Mafia Mafia Short Stories & Countdown Novels

After my father died in a brutal family power struggle, my mother sent me to live with her best friend, Victoria De Luca, while she stayed behind in New York to clean up the mess he left behind. That was how I ended up being spoiled by the two De Luca sons for the next twenty years. Even after Lorenzo took over as Godfather, he still turned down meetings just to spend every birthday with me. Dario, meanwhile, loved taking me to lavish parties, proudly announcing to everyone that I was his most precious princess. Everyone assumed I would eventually marry one of them. However, when I brought up marriage and told them I wanted children of my own, they both backed away. Lorenzo said, “There’s a mountain of family business waiting for me. I don’t have marriage on my mind right now.” Dario laughed. “Baby, I’m not done having fun yet. I’m not planning on becoming anyone’s perfect husband this soon.” The very next day, at the family casino’s opening gala, they fought over who would give the butler’s daughter a diamond engagement ring. To keep Sophia Abba happy, they sent me onto the freezing terrace alone to retrieve her lost bracelet, knowing perfectly well that the cold would trigger my asthma. I collapsed on the terrace. By the time someone found me, I could barely breathe, let alone speak. The paramedics rushed in and carried me away, but Lorenzo and Dario immediately stepped in front of Sophia. “Don’t let her see. We don’t want to ruin her good mood today.” At that moment, I finally understood. All those promises, all that affection they had given me—none of it had ever truly belonged to me. When I woke up in the hospital, I called my mother. “I’ve agreed to the marriage with the Romano family. Please tell them to come to Sicily for me in seven days.”

On my son’s birthday, my husband, the godfather of the Vitale family, once again went to spend the day with his widowed sister-in-law’s child. Dante Vitale came home after midnight with a limited edition racing set in his hand. “Wake Luca up,” he said. “I’ll celebrate with him now.” I only shook my head. There was no need. I used to care because I had been with Dante for ten years, yet I had never officially become the Donna of the Vitale family. Every time our wedding came close, it was interrupted by another emergency from Lucia, his widowed sister-in-law. I did not want my son to stand in this family without a proper place. Everyone knew he was Dante’s child, yet no one truly treated him as a Vitale heir. Now I suddenly stopped caring. Because he had missed our son’s birthday for the sixth time. And because Luca’s birthday wish today was simple. He did not ask for a toy. He did not ask for another chance. He only looked at me and whispered, “Mommy, I don’t want Daddy to come anymore.” That was when I finally understood. Waiting for a man who always chose someone else would only hurt my child more. Seven days later, I would take Luca to Sicily. This time, we would never come back.

Adrian Vale was the Don the whole city feared, and yet he spent three years chasing me, a girl who waited tables. Then, the night before our wedding, my best friend Nina Ashford and I were taken at the same time. With the cold muzzle of a gun against my forehead, I cried out, my voice shaking, “Let Nina go! She’s innocent!” The kidnapper laughed like I’d told a joke. “Innocent? She’s worth a hell of a lot more than you.” My whole body went rigid. The next second he leaned down to my ear, his smile pure malice. “You really think Adrian’s marrying you because he loves you?” “The day you tried on your wedding dress, he was fucking Nina on your bed.” “And that black ring, the one that stands for the Don’s power? He put it on Nina’s finger a long time ago.” I shook my head, over and over, refusing to believe it. But the kidnapper had already stopped looking at me. He dialed Adrian’s number. “Mr. Vale, you need to make a choice. Your bride, or Miss Ashford. Only one of them walks out of here alive.” “Which one do you choose?” In that instant, I forgot how to breathe. On the other end, Adrian was quiet for only a few seconds. Then he said it, perfectly calm. “Let Nina go.”

