Cerita Pendek After Death Mafia & Novel Regret

Three years ago, Isabella Moretti was the sole heir to the Moretti family, the most powerful of New York's five crime families. She was supposed to inherit the Moretti name and most of the business flowing through New York Harbor. A Mafia shootout changed everything. To save her husband, Matteo De Luca, she deliberately drew the enemy away from him. Matteo got out. But Isabella was shot in the shoulder and captured by the kidnappers. They wanted information about Moretti operations. For three years, they tortured her to get it. She was carrying Matteo's child at the time. She did not know she had already been written off. She kept believing the husband she loved would come for her. The truth was that for three whole years, nobody came. She escaped by faking her death and made it back to New York alive, only to find that she had lost everything. Her loving parents were dead, while the husband she adored was rushing to bury her with his lover and their children at his side!

"I crossed a line. I fell for Ilaria." On our wedding day, the car had barely pulled away when Matteo Rossi turned to look at me. He pointed at the seat beneath me and said coldly, "Last night, she sat right there, wrapped her legs around my waist and kissed me. I couldn't hold back. We had sex in the car. "I guess I'm no different from any other man. I finally understand Luca. Ilaria really does have more fire in her than you." Luca was my ex-husband and Matteo's half-brother. Ilaria had been my only friend since childhood. Three years ago, I walked in on the two of them in my bedroom. The shock caused a late-term miscarriage. When I fell into the dark, Matteo was my light. And now he had betrayed me the same way.

For as long as I could remember, I knew my mother, Isabella, hated me. She once threw me into the basement, leaving me to rot in the dark or crawl out on my own. But I was hard to kill. Even after nine days of starvation, I still clawed at the bottom of the door until all ten of my fingers were bloody. At seven, I taught myself how to fight back against her. When she locked me out, I shattered the champagne tower at a family dinner. If I couldn't be happy, no one could. When she had her guards pin me to the ground to teach me a lesson, I secretly locked her precious son, Leo, in the attic. I listened to him cry until his voice went hoarse. I stubbornly fought against her like this until I was twelve. Until they brought my newborn sister, Rosie, home. I stood by the crib, clumsily changing the soiled cashmere blanket for the tiny pink bundle. Isabella barged in and slammed me hard against the wall. Behind the disgust in her eyes was fear. "What are you trying to do to my daughter?" "I knew it! You're the spawn of that Barone bastard. You're up to no good!" "Why don't you just die and do this family a favor!" In that moment, I finally understood. Clutching the back of my bleeding head, for the first time, I didn't fight back. It was also the first time I actually agreed with her. My birth, from start to finish, was a dirty mistake. I really did deserve to die.

I was Sofia De Luca, the only biological daughter of Marco De Luca, the most powerful Don. Then my parents adopted Celeste De Luca as my younger sister, and everything changed. My birthday party could be cancelled because she threw a fit. My place at the elite academy went to her. Even the ruby brooch my grandmother left me was taken away because she said she liked it. On nothing but Celeste's word, my parents branded me a traitor to the De Luca family and personally handed me over to a rival family as a hostage. I endured every kind of torment there. They toured the world with their adopted daughter and lived in luxury. They forgot me completely. It was only when Celeste finally caused a disaster too big to bury that they remembered I existed. But once I was actually dead, the regret drove them out of their minds. If there really is another life, I have only one wish. I hope they learn how to be decent parents. But I do not want to be their daughter again.

On our fifth anniversary, my fiance, Antonio Miller, the head of a powerful mafia syndicate, takes me to see the northern lights. Before we set out, our guide warns everyone to bundle up against the cold. Antonio immediately wraps his childhood friend, Simona Weaver, in his own winter gear, terrified that she'll freeze. When a blizzard hits, he piles every piece of warm clothing he can find around her. He never notices me standing nearby until I lose consciousness from the cold. When I finally open my eyes, Antonio's furious face fills my vision. "Camilla, why didn't you tell me you weren't feeling well?" We've been together for five years, yet when I wake up after collapsing, his first reaction isn't concern. It's anger. After the trip, I cancel our engagement party and book a flight to Westmere. I've heard the mountains there are another perfect place to see the northern lights. When Antonio finds out, he sends me a single message. "Camilla, don't test our love like this. Simona's father died saving my life. I promised him I'd take care of her." But there's one thing Antonio doesn't know. I only have ten days left to live.

