After Death Mafia 短篇故事與 Marriage 小說

Two years into my marriage with Luca Mancini, I'd gotten used to waiting. Wait until the accounts were settled—then he'd take me on our honeymoon. Wait until the family meeting was over—then he'd celebrate our anniversary with me. Wait until his men were taken care of—then he'd call the private doctor to see me. I knew how hard it was to sit in the Don's seat, so I never cried or made a scene about it. I even took half the work off his shoulders without being asked. Because of my patience and all the times I stepped back, things between us finally softened. When he was exhausted, he'd lean his head on my shoulder, kiss my forehead, and say: "My Donna, once this busy season is over, I promise I'll make it all up to you." Today was my birthday. He'd promised me half a month ago that he'd spend it with me. I'd booked out an entire restaurant. The cake was cut. I was waiting. But from six to ten, he never showed. Then a photo popped up in my inbox: In the pouring rain, Luca was holding an umbrella, shielding his childhood sweetheart, Anna, tight against his side. The timestamp on the photo read 9:40. Twenty minutes ago. He'd tilted the umbrella over Anna's head, letting the rain soak him through. Then his text came through: "I've got an important meeting. I'll be home late." Looking at that message, I didn't reply "Got it" like the good, understanding wife I always was. I thought I'd gotten used to waiting. I thought if I just cleared every obstacle out of his way, I'd finally get the man who kept his promises. But staring at that photo, my heart sank all the way to the bottom. It was never the waiting I was afraid of. It's just—last month, I was diagnosed with terminal leukemia. This was the last birthday I'd ever have. I stood up, hollow, and walked home alone through the endless sound of rain. The man I'd been waiting for—I couldn't wait for him anymore.

The night we fought for the port, I took a ricin-laced bullet for my husband, Don Nick Valenti. As I lay dying, Dr. Bruno Esposito, the Valenti family's doctor, brought out the last dose of antiserum. He said a shot right away would save me. But Nick injected the lifesaving serum into Mia Conti instead. Mia suddenly developed stomach cramps, so Nick ordered Bruno to give her the antiserum slowly through an IV. He ignored the fact that I could barely breathe and my skin was turning blue. Isabella Valenti, Nick's mother and the former Donna, clutched her crucifix. “Your wife is the one who was poisoned, Nick! Why are you saving Mia?” Nick pressed a cotton ball to Mia's arm to stop the bleeding. “Mia's been sheltered her whole life. She's never had so much as a scratch. Julia's survived more gunshot wounds than I can count. She'll pull through this one too.” Isabella's face went cold and hard. “Julia has pulled you out of gunfire at least ten times. Her father and brother both died helping you seize power! And you won't even give her the antiserum that could save her life?” Nick's voice was cold. “Mother, I never forced them to do any of it! When Julia married me, she made her vows before God. She loves me. She chose all of this.” He came over to my bed and touched my face. “Julia, I know you're stronger than this. I'll have Bruno do everything he can. You're my wife and the Donna of the Valenti family.” He looked as tender as he had the night before, when he had held me in his arms. I looked at the empty syringe in his hand, and suddenly, none of it felt worth it anymore. “Nick Valenti! You had better pray I don't survive. “Because if I do, you'll answer to God for everything you've done!”

Three years ago, my husband, my parents, and my adopted sister faked their deaths to test whether I had married into the DeLuca family for love or for power. They cut off my money, took my home, and left me and my son with nothing. Three years later, they came back. My husband stepped out of a black Rolls-Royce, looked down at me, and said, “Evelyn, you passed the test.” What he didn’t know was that my son was already dead. And I was dying too.

Emma, the fake heiress, and I were sold into an underground BDSM club. When my parents, the richest couple in the country, and my husband, Leo DeLuca, the feared Don of the DeLuca crime family, finally found us, I was bound with duct tape and covered in wounds. Emma lay beside me, heavily pregnant and unconscious. Three months later, doctors confirmed that her baby had died in the womb. She was the adopted daughter my parents had cherished for twenty years, and the girl my husband had never gotten over. My parents and husband went half mad, offering a nationwide one-hundred-million-dollar bounty for any lead on the person responsible. I was the only one who might have seen the culprit's face, and I said nothing. My father locked me in the basement for seven full days without food or water, but I still refused to identify the person responsible. At my weakest, my enraged husband dragged me before a memory tribunal. "Your sister is still unconscious, and you are protecting the person who did this because you are jealous of her! The thought that I share a bed with someone as poisonous as you makes me sick!" My father, Victor Valenti, watched from a distance, his face hard with disappointment. "I regret ever going through hell to bring you home from the slums! Why couldn't you have died instead of Emma's baby! Today I'll use the Valenti family's own interrogation device, the memory extractor, and neither you nor the person behind this will have anywhere left to hide!" But when my real memories appeared on the huge screen, my husband completely lost his mind. My parents hung their heads and knelt before me, wrecked.