I took a bullet meant for my uncle, Don Matteo Doria. His mother, Maria Doria, was so moved by what I'd done that she suggested I marry Matteo. But when I woke in the ICU, I learned he was about to get engaged to a young starlet, Claire Russo. When I showed up at their engagement party, every guest expected me to cause a scene. After all, I was the girl the Doria family had spoiled rotten. Matteo ordered his men to protect Claire, then pointed his gun at me. "Vivian, Claire is my old friend's daughter. I won't let you hurt her." Instead, I handed Claire a gift. "I was immature before. This is a little welcome gift for you, Claire." The room went dead silent. Matteo slowly lowered his gun, his eyes full of surprise. I smiled at Matteo and pretended I was fine, even as the pain tore at my heart. "Since you're marrying someone else, give me back the necklace my father left me. "From now on, I'll stay out of your life." In my last life, I caused a huge scene at the engagement party and used Maria's promise to force Matteo to marry me. Without his protection, Claire was murdered by people who were after her parents' inheritance. For the next three years, Matteo kept me locked away on his empty estate while he drowned in grief over Claire's death. Even when I got into a car accident on the way to the hospital and lost the baby, he never came to see me once. Now that I'd been given a second chance, I knew better. I would never chase after Matteo's love again.

On the day I'm supposed to try on my wedding dress, Don Aldo Vitale gets the time wrong again. By the time he finally gets to the bridal boutique, I have already chosen my dress. Just like always, Aldo apologizes without thinking. "I've been really busy lately. I hope you understand." But over the past few years, Aldo's taken his childhood sweetheart and assistant, Isabella Berardi, to more than 100 cities for business. He's never forgotten a single flight, meeting, or business dinner. In contrast, Aldo's always forgetting things when it comes to me. I calmly hand the wedding dress back to the sales associate. "It's fine. My friend already helped me pick out a dress. No point in coming here for nothing." Aldo lets out a sigh of relief, but he still looks a little uneasy. After all, everyone knows me as his clingy girlfriend who can't live without him. In the past, I would have been clinging to him, sobbing and throwing a fit out of jealousy. Aldo holds me in his arms. "Babe, you're really starting to act like the perfect wife. I heard from the butler that you went on a trip. Where did you go?" "I went to Sirdon." I calmly pull away from him. "I went there while you were on the flight to Dubmont." Aldo freezes. One of the things Aldo promises is to take me to the City of Light when he first tells me he loves me. He's always saying he'll take me there when he gets the chance. Three years go by. Then four. Even after getting engaged, he keeps putting it off, always using work as an excuse. Then, Aldo takes Isabella to a new city for another business trip. I've been with Aldo for five years. I suddenly grow tired of waiting for him. If he can't keep the promises he's made to me, I'll fulfill them myself.

As my puppy accidentally tore up my marriage certificate, I went to the related register to get a replacement. Having checked the information, the clerk looked at me with a complex expression: "Sorry, the certificate is fake.” I was astonished: "That's impossible. We’re going to have a wedding ceremony next week.” The clerk sighed and turned the computer screen toward me: "Please look. Your ‘husband’ Leon Romano obtained a marriage certificate with Amy Smith two weeks ago." I stood frozen. Amy was Romano’s childhood friend. Feeling betrayed and deeply hurt, I rushed straight to Romano’s office to get a clear answer. Faced with my rage and questioning, Romano hugged me from the back and comforted me: “All of Amy’s family members gave their lives to protect me. The enemies are still looking for an opportunity to assassinate her.” “Only by registering her as my wife can I protect her as Don Romano.” In his embrace, I only found his words disgusting. Romano pressed a soft kiss on my cheek: “Don’t worry, sweetheart. The wedding ceremony still belongs to you. You will always be the Donna and enjoy the respect from everyone.” He still wanted me to manage a Family that I was not legally related to at all. Overwhelmed by grief, I tried to hold my tears. It was time to drop the curtain of the eight-year relationship with him. I returned to my own Family and told my father: “I am willing to accept the marriage alliance.”