Vito and I had been giving each other the silent treatment for three days, and he never once reached out. With the Family’s enemies hunting me, I hid under a bridge and called him. “Vito, the Colombos are after me. Can you come save me?” Vito said coldly, “Antonia, are you playing the victim again? “I’m in the middle of a Family meeting. Don’t bother me!” The footsteps outside the bridge came closer. I said quietly, “I’m not lying.” He scoffed. “Fine. Wait for me, then.” I curled up under the bridge. The Colombos’ men shot me in the chest. Right up until my breathing stopped, Vito never came...

My sister was autistic. The doctors called it "severe sensory overload." The rule was simple: No sudden noises. Ever. So my whole life was set to mute. I never wore heels. I never raised my voice. I wasn't even allowed to laugh. It was all to keep her from having a meltdown. My father, Victor, the Don of the Castellano family, would grip my shoulder. His face was a mask of apology. "Sera, you're my good girl. Protecting your sister is our duty. You're healthy and strong. You can sacrifice a little for her, can't you?" That day, I was on the second-floor terrace and accidentally knocked over a pot of white roses. The sound of it shattering sent my sister, who was sunbathing in the garden below, into a meltdown. For the first time, Victor glared at me like I was the enemy. He roared, "Can't you just be quiet? Do you want to drive her insane?" My sister backed away in terror, right into a glass table, and let out a piercing scream. Victor charged past me, a blur of rage and panic. He slammed into me on the stairs as I was running down to help. I lost my footing and crashed chest-first into the sharp corner of a wrought-iron banister post. Pain exploded in my chest. I opened my mouth to scream, but only silence came out. My family swarmed around my shrieking sister. No one even glanced at me. My lungs filled with blood. I was drowning on the floor. They all thought my sister, the one with autism, needed the family's comfort. They thought I just took a fall. That I could wait. They were wrong.

When I heard that my father and my husband, Luca Santangelo, had been ambushed and killed in Sicily, I was preparing Thanksgiving dinner with the other women of the Valenti family. The bodyguard who brought the news was soaked in blood. "The Don's been killed, and Mr. Santangelo's been shot dead! Marco and Nico fought their way out with their men, but Moretti's people are still hunting them!" The words were barely out of his mouth when a shrieking alarm tore through the night. More than a dozen SUVs blocked every exit, and masked gunmen pounded on the gates. Outside, the men were jeering. "Before dawn, we drag every last one of them to the Moretti dungeon. Torture them first, then wait for the final negotiation!" Without a word, Nonna ordered the safe room locked from the inside. Then she handed out cyanide capsules, one by one. She said, "The men of this family died in a firefight. The women of this family will never be taken hostage, tortured, and used as bargaining chips." Before long, dozens of women around me had stopped breathing. I drew the pistol Luca had given me as a token of his love, aimed it at my chest, and pulled the trigger without hesitation. As blood spread across my dress, I heard our own men snickering over a walkie-talkie outside the door. "The Don and his sons spoil Miss Bianca too much. They put on this whole show for an adopted daughter." Another one snorted. "Scare Millie for one night, and she won't dare bring up divorce again. Mr. Santangelo can show up tomorrow morning with flowers, sweet-talk her, and that'll be that. It's not like she'd actually kill herself." I stared blankly at the ceiling. The ambush was fake. Their deaths in battle were fake. Even the so-called sworn enemies outside the door were fake. But the dozens of loved ones lying lifeless around me were real. The warm blood pouring from my chest was real. And the estate, which would never see dawn, was real too.

When Damian was eighteen, he could barely afford a decent dinner. Still, he spent half his first commission on the cheapest silver ring in the store for me. He slid it onto my finger, his expression stern. "Wear this for now. When I have a real name, I'll get you a better one." I laughed at how cheap it was, then hid my hand behind my back and refused to give it back. Later, he did get a name. He was the Moretti family's long-lost heir, the man destined to lead its vast empire. But I never got that better ring. Five years ago, on the night a gang war broke out, I dragged a badly wounded Damian out of the fire. I never made it out myself. When he woke, huge pieces of his memory of me were gone. Cecilia Russo sat beside his hospital bed and told him I had despised him for being poor, betrayed him, and even sold the location of our old safe house to the enemy. She also told him she was the one who had saved him. Five years later, my ghost appeared in the final family trial he had to face. By then, another wedding ring sat on his hand. Cecilia was his wife. When his memories returned, he lost his mind.