Five years ago, my family died in a car crash. My parents. My adopted sister, Liz. Everyone but me. They left behind grief, an empty house, and a debt so large it swallowed my life. When the collectors came, I turned to the only person I had left—my husband, Adrian. He told me he had cut ties with his own family to marry me and had nothing left. I believed him. For five years, I worked every job I could find, paid every dollar I earned, and told myself love was worth the suffering. When the balance dropped to its final $18,000, I signed up for a paid drug trial at a private clinic. They handed me a waiver, warned me about possible delayed reactions, and promised fast money if I swallowed the experimental dose. I thought it would buy us a new beginning. Instead, I came home early and heard Adrian on the phone. “Let Liz use the card. Evelyn still doesn’t know. She took away Liz’s money five years ago, so she has to earn every dollar back herself.” Then he laughed softly. “One more year, and her punishment is over.” That was how I learned the dead were alive. The debt was fake. My husband had never been poor. And the life I had fought so hard to survive was only a sentence they had given me.

After five years of marriage, the doctor told me I was pregnant. It was something I had waited for so long. Yet, along with that good news came a nightmare. My medical tests showed that I had cancer, and it had already spread. The doctor gave me less than a month to live. I froze, gripping the report so tightly my knuckles turned white. Tears streamed down my face as I thought about how my unborn child would never get to feel a mother's embrace. My grief was interrupted by the ping of an incoming text message. It was from Mom. [Since you're so selfish and refuse to donate a kidney to save Nattie's life, you should divorce Davon. Let him marry Nattie instead. At least that way, you can fulfill her dying wish.] My tears fell harder. It was not that I refused to donate a kidney to Natalie Rivera, my sister, who was in the final stages of kidney disease. In truth, I only had one kidney left. Five years ago, I had already given one to Dad. Now, with my life counting down to its final days, I decided that I would donate my remaining kidney to Natalie. I would also let my husband, Davon Parker, go with her. Before I went into surgery, my parents praised me for finally being thoughtful, saying I had finally learned to care about my sister. They said that once the surgery was over, the whole family would go on vacation together. Davon even said he was proud that I was no longer selfish and promised he would make it up to me in the future. None of them knew I did not have a future. After the surgery, what would be pushed out of the operating room would be a cold, lifeless body.

Vincent hated me for six years. He was certain I had betrayed him, and that I had gotten his childhood sweetheart Sophia killed. So he destroyed my family, sent my brother to prison, and married me to torment me. I explained many times but he never believed me once. Then I died. But among the things I left behind, he discovered that when he was bullied, I was the one who found the evidence. When the police took him away, I was the one who hired his lawyer. When his enemies came to kill him, I was the one who paid for the tip and warned him in time to run. He hated me for all those years, and fell in love with me the year I died.

My husband is the Don of the entire New York East Coast Mafia. For ten years, I dimmed my own light to be his perfect silent partner, the dutiful wife who gave him the perfect heir. I thought we were the lovers who wou ld die for each other. Then came a mere associat. My husband and son had formed an alliance with the woman who seem want to take my place. But they just said, "Elena, you have the crown and the kingdom. She has nothing but us. Be generous." So, to make her smile, my husband trampled on my dignity again and again. To please her, my son affectionately calls her "Mom." In their eyes, I was the iron wall, the woman who would swallow any insult for the sake of the family honor. Until the fire. My husband locked me inside the burning room, to let me "reflect" on my jealousy. He didn't know that the fire didn't kill me. But it burned away the last ash of my love for him.

Two years ago, I was the Donna of the Costa family. When I was on my way to attend the family meeting, I was killed by my husband's childhood sweetheart, Isabella Rossi. She shattered my limbs and smashed my belly before throwing me into an abandoned mine pit. It was such a shame that I was pregnant with the heir Matteo Costa had been waiting for the past five years when I died. Not only did Isabella frame me for working with the enemy forces, but she also broke her own legs and claimed that she got hurt from stopping me. Matteo publicly announced that he decided to sever all ties with me. He also placed a bounty on my head. Just like that, I fell from my position as the Costa family's Donna to a traitor who was wanted by all. Two years later, the mine pit collapsed on itself. That was when the workers dug out my rotten corpse.

