I pushed open the doors to the pool room. By then, Silas was already gone. At the lavish funeral, I was devastated, fainting several times. The mourners murmured in sympathy. "Don Vexille and his wife always had such a beautiful marriage..." "Yeah, what is she going to do now that the Don is dead?" Silas's mother, Martha—a tough woman who ran a Texas farm alone after her divorce—flew in overnight. Under the watchful eyes of everyone present, she walked straight up to me. Her expression was stone-cold, and she spat out every word: "You are the one who murdered my son."

Last Christmas—in my past life—I was on vacation when the call came. It was Lucy, the family’s new pet capo, and she was in a panic. She’d blown the deal with the Colombians, she said, and now they were threatening to make us pay. I had to rush back and clean up the mess. I saved the deal, but it still cost us a shipment of hardware. And then Lucy, the one who caused the whole mess, pointed the finger straight at me. “It was Madeline! She gave me bad intel! She must’ve set me up!” The truth? The deal went south because she mouthed off to the Colombians and pissed them off. But Henry, the Godfather I’d served loyally for years, didn't want to hear my side. He just branded me a traitor. He kicked me out of the family and put the word out to every outfit that I was a rat. I had a price on my head. I died in some gutter, my body left for the dogs. When I opened my eyes again, it was just before that Christmas. This time, I walked straight into Henry's study and handed over my family signet. "I want out." This time, I can’t wait to see who’s left holding the bag with the pissed-off Colombians.

Two months after I stepped down as Boss, my eldest son Gideon pressed a barrel to the back of my head. I put him in that chair with my own hands. "Mom. An eighty-million-dollar shipment went down. The Five Families want blood." My adopted daughter Alessia stood beside him, sobbing fake tears. She ran the books. "Mom, Gideon just took the seat. He can't have a stain like this. You're retired anyway. Do this for us, one last time." Such devoted children. I signed the exile contract. In return, I got five million in hush money and an order to get the hell out of Chicago. Then the enforcers from the High Commission slammed a ledger onto the table. It was my younger son, Silas. The one who ran the docks. He sold out the route and laundered the payout with our South American rivals. I thought the circus was over. My sweet little girl wiped her tears in a second. She shoved the papers against my chest, cold as stone. "The streets already think it's you, so just die for us. We have pure Mafia blood in our veins. We can't let our future burn." Right then, I laughed out loud. These ungrateful mutts really thought they carried royal Sicilian blood. They took twenty years of my mercy and treated it like dirt under their shoes. They had no idea. They were just street rats I pulled out of slum dumpsters. Now they want me to take the bullet? When I built this empire on dead bodies and became the only female Boss in the Great Lakes, their little hands couldn't even hold a gun without shaking.

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."

Six years into our marriage, Matteo Moretti slid a marriage pact across the table to me. My sister's name was at the top. Lucia Belardi, sixteen, unable to speak since birth. The lower-right corner of the document bore the Moretti Family's black seal, and beside it, Matteo's own signature. "The Volkov family has agreed to a ceasefire," Matteo said from behind the wide walnut desk in his study. "Ivan Volkov will marry Lucia. Once the wedding is done, the guns on the northern route will go silent, and our shipments held at the docks will be released." Cold crept into my fingers. "You agreed to hand my sister over to a sadist, just to save Viola?" Three days ago, Viola Conti had publicly humiliated one of the Volkov women at a cocktail party. The Volkovs seized her and threatened that unless the Moretti Family surrendered a girl of equal standing, Viola would disappear for good. "Viola's father took a bullet for me, and she treated over thirty of our men during the dock shootout six years ago." He looked up at me, his black shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, exposing old scars on his wrists. "The Moretti Family owes her. Lucia will be the wife of the Volkov heir, not a hostage." I slapped him across the face. I picked up the letter opener from his desk, cut through the gold chain, and threw the severed chain onto the marriage pact. On our wedding day six years ago, he had fastened the chain around my neck himself. The pendant bore the Moretti and Belardi names on either side. He had told me that as long as the chain held, we would never be apart. He glanced at the broken chain, a brief crease forming between his brows. "Once this crisis is over, you'll understand. This is the choice that costs us the least." "Matteo, Lucia may be the one you're sending away today, but from this moment on, you're sending me away too."