Every time I texted my husband, Dominic, the rising Mafia Don, all I got in return was a bank transfer. This time, my brain cancer had reached its final stage. The doctor asked if I wanted to go ahead with the surgery. Gasping for air, I clutched my phone. I hesitated before finally sending Dominic a text. [The doctor says surgery could buy me another year. Should I do it?] Right before they wheeled me into the operating room, my screen finally lit up. [Deposit Alert: $50,000] Just like every other time over the last three years. He answered me with money. I put my phone down. I had nothing left to say. On our wedding night, I asked to borrow three hundred thousand dollars. From then on, he was convinced I was a gold digger. His brothers said I only wanted his name and money. He believed them. I even took a bullet for him once during a shootout. He just had his accountant wire me money. I begged him to attend my father's funeral. All I got was another massive transfer. Six months ago, I was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. It was hereditary. Soon, I would be just like my dad. Covered in tubes. Rotting away in a hospital bed. I broke down and left him ninety-nine voicemails. I only got ninety-nine deposit notifications in return. Now they were about to crack my skull open just to keep me alive. Then my phone buzzed. A news alert popped up on a dark web gossip site. He was with Vivian, the Mafia princess. They had been up all night drinking and playing pool in her penthouse. I stared at his gentle profile in the photo. I smiled bitterly and pulled the IV needle from my vein. Dominic once asked me where we went wrong. His voice was full of disappointment. He asked what our marriage even meant. Well, Dominic. This time, I will give you the answer with my death. I will finally set you free.

Whenever my brother, Matteo Moretti, screwed up, I was the one who got hurt. Because he was the future Don of the Moretti family. My father, Vittorio Moretti, couldn't bring himself to punish the heir he'd so carefully groomed. So he used my pain to shape him. The first time my brother dipped into the family's money without permission, my father froze my accounts and dumped me alone on the roughest stretch of the Palermo docks. I couldn't pay the protection money, and I was nearly dragged into a warehouse and sexually assaulted. In the end, I only got out of there safely by handing over every piece of jewelry I was wearing. The first time my brother let a traitor go, my father had me locked in a basement with that same traitor. By the time my brother got there, the traitor had broken two of my ribs. But all my father could see was my brother. "Take a good look. Going soft will get your family killed." The year I turned 22, my brother was finally about to take over the family. My father said this would be his last lesson. He staged a fake kidnapping with me as the hostage to teach my brother how to negotiate and make hard choices. But the third time I called begging for help, he was still sitting at the Moretti estate with a drink in his hand. "What's the rush? She'll be fine." Even when gunshots came over the line, my father still had no idea. The people who took me weren't his men. Dad. This time, my brother's last lesson cost me my life. Are you happy now?

In the Valenti Family, you're born with a chip. It's fused into the bio-watch on your wrist, its digital face counting down every second you have left to live. Everyone could see the numbers ticking down on my twin sister's watch. And on mine. They all knew she would die on our 18th birthday. So Vivian became the untouchable princess of our brutal world. Every diamond-stitched gown was hers. The rarest jewels were hers. Even our father's last shred of humanity was hers. That single sliver of warmth he showed only after his gun was holstered. I used to pity her. Her time was running out. But God, I envied her. She had everything I never did: our parents' love. Then, the night of her 18th birthday party. My parents worried I'd make a scene. That I'd piss off the Don of an allied Family. So they locked me in the cellar. Damp. Cold. While a deadly fever burned through me. I pounded on the heavy oak door, my voice cracking. "Mamma, please! Let me out! I'm burning up. My head is splitting open…" Outside, my mother's voice was a steel trap. "Enough, Sienna! Today is your sister’s 18th birthday. Her last day alive! Stop the theatrics! Can't you suffer in silence for the Family's honor?" "But I'm really sick..." Her footsteps clicked away, fading into nothing. Then the darkness swallowed me whole. And on my wrist, the bio-watch was flashing a critical alert. CRITICAL ALERT: Vital signs mismatch. Paired chip data incompatible. Please verify user.