I've been married to Federico Moretti for four years, and the entire time, we've lived in a run-down basement. He works three jobs, all to save up money to buy me a house filled with morning sunlight and make it our home. So when the doctor gives me my diagnosis, all I can think about is how I'm about to become a burden to him. When I get home, Federico is crouched in front of a leaking pipe, wrapping tape around it. He looks up and spots the hospital envelope in my hand, his expression darkening. "Sera, how many times have I told you? Those white coats are all crooks. Look at Alfredo's mom. She had a whole bunch of tests done and spent all that money, only to get better after drinking some mulled wine." I glance down at the diagnosis report and suddenly smile. "What if I really am dying?" He frowns. "Don't talk like that. We still owe each other a real wedding. And if you're really sick, I'll make sure you get treated, even if I have to sell my own organs." That night, I swallow all my painkillers at once, determined not to be a burden to him anymore. When I open my eyes again, I'm floating in midair, watching Federico sit on a leather couch inside a private manor. Julia Rossi leans against one of the pillars in the living room, a glass of wine in hand and smiling. "Mr. Moretti, it must have been rough on you, living in that pigeonhole day after day, pretending to be poor for her." Federico takes off his cheap digital watch and tosses it into the fireplace. "You know I love her. But the Black Crown values loyalty above all else, and in my position as Underboss, everyone around me has an angle. Without a setup like this, how could I ever be sure she loves me for who I am and not for my power and money?" Only now do I understand. All those years of scraping by are nothing but a test he carefully staged. However, it has cost me my life.

To end the war between the Marinos and the Valentes, I married Theodore Valente, the first love I'd once walked out on. On our wedding night, that proud, untouchable man held me and wept. Night after night, his broad frame covered mine as he made love to me. Theodore's sweet whispers made me blush, and a secret thrill went through me. Maybe he still loved me after all. But then the man I thought loved me did the unthinkable. He shot my father in the head, right in front of me. He put cement shoes on my brother and sent him to the bottom of the sea. He had my mother and sister shaved bald, then handed them over to his bodyguards to abuse however they pleased. By the time I escaped to save them, the torture had already driven them insane... My beloved husband looked at me coldly, his voice dripping with scorn. "Did you really think I still loved you? "Stop dreaming. You really thought marrying me would erase the humiliation you caused when you walked out on me? Or my hatred for your father after he killed so many members of my family?" Theodore wouldn't let me die. If I did, he'd kill my mother and my sister. He kept me as his wife in name only, yet night after night, he forced me to watch him sleep with a stand-in who looked just like me. Then the day came when his lover got pregnant. He grabbed me by the throat. "Once the baby's born, you and I are getting a divorce. My child won't be a bastard." I smiled, nodded, and promised I'd cooperate fully. After all, a doctor had diagnosed me with late-stage stomach cancer just yesterday. I didn't have another week to live.

I woke up from a three-year coma to find another woman beside my parents and my fiancé, Matteo Rossi. Her name was Sofia Bellini, and she had spent those three years with them in my place. Her father, Sal Bellini, had died saving my life in a gunfight. So after I woke up, no one could bring themselves to send her away. I felt guilty too. So whenever she helped herself to my things and my privileges, I let her. I kept letting her, right up until the day Matteo and I were supposed to get married, when my own parents begged me in tears to let my fiancé go save another woman. In the dressing room, I stood in my wedding dress and looked over at Matteo by the window. He was smoking a cigar, his mind somewhere else. I'd known him for more than ten years. One look told me he was torn and worried. The church bells had already rung once. Out there, over 200 guests were waiting for the groom to show up. But Matteo was gripping his phone. On the screen was the last text Sofia had sent him. "Go get married. Don't worry about me." She had ditched her guards and walked alone into a nightclub controlled by our enemies. Now there was gunfire inside. In the end, Matteo came over to me. "I'll go get her. An hour, tops, and I'll be back to finish the ceremony." With that, he turned and walked out. My father went right after him with his men. My mother hesitated for two seconds. Then she let go of my hand too. Twelve minutes later, I walked into the church alone and told every guest the wedding was off.

"I'm scheduling the C-section for tomorrow. The doctor will extract her bone marrow during the procedure." Those were the words that shattered Selena's world. Her husband, Ellis Winston, the most ruthless Mafia Don in New York, was going to force her to deliver their baby at twenty-seven weeks. To him, her pregnant body was just a blood farm to cure Jennifer, the manipulative half-sister who supposedly saved his life. So, Selena ran. She left behind a pool of blood, a crushed ultrasound photo, and a destroyed wedding ring. The world thought she was dead. Six years later, Ellis is a walking corpse. He rules the global underworld, but he is tormented by the ghost of the wife he pushed to the grave. During his company's grand anniversary banquet, the heavy ballroom doors burst open. Selena is back. But she isn't the weak, obedient housewife in a cheap housewife anymore. She is the untouchable heiress of the Merrick billionaire empire. She strides down the red carpet, a signed divorce agreement in hand, ready to crush the man who ruined her. Ellis refuses to let her go. He is willing to go to war with Wall Street to drag her back. But what will the arrogant Don do when he comes face-to-face with a genius six-year-old boy who looks exactly like him? He will pay any price to win her back. Even if it costs him his empire, his organs, and his life.

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