My father was one of the first dons to rise out of the Naples mob. My mother was an iron-fisted businesswoman with a reputation that made grown men flinch. When I was ten, somebody had the nerve to hijack one of my father's freight ships. He had the man's arms and legs broken with a crowbar, then stuffed a handful of gold rings down his throat — told him to count his money while he crawled. When I was fifteen, some scheming woman tried to get her claws into my father. My mother hired the filthiest pimps off the docks, shipped her down to a back-alley bar in Marseille, and told her to make her own way. And me — I grew up running the streets of Naples like I owned them. The sons of every other family knew to call me Miss Ferrante and keep their hands to themselves. Then I met him. A rough, quiet man fresh out of the army. For him I put down the knives, traded the silk for plain cotton, and followed him back to that little nothing of a coastal town, Porto Scuro. Today my mother-in-law and my husband went down to the dock warehouses to settle a dispute. They held her face down in a barrel of rotting fish guts. They kicked in three of his ribs. I stared at the salt fish I'd been slicing on the kitchen board, let out a cold laugh, and brought the knife down so hard the oak split in half. Then I dialed my father's private line.

That year, during the Sicilian arms trafficking conflict, my lover of three years, Silvio, deliberately betrayed my transport routes at a critical moment in a deal with the rival "DiMarco" family, causing me to lose all my territory. He immediately defected to the DiMarco family's leader Marina, becoming her lover. As he left, he didn't even bother to disguise his betrayal, coldly tossing out, "What we had was just business, nothing personal." While I was burdened with my family's blood debts and pushed to the edge of a cliff, Lorenzo, who had secretly harbored feelings for me since childhood, found me and offered his family's entire fortune. "Isabella, don't be afraid. In my eyes, you'll always be Sicily's most formidable Queen of the Arms Trade," he said. He took the Colt pistol from my hand, and his voice was gentle yet resolute. Five years later, my power resurged. I was about to completely crush Marina's smuggling network and reclaim everything I had lost. My caporegimes, the captains of my organization, were ready and waiting for my command. But on the night before the operation, my weapons warehouse suddenly exploded, turning priceless arms into worthless scrap metal. I barely escaped through the thick smoke, my body covered in burns. In a secluded monastery, I overheard Lorenzo and Silvio whispering outside my door. "You really had the guts to blow up the arsenal. Weren't you afraid of blasting her to pieces too?" Silvio's voice carried a mocking tone. "If she died, just died. I've always loved Marina. If it weren't for that unlucky family marriage lottery five years ago, I wouldn't have had to endure this ugly bitch for all this time." Lorenzo's voice was ice-cold and unfamiliar. I closed my eyes, feeling like a dagger had pierced my chest. Explosion. Arranged marriage. Ugly bitch. So those five years of shared hardship were just his unwilling choice after losing a high-stakes gamble. "I married her to keep watch. If it weren't for me paving

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.

Three years after marrying the Don, he died in a shootout. As second-in-command, I took the throne and ignored the whisperers. I needed my men focused on the streets. So I paid two hundred grand a month out of my own pocket. I built a bulletproof Long Island compound for their widows and kids, complete with top doctors and guaranteed trust payouts. Their leader Bianca bit my hand anyway. At our annual family summit, she ripped the ledger to shreds right in my face. She claimed I locked them in a cage, stole their money, and worked them like slaves. The old capos smelled blood. The crews cut side deals behind my back. They thought a woman on the throne made an easy target. They wanted to use those crying widows to carve up my East Side turf. Fine. They mistook my mercy for weakness. That same night, sirens wailed. My armed guards locked the gates. We tossed their designer luggage straight into the mud and turned that luxury compound into a military armory. Every perk was wiped clean. I threw three grand at each woman and severed all ties. As for the traitors leaking our intel, their names went straight to the hit squad for a blood debt. Those arrogant widows ended up in the dirt, sobbing on their knees and begging for shelter. I simply pressed cold steel against Bianca's temple. "Stop crying. You begged for freedom, didn't you? Now get off my land. Go enjoy your freedom in the slums."