My adopted sister, Rita Lawson, and I get ambushed by a rival family at the same time. But she pushes me away at the most critical juncture, leading to me getting kidnapped. After my kidnappers feed me poison, they leave me to rot in the wild. When I finally get home, I find out that Rita pretends to be poisoned, so my dad has already given her the only antidote. With tears streaking down her cheeks, Rita tells my parents that she's chosen to ingest poison for me, and yet I abandoned her and fled on my own. Of course, everyone believes her. My parents tell me, "Rita got poisoned just to protect you. You must transfer your businesses to her." My husband, Enrico Fulci, says to me, "Someone needs to take care of Rita. Let's get a divorce, Elisa." Even my own daughter, Ivana Fulci, asks me, "Mamma, when are you going to be as gentle and understanding as Zia Rita?" Faced with everyone's accusations, I drink a serum that I've bought from the black market in order to suppress the poison in my system. It can allow me to live like a regular person. But in return, the poison within me will erupt three days later, causing my instant death. Using the three days I have left, I hand my businesses, my husband, and my daughter over to Rita. Everyone is pleased, thinking that I've finally learned my place. But what they don't know is that Death will come for me after 72 hours.

My mother and I were getting the estate ready for Thanksgiving dinner when word came that my father and my fiancé, Adrian Marchetti, had died in an explosion at the docks. In an instant, our family feast became our last meal. A bodyguard burst into the house, covered in blood. "The Don and Mr. Marchetti were ambushed by the Ferraro family at the docks. The arms warehouse blew up... there's nothing left of them. They took Matteo Valenti alive!" My blood ran cold. Adrian had told me the Ferraro boss was ruthless. The last time he'd gone after a family, he'd had the men slaughtered and their organs sold, and every woman shipped off to an underground bar and forced into prostitution! The bodyguard pressed a pistol into my hand. "Ms. Valenti, I risked my life to warn you. There are too many of them, and I can't stay. Change your name and leave L.A.!" Without a word, my mother sent Grandma, my sister-in-law Lana, my six-year-old niece Annie, and my aunt Clara down to the basement. Then she took the gun from my hand, pressed it to her temple, and pulled the trigger. Her warm blood splattered across my face. In a single night, my father, my mother, my brother, and the man I loved were all gone! The pain tore me apart. I ran my fingers over my mother's gun. The muzzle still smelled of gunpowder. A second later, the gun went off on its own. A bullet tore through my chest, and my blood soaked the rose brooch Adrian had given me. As tears streamed down my bloodstained face, I heard one of my father's men laughing on the other side of the door. "Wow. The Don and Mr. Marchetti will do anything for Ms. Celeste. She wanted a little holiday prank, and they went all out for her." Grief ripped through me, and I coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Dad always said a mafia don's daughter had to be strong, even in the middle of a gunfight. Our family had just been ambushed by a rival crime family. A stray bullet grazed my little sister's arm. Mom cradled her protectively while Dad frantically called for an ambulance. I was the one who'd stood at the front, covering their escape. Now I lay on the ground with three bullets in my body, and nobody even looked at me. "Dad, I... it hurts so much." "You've always been strong. They're just a few bullets, and nothing vital was hit. Stop making such a scene!" Mom glanced back at me, then quickly turned away. "If you can still cry and shout, you can't be hurt that badly. Your sister's already lost so much blood. Are you really going to put her life at risk just to compete for our attention?" Dad patted my head to comfort me. "Rest here for a bit. The ambulance can't take all of us. We'll get your sister to the hospital and come back for you." Then they climbed into the ambulance with my sister and left without another glance. If they'd only looked closely, they would have seen that one of the bullets had also hit the left side of my chest. When I was six, I fell during family training and broke my forearm. All Dad offered was a few words of encouragement. "It's only a small injury. You'll heal soon. Learn to be strong." Later, after they adopted my little sister, she scraped her knee and Mom summoned the family's finest medical team and didn't leave her side for days. I'd spent fifteen years learning to be strong on my own. I was used to it. I lay quietly on the ground, watching the ambulance disappear. Mom, Dad, this time I'm being strong too. But I don't think I'll still be here when you come back.