Alessio Romano and I have grown up together. But so far, we've severed our friendship with each other 99 times over Vittoria Belleandi. The first time occurred because Vittoria tried to kill my puppy out of fear toward dogs. When I was fighting with her over my puppy, I shoved her to the ground. So, Alessio called off our friendship for three whole days. The sixth time occurred when Vittoria wanted to experience the feeling of getting confessed to in public. She wanted Alessio, who was already my boyfriend at that time, to do that to her. When I refused to let Vittoria have her way, Alessio cut off all ties with me for seven days. The 100th time occurs when I take away the management right of the branch company, something that Vittoria has been vying for a long time. But this time, Alessio doesn't cut off all ties with me. Instead, he tells me, "Chiara, I already told you that the Don will only acknowledge Vittoria's capabilities and let her stay as a part of the core family once she secures the management right. But you've ruined everything "Now, I can only register my marriage with Vittoria in order to secure her position! Only then will we proceed to discuss our own marriage!" Then, Alessio snatches the marriage application form from my hands. After witnessing Alessio and Vittoria signing their names together, I no longer throw a tantrum. Instead, I take off my engagement ring and book a flight ticket to another destination. But why is it that Alessio keeps begging me to return to him after I've left?

When I surprised my husband, Carlo, the Don of a Mafia family, with a positive pregnancy test, he threw an azoospermia report in my face instead. "Who seduced you?" I thought he was joking. Then his childhood friend Mia called. "Don Moretti, you've seen the report. Madison's trying to pass off another man's bastard as yours!" That was when I realized one piece of paper had convinced everyone I'd betrayed the Mafia Don I'd married. Carlo didn't ask for a divorce. He didn't even pursue the accusation any further. He still drove me to my law firm and canceled family meetings to accompany me to prenatal appointments. But every time we came home from the hospital, he'd stare at my belly and ask, "You still won't tell me the truth?" Over and over, I told him the baby was his. He would stroke my cheek and shake his head. "Give me your lover's name, Madison. Once he's dead, I'll accept the child." It was insane. There was no other man. A month later, I suddenly miscarried. Carlo stood beside my hospital bed, white as a sheet. I thought he might finally believe me. Instead, he immediately ordered the doctor, "Preserve the embryonic tissue. Run a paternity test against my DNA. I want to know if the baby was mine." I couldn't take another second of it. I pulled off my wedding ring and looked him in the eye. "I want a divorce." I didn't care what the test found anymore. Our marriage had been doomed from the moment he chose suspicion over me.

The Five Families Commission chose whom the Valenti heir could marry. His wife had to bring the family a powerful alliance. I had no family name, ports, or votes to offer. To be with me, Nico Valenti broke his engagement to the Donatis and offered to surrender his inheritance. At his family trial, five capos broke his ribs with gunstocks, and Salvatore Valenti shot him through the left shoulder to force him to renounce me. With blood soaking through his shirt, Nico still looked up at me beyond the door and smiled. “Don't be afraid, Tessa. You're the only one I want.” In the end, the Commission compromised. Once Nico fulfilled his duty to the family, he could leave Chicago and they would no longer interfere with us. But before he surrendered the Valenti succession, he had to give the Donati family a heir. Nico promised that once the child was born, he would sign away his inheritance and take me out of Chicago. First, I waited while he followed the Commission's schedule with his former fiancée, Alessia Donati. Each time he returned, he held me and called it a transaction. Their first child was a girl. The Commission refused to recognize a daughter as the primary heir, so Nico returned to Alessia until she became pregnant again. “Wait a little longer,” he told me. Just when I thought the ordeal was finally ending, their daughter, Gia, drank milk laced with a concentrated dose of digitalis at her baptism. The bottle had come from the clinic where I used to work. Everyone decided I had poisoned her. They locked me overnight in the freezer of an old Valenti slaughterhouse. Before the iron door closed, Nico stood outside, his eyes bloodshot. “I told you to wait.” His voice held no warmth. “Gia is only a child. Why would you hurt my daughter?” My daughter. The words entered my heart like a rusted blade. I dug my nails into my palms until blood ran between my fingers. When the freezer opened the next morning, I released my mangled hands. This time, I was done waiting.