Five years ago, the Franco family threw cash in my face, forced me to break up with their daughter, and ran me out of Blackhaven like a stray dog. Five years later, I came back as the Don of the Raven Syndicate, the most powerful mafia organization in Europe. But the Franco family had already been set up and destroyed, their old stronghold burned to the ground. In an abandoned slaughterhouse, blood ran across the floor. Isaac, the insufferable prince of the rising Leoni family, tilted Marcella Franco's chin up with the toe of his expensive leather shoe. "Franco trash. Kneel and beg me. Be my plaything, and I'll toss you a scrap of food." Marcella's hair was a mess and her clothes had been torn open, but she clutched the Zippo lighter—my lighter—to her chest and refused to give an inch. "Get away. Don't put your filthy hands on what Gian left me." Isaac flew into a rage and slapped her. "You're still mooning over that disowned bastard? "He was blacklisted and cast out years ago. He's probably hauling crates on some dock right now!" He motioned for his thugs to tear off Marcella's clothes. At that instant, an armored Humvee tore the slaughterhouse's iron door off its hinges. I crossed the broken glass, went straight for Isaac, and knocked him off his feet with one punch. "You lay hands on my woman? Who the hell do you think you are?"

The Volkovs. The most brutal family in Russia. Their Don was holding our arms deal hostage. He wanted the De Luca princess. Isla. My adopted sister. I was their biological daughter. The blood heir they found in the slums twenty years too late. But Isla was the one they actually loved. The news broke. My mother walked into my room for the first time in forever. “Aurora, my best girl. You know how fragile Isla is. If she marries him… that man will break her. He’ll kill her.” My fiancé, Julian Caldwell, heir to the Caldwell family, made me a candlelit dinner. He held me, kissing me softly. “You’re so much stronger than her, Aurora. Please. Do this for her. I’ll give you a private wedding. Just us. Even if I can’t marry you for real, you’ll always be my wife.” Even my father—a man who never smiled at me, the Don of the De Luca family—actually slid a blank check across the desk. “Take her place instead of Isla. Name your price. Anything you want.” They were so sure I’d say yes. Because I’d always been that pathetic girl. Desperate for their approval. Willing to do anything. But not this time. I was done. I looked at the blank check and laughed. “A blank check? Not even close. I want one hundred million dollars. And a blood contract that cuts all ties. Forever.” They had no idea. I wanted more than that. In seven days, I was going to give them a gift. I wanted their lives.

Eight years into the Cappello family, and only today did I discover there's a meeting room beneath the estate. Half an hour ago, my husband Julian put on his coat and said he was heading to the New Jersey docks to handle a smuggling shipment. Five minutes after he left, the estate's internal line rang. It was Julian's driver, asking if he should have the car washed. It had gotten dirty from yesterday's rain. Julian never rides in anyone else's car for long trips. If he'd gone to New Jersey, his driver should be behind the wheel right now. I went down to the second-level basement garage. His car was still there. The emergency stairwell beside it was inexplicably open. I followed it down and found a meeting room. Through the half-open door, I saw my mother-in-law Elena pouring whiskey for Mia, the girl I'd taken in from the slums out of pity the year I married into the Cappello family. "Mia, you're taking over the Brooklyn docks starting next week." "Julian will help you clean up all the dirty accounts." The Brooklyn docks. I'd taken two bullets for this family to secure that territory. And now my mother-in-law was handing it to Mia like it was nothing. And Julian, the Cappello heir, my husband, was standing right behind Mia, both hands resting on her bare shoulders. Around the long table sat my father-in-law Victor, Elena, Mia, the family's legal director, and two heads of the operations team. With Julian, that made seven. Every core member of the Cappello family was in that room. Everyone except me.

