Melodramatic Mafia Short Stories & Multiple Identities Novels

My family's driver, Marco, always brought his girlfriend along when he drove me. I put up with it. His dead father took a bullet for my family once. Until today. I opened the door of my custom bulletproof Cadillac. Someone wrote on the inside of the window in red lipstick: "Stay away from my man, bitch." I wiped the smudge off with a tissue. "What is this?" I asked, my voice dead. Crystal sat in the passenger seat. She glared at me like I was poison. "Can't you read?" she spat. "Stay away from my man, you parasite. Buy your own car, you broke bitch." I watched this circus. I said nothing. Marco rushed to my side. He whispered frantically: "Aurora, she doesn't know I'm just a driver. She thinks... she thinks the whole family business is mine. She loves the power. Please." Then came the ultimate betrayal. "I need to take her to Fifth Avenue first. I'll come back for you later." He drove off in my car. He left me in the dust. I stood there and scoffed. I called Cassian, my brother's top enforcer. "Someone stole my car. And my patience is gone. Find them. I want them alive."

On the night of my 17th birthday, everyone at the Moretti estate was celebrating "Elena Moretti." The real Elena, however, had spent the past nine years locked beneath the old house in the vineyard. As fireworks burst over the main house, Sophia entered the wine cellar wearing the black gown my mother had left behind. She set a silver place card bearing my name in front of me, then slid a slice of birthday cake within reach. She kept the fork. "It's been nine years. How do you still not get it?" She tapped the place card. "You think a birth certificate makes the name Elena worth something? Or some old keepsake you've been hiding all these years? It doesn't." She glanced toward the brightly lit main house above us. "Because out there, I'm the sister they know. Eight armed brothers have my back. Luca keeps me by his side. Samuel calls me Ellie. Leon throws me a birthday party every year." "Whoever the Moretti family protects is the real one." Nine years ago, my parents were killed when their convoy was ambushed. My father's most trusted advisor hid me in this cellar, put his own daughter in my place, and let my eight brothers believe they had found their missing sister. I tried to escape. I wrote letters begging for help. I even tried to force my way out. Each attempt only brought heavier locks and more warnings that if I got out, they'd treat me as an enemy. So this time, I didn't fight back. After Sophia left, I sat in the dark and remembered Luca holding me in his arms when I was little. "No one can take you away from us," he'd told me. I closed my eyes and called to him inside my head. Luca, have you forgotten me all this time? At that exact moment, all eight of my brothers stopped what they were doing in the main house.

On my sweet sixteen, my three brothers came home with a girl named Sylvie. They said I have to treat her like my family. I didn’t think much would change. But years later, everything did. Jace, my youngest brother, shoved me down the stairs for her. Asher—the oldest, who once promised he'd protect me forever—told me to get out. So I left. Quietly. They thought I was just acting out. So they took Sylvie to France, didn't even bothering to check in What they didn’t know was that I’d signed my name on a contract—one that aligned me with our family’s biggest rival by becoming their youngest chemist. Written in black and white, I could never go home again. The night they found out I was really gone for good? They broke. Every last one of them.

Attending the ten-year high school reunion for the cheerleading squad and football team, I arrived in an old domestic Ford, while the parking lot was filled with Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Maybachs, and even a gold Bugatti. It was as if I were the only relic from another era. The moment I stepped out of my car, a former classmate, whose name I could no longer remember, looked at me with a sneer. “Well, if it isn’t the coach’s pet. How is it that after all these years, you’re still driving this beat-up old Ford?” “This thing looks like it belongs in a scrapyard from the last century!” During dinner, everyone gathered around the Bugatti owner, raising their glasses in celebration, while I was left ignored at the side. Only the cheerleading assistant sat next to me, raising a glass in my direction with a comforting smile. “Don’t let it get to you. Your car may be old, but I believe you’ll be driving a luxury car one day.” I let a small smirk curl at the corner of my lips and lowered my voice. “This car may look unimpressive, but it’s been fully upgraded with a carbon fiber body. It’s already worth over half a million dollars. Too bad, none of you even recognized its true value.”