The 99th time my fiancé, Draven, hung up on me, I dragged myself to the family's church, my diagnosis of end-stage renal disease clutched in my hand. "Father, I wish to renounce the Rocci family and break off my engagement to Draven Frost." The words had barely left my lips when my parents burst in with my adopted sister, Bianca. My father, the family's Consigliere, didn't hesitate. He slapped me across the face, right there in front of the priest. "Your fiancé is a respected Capo in our world, and you choose to insult him like this!" "You're dragging our family's name through the mud in front of the whole organization!" My mother snatched the diagnosis from my hand, sneering after a brief glance. "Playing sick for attention again, are you? What is it you want this time?" My adopted sister, Bianca, clung to our parents' arms, her voice choked with tears. "I'm so sorry, sister. You can have my place at the gala. Please, just stop making trouble for Mom and Dad!" I wiped the blood trickling from my nose and calmly repeated my words to the priest. "I am no longer a daughter of the Rocci family. I am not worthy of an alliance with the Frosts." "I will be dead in three days. I want this engagement broken before then."

Raffaele Moretti, the Mafia Don, once made me a promise. If I proposed to him fifty-one times on livestream for the whole world to see, he would show up for the fifty-second and finally make our relationship public. But when the night of my fifty-second proposal came, Raffaele was in the Maldives with his childhood sweetheart, Gianna. He bought her an entire yacht just to put a smile back on her face. I became the laughingstock of the internet. Later, he sent me an apologetic message. “Gianna was upset. I only went with her because she needed a change of scenery. That's why I missed it. Don't read too much into this.” “I'll say yes when you propose for the fifty-third time. Then you'll be my Donna.” Sure enough, he arrived at my fifty-third livestream in a perfectly tailored suit. And as he watched, I set fire to all fifty-two letters I had written asking him to marry me. Hidden among them was my liver cancer diagnosis. "There won't be a fifty-third chance, Raffaele." Because in a matter of days, I would be dead.

Julian Hayes spent eight years climbing from first officer to captain of the most coveted international routes. I stood beside him for every mile of that climb. For him, I walked away from the Valenti family, the most feared Mafia name on the East Coast. I buried Elena Valenti, and became Lina Vale, the girl who smiled in the cabin while he ruled the cockpit. The day I left, my father stood on the marble steps of our estate and said, "Elena, if you walk out that gate for him, don’t come crawling back." Julian never knew. To him, I was a woman with no real family, no real power, and no life worth asking about. I was the one who memorized his flight schedule, packed his stomach pills, and kept dinner warm until midnight. Once, I asked him, "Can you take me into the sky the way you see it? Just once." He didn’t even put down his fork. "The cockpit is a workplace, Lina. Not a theme park." I said okay and never asked again. Then one sleepless dawn, I found the encrypted album on his phone. More than forty cockpit photos: cloud seas, blood-red sunsets, double rainbows after storms, the Milky Way over the Atlantic. Every one had been sent to the same contact. A teddy bear emoji. The newest photo showed half a sun hanging off the wingtip. His caption read, [Next time you’re off, I’ll put you in the observer seat. Sit on the right. That’s where the whole sky opens up.] She replied, [I’ll hold you to that.] I put the phone back. I didn’t change the password, didn’t delete the album, didn’t wake him up to beg for an explanation. At dawn, I brewed his coffee like always, sat alone at the kitchen island, and drank mine in silence. Then I sent my resignation letter and called a number I hadn’t touched in eight years. I watched the first flight of the morning rise beyond the Manhattan skyline and said, "Papa, I’m coming home." When the line connected, my father’s voice was colder than a gun barrel. "Have you thought it through?"