I was engaged to Theodore Harrison, heir to the Harrison family. I wanted a perfect wedding, so I lost 22 pounds in three months. I cut out carbs completely and took five Pilates classes a week, all so I could look my very best in the Harrison heirloom gown. But when I went in for my fitting, the maid brought out a plain dress instead. Still in the dress, I demanded an explanation. Theodore, my fiancé, answered as if it were no big deal. "Layla's young, and she loves pretty clothes. So I had the heirloom gown sent to her." He looked at me like he'd only just noticed how much I'd changed. "That gown belongs on someone dazzling, like Layla. Right now, you look like a walking skeleton. "It doesn't matter what you wear to the wedding anyway. Just let Layla have the dress." I couldn't believe it. I was shaking so hard I couldn't get a word out. Theodore and I had been together for eight years, and he'd brought his childhood friend, Layla Brooks, along on every single date. When we went hunting, he gave Layla the rifle I shot best with. When we went shopping, he handed Layla the dress I'd ordered three months in advance. Whenever I objected, Theodore would give me an impatient look. "Hailey, if you can't even give up small things like this, how are you supposed to be my wife?" I'd thought he saw Layla as nothing more than a childhood friend. But now he'd even given her the wedding dress meant for me. Suddenly, I was tired. Maybe Theodore had forgotten one thing: whoever married me would be eligible to become the Harrison heir.

It's my seventh anniversary with Chase McGregor. I hide in his car's trunk while holding a pregnancy report. In my other hand, I hold a limited-edition watch that I've prepared for him. I want to surprise him and tell him we're about to have a child. To my surprise, I hear something that devastates me. "Chase, you're not really going to marry Daphne, are you? Lucille Gervais wants to marry you. As long as you do that, the North Sea's shipping routes, cargo operations, and drug trade will come under your control." "Help me set up a date with her. I'll break up with Daphne." My breathing hitches. I want to hear Chase object to this or show even the slightest bit of hesitation, but none of it comes. The pregnancy report slips from my fingers. I once thought he would be the father of my children; I thought we would have a happy family together. Now, my dream has been shattered.

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.

My classmate Bianca and I have the same taste. She wants every man I’ve ever dated. She says I’m too naive. That I don't see how powerful men think. She calls it “testing” them for me. She says she’s helping. Then she sleeps with my boyfriend. Then she rubs it in my face. “See? I told you that you can’t handle them. These men are sharks. If it wasn’t for me, you’d have been eaten alive by now.” I choked on my rage. I said nothing. This time, I went behind her back. I went after the king of New York's underworld. When she found out, she made her move. But she has no idea. This man isn't my endgame. He's the trap I set for her.

My younger sister, Sofia Moretti, and I grow up on milk. While our peers are showing no signs of growth, both of us are blessed with an early puberty. Our father, a mafia Don, is worried that we might get tricked into giving our bodies away to young men at an early age, so he has been nurturing two confidants for us when we were still kids. After we come of age, Dad makes each of us choose one as a fiancé. Sofia is the first one to pick Dante, the tall, well-built, and cold-looking older brother. The only choice I have left is Luca, the younger brother who has gotten partially disfigured by an enemy and often wakes up in fright due to the nightmares. In my previous life, I knew that once I rejected Luca, who had PTSD from his past, he'd definitely get kicked out of my family. No one would be able to protect him anymore. So, I took the initiative to accept the marriage proposal. Since Luca tended to jolt awake from his nightmares and tremble violently, I moved to the room next door so that I could guard his door at all times. Whenever Luca was insulted or mocked by my uncles and relatives at family meetings, I'd dig out my pistol and slap it onto the table to shut them up. I spent three years accompanying Luca to therapy sessions. That was how I learned to pick up on every symptom he exhibited before he went into his anxiety mode. I thought I'd be able to touch Luca's heart by offering him my own. But when an enemy family set up a trap that resulted in my and Sofia's kidnapping, they plunged poisonous blades through our stomachs and forced Luca to choose to only save one of us with an antidote. That was when Luca gave the antidote to Sofia without hesitation. "Sorry, but Sofia needs the antidote more than you do." It turned out that Luca had been in love with Sofia this whole time. After Luca picked Sofia up and was about to leave, he murmured to me, "If there ever is a next lifetime, I'll use my life to pay this debt." My final memory of that lifetime consisted of the scorching pain that ate through my organs left behind by the poison. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day I'm supposed to pick out my fiance.