I’d been dead a month before my family even noticed. It wasn’t concern that brought them to that realization. It was my silence after the so-called “dinner” with Adam Rossi, the infamous mafia boss. My father scoffed like always,“She probably shacked up with that bastard. Too busy spreading her legs to pick up the damn phone.” My sister texted me a photo of them smiling under the Christmas tree, ornaments twinkling like nothing was wrong. Bitch, she wrote. You better talk Mr. Rossi into working with Dad, or you might as well be dead already. And my mother—once the softer one—was now colder than the frost on their windows. “I told you, we should’ve sent Gia to charm Mr. Rossi. Serena always screws things up.” They didn’t think I would die. Not until they found my body—broken, rotten, and forgotten—in Adam Rossi’s basement.

I had lost my memory for three years. I'd been through hell and high water with Adrian Vance for the past three years. He told me we'd grown up together on the same block, two kids who'd fallen for each other young. He told me that once he had a real foothold in the Family, he'd marry me in front of all of Palermo and make the whole city come to watch. I believed him. With a steady trigger hand and a mean streak, I cleared every man who stood in his way. I dragged him up from a nobody bastard son into the inner circle of the Family, one body at a time. Then the day finally came, and what he said was, "I've already asked the Don for his daughter Camilla. It's settled. I'm marrying her." "Camilla's a mafia princess. The Don's pride and joy. Not some no-name orphan girl with nothing and no one behind her. She's the one who can actually lift me up." "Be good, Vera. As long as Camilla never finds out, we can go on the way we always have." "Be good. You mean play your mistress in the dark, is that it?" What Adrian didn't know was that my memory had already come back. My real name was Hale, heir to the Hale family, the one enemy the Marlowe outfit he'd sworn himself to feared most. Childhood sweethearts, princesses, Don. In the end they were all just one more debt I'd settle on my way to paying the Family back in full.

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.

I was supposed to be the pampered youngest daughter of the Falcone crime family. My fiancé was Lorenzo, the heir to the Caruso dynasty. I had three brothers who were the most feared men on the streets. But everything changed the moment my long-lost older sister returned. "Isabella was kidnapped by our enemies when she was three. She went through hell until the family found her at eighteen. Why can’t you just cut her some slack?" "Elena, if Isabella hadn't gone missing, the Don would never have had you just to fill the void. You owe her your life. What right do you have to compete with her?" Time and again, I stepped back into the shadows for my sister. But on the night before my wedding, Isabella called Lorenzo. "Lorenzo... I’m at the Old Port docks. There’s a strange car here and three men just got out... I’m so scared..." Lorenzo didn't even wait to hear the rest. He slammed on the brakes and kicked me out of the car in the middle of a torrential downpour. I clung to the door of that black Maybach, begging him. "Lorenzo, it’s the night before our wedding. This is rival turf." "Just this once, for the sake of the family’s reputation, can’t you choose me?" Lorenzo grabbed my wrists and shoved me away. "If anything happens to Isabella, I swear I’ll send you to hell myself!" But those "three men" Isabella mentioned? They were actually our three brothers, who were only there to watch the ocean and set off fireworks with her. That night, my three brothers and my fiancé were at the seaside, showering her with affection. And I died in an abandoned slaughterhouse on the edge of the city. This time, I finally gave way to my sister completely. But tell me—when you saw my corpse, why were you all crying?

On Christmas Day, news arrived that Lucas and my father had been killed. “The Rossetti family ambushed them on the road. The Don was shot dead. Nothing was left of the others.” Before we could even begin to grieve, the sound of gunfire erupted outside. Mom immediately ordered the doors and windows locked, then shakily handed out deadly pills. “If we fall into their hands, all they’ll do is torture us. We might as well end it now…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence, but the others understood. One by one, they swallowed their pills. I took out the dagger Lucas had given me as a token of our love and plunged it into my chest without hesitation. The next moment, I heard someone say, “Don’t you think Hailey has taken her prank too far this time? I can’t believe the Don is actually playing along with her.” “Better a prank than a real tragedy. When they come back tomorrow, they’ll surely apologize.” I closed my eyes in despair. Their apologies would come too late.