I was dying from my fear of heights, but my husband, Don Vincent, was busy with his assistant, savoring the latest coffee flown in from Hawaii that morning. "You're a grown woman, Bella. What's the big deal? You're stuck on a roof, figure it out." Then he hung up on me. I collapsed onto the hot tar of the roof, my body shaking uncontrollably before everything went black. It was two hours before building security found me. When I got home, I asked Vincent for a divorce. He rubbed his temples, his patience worn thin, looking at me as if I were a child throwing a tantrum. "Over a cup of coffee? I told you, the heights are all in your head. You’re perfectly safe now. Stop making a scene alright? What's this nonsense about a divorce? I have more important things to deal with. Calm yourself down." I stared at his back as he left, tears already streaming down my face. Something important? Did he really think I couldn't hear his assistant, Sophia, murmuring in the background? Did he think I didn't know he took her to the last family gathering? I had loved Vincent for three years. Everyone knew he was the center of my world. They all thought an orphan like me could never leave him. But now, all the love I had was eclipsed by a profound, soul-crushing exhaustion. I was done. I picked up my phone and dialed a number I hadn't touched in three long years. "Uncle, book me a flight to Seattle. I'm ready to leave Vincent."

After I discovered that my Mafia husband, Don Dante Amato, still couldn't let go of his first love, Bianca, and the son she had with another man, I taught our son to call him "Don Amato." When our son came down with a fever, Bianca called my husband away in the middle of the night. I stroked his burning forehead and taught him to say, "Goodbye, Don Amato." Dante had promised to present our son to the whole Amato Family at a family dinner — to formally announce him as the future heir. Yet on the night of the dinner, Bianca called, crying that her own son had no father by his side. Dante left without a second thought. I didn't argue. I just had our son stand in front of the entire Family and explain, "Don Amato has someone more important to take care of." It wasn't until Dante finally realized how disappointed we were in him that he suggested we take a family portrait together. Outside the photo studio, Bianca called again, crying for Dante's help. "Dante, the kids at daycare are making fun of Gabe for not having a dad. Can you come pick him up and pretend to be his father?" Dante looked conflicted. He turned to our son, as if about to explain everything. But this time, our son didn't need my reminder. He waved Dante off. "It's okay, Don Amato. Go take care of the other child. Mom and I will manage the family photo just fine."

Three months into our marriage, I was cooking dinner when I noticed that every plate, bowl, and cup in the house was smaller than standard dinnerware. That slight difference mattered. Every time I lifted a bowl or wrapped my hand around a cup, I had to adjust my grip to the tighter curve. I held up two bowls of different sizes and asked Damian Moretti why. He said they had simply been custom-made for the Family. That night, a torrential downpour left me stranded at the station after I finished handling Family business. Across the street, inside a restaurant, Damian held a bite of steak to the lips of the young woman opposite him, then gently wiped the sauce from the corner of her mouth. The young woman was the Family's new secretary. One look at the custom dinnerware in front of her, and I understood everything. So that smaller size had been designed for her. I checked my phone. "It's pouring. My old wrist injury is acting up, and I can't hold an umbrella. Can you come get me?" I had sent that message three hours ago. Nothing had come back. He never let me ride in his private armored car or appear at his side at society dinners. In public, he always kept his distance. "As Don, I have to keep my public and private lives separate. The Donna can't draw too much attention, or my men will talk." He held to those boundaries of his so faithfully. It turned out the boundaries only applied to some people. Through the rain, I saw a small plaque on the front passenger seat: CECE ONLY. And suddenly, I no longer wanted to stay in this marriage.

The moment I decided to leave Vincent Graves, I did three things. First, I recalled the pregnancy report I had been about to forward to him and replaced it with a scheduled breakup message. Second, I called the bridal boutique and cancelled the custom order for my wedding dress. I had been measured three times for it. I had waited five months. I never wore it. I never would. Third, I called Dr. Helena Shaw and accepted the invitation I had turned down a week ago. An eight-year medical research program. Completely sealed. No contact with the outside world. Before he could pull off the wedding he had been planning, I vanished from his life completely. He never noticed that while he let Cora take my place at the wedding rehearsal and stayed out all night, I was quietly erasing every trace of myself, step by step. I became exactly the wife Vincent always said he wanted: reasonable, gracious, unbothered. But after I was gone, he lost control and asked me, "Why aren't you angry? Don't you love me anymore?" I said nothing. I only remembered the flirtatious voice messages Cora had sent him, the ones I had heard from his phone. And I calmly dialed the number that would take me away.

While my entire family was helping my adopted sister try on wedding gowns, the doctor told me I had almost no time left. I held my terminal stomach cancer diagnosis and sent one message to the Moretti family group chat. “If I were dying, would any of you miss me?” Three minutes later, my parents replied. “You would lie about having cancer just to ruin Bianca’s wedding?” “Enough. The Moretti family has no daughter who tells lies like this.” My brother called, already irritated. “Bianca’s father died taking a bullet for me. No one will ever walk her down the aisle. She only wants to experience one wedding. Why can’t you let this go?” My childhood sweetheart and fiancé, Adrian Vitale, never answered. He was kneeling in front of Bianca, gently arranging the skirt of my wedding gown. Seven days earlier, my family had decided to give her my wedding. I stood there for a long time before signing the body donation papers. My parents and brother could choose her. My fiancé could choose her too. This time, I would fight for nothing.

Because of the death of his first love, Don Stefano Giullani has hated me for eight years. During those eight years, I make every effort to please him—I broker arms deals for him, handle smuggling routes, and even take bullets meant for him. Even when he sees me barely clinging to life, Stefano only says, "If you really wanted to please me, you should have let the bullet hit somewhere fatal." I press my hand over the wound and stare deeply at him. Later, on the night our enemies surround the casino and it's raining bullets, Stefano pushes me away from him. He's riddled with bullets himself while saving me. Before he dies, he shields me and gets me safely into the car. Once the car door closes, he says softly, "In the next life, I don't want to meet you again." After Stefano dies, his Madre slaps me hard across the face. "Why wasn't it you who died? If I had known it would come to this, I would have let him marry Lucia! "It's all my fault for forcing him to marry you. You deserve to die!" She slaps me again, causing me to lose my footing and fall into the sea. Everyone just stands on the boat, watching in silence. Seawater fills my nose, and when I open my eyes again, I find myself reborn eight years into the past—to the day before Stefano and I are about to get married. This time, I will do as he wishes. I'll stop clinging to him. I'll allow him and Lucia to be together.

I once thought I would spend my entire life in love with my husband, Vincenzo, the Don of the De Luca family. In the end, our whirlwind romance was no match for a childhood promise. On the day Vincenzo went through with a sham marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Chloe, to honor a blood oath, I destroyed the penthouse we had filled with memories and left his city for good. When Vincenzo used the family's entire intelligence network and still couldn't find me, the untouchable Don was driven mad. Later, he offered a worldwide bounty for any information on my whereabouts and even publicly begged me to come back. Too bad for him, I already wore another man's ring. Vincenzo, nothing waits for you forever. Especially a love you strangled with your own hands.

I packed the last of my things from the apartment into a box and sent my fiancé, William, a voice message. [Let's break up.] A second later, he replied, [OK.] Across from me, my cousin Mia almost spilled her martini on the tablecloth. "You two were together for seven years, about to get engaged, and it's over just like that? How is it that when I dump a guy, it turns into a whole dramatic saga?" "Still, I have to admire you. Giving up your life as the family’s Princess to build everything from scratch with him." I slowly stirred my coffee, the bitter taste flooding my mouth. "Because he never listens to my voice messages." I tossed my phone onto the table and pushed it toward her. Her eyes landed on the screen, on a long list of unplayed voice messages. For the past seven years, my conversations with William had been a one-way street. The rare 'Mm' from him was the most enthusiastic response I could hope for. I had grown used to his cold nature long ago. Until I saw a long voice message on his phone, played in its entirety. It was from his childhood friend, Tessa. In that moment, I finally let go of the sliver of hope I had been clutching for seven years. And now, it was time for me to return to the Miller family as its heiress.