Mafia Countdown Short Stories & Novels

My family hates me for causing my brother's death. From then on, I become a child no one loves. Meanwhile, my cousin, Evelyn Green, who looks like my brother, becomes the apple of my parents' eyes. From the age of ten to 18, my days are a cycle of beatings and forced apologies. On my 18th birthday, Evelyn wears a gorgeous gown and basks in everyone's adoration, while I'm shoved around in a maid's uniform and hit like I'm not even human. In my darkest moment, Morgan Oakley, the mafia boss, saves me. He takes me home, and step by step, wins his way into my heart. Because of him, I learn what love can feel like. He treats me like a treasure and promises me forever. However, on the day we're supposed to register our marriage, he keeps me waiting for a whole day and night. He never shows up. As I'm about to leave, my phone starts buzzing. A text from Morgan pops up. "Jasmine, I'm sorry. I ran into an enemy and couldn't make it to the city hall. A storm's coming, so make sure you get home quick!" My heart clenches in panic. I'm about to text back and ask if he's okay when Evelyn's message comes right after his. "Jasmine, I'm the one he loves. He skipped marrying you today because of me. You must be devastated, right?" Then, she sends a video. In it, Morgan holds her gently, his voice soft as he comforts her. "Evie, don't cry. You once saved my life, so I'll do anything for you. If you don't want me to marry Jasmine, then I won't. I love you. I only took her in so I could keep her close. That way, she'd be right there when you needed blood." My parents were off to the side. They chimed in tenderly, "Don't cry, Evie. Morgan loves you. He only pursued Jasmine because of your condition. You have a coagulation disorder and need transfusions of Rh-negative blood whenever you get hurt." I stagger back when I hear that, dropping my phone to the ground. So, Morgan's sudden passion is laced with poison. He only pretends to love me just so he can turn me into Evelyn's walking blood bank! Everyone goes to so much trouble to hide the truth from me just so Evelyn doesn't need to suffer from her condition! Rain mixes with my tears as they slide down my face. I stare at my phone on the pavement as bitterness floods me. A thought forms—I want to leave them forever. I want to disappear so they'll never find me again.

Halfway through my son Tullio Corleone's birthday party, just as we're about to take our annual family photo, he pulls his hand from mine in front of everyone and throws himself into the arms of my husband's assistant, Marta Bellandi. "Mom, Marta looks so much better in pictures than you do. I want to hang this photo in the main hall where all our guests can see it. Can Marta take it with me instead? Please?" I don't get angry or upset. Instead, I smile and take the camera from the butler. "Then I'll take the picture. Go on, get into position." My husband, Niccolo Corleone, gives me a long, searching look. It's not until the party ends that he finally comments on my behavior. "You've been awfully quiet today. But that's a good thing. At least you're not driving everyone crazy with your constant suspicions." When I simply nod, Niccolo looks visibly pleased. He even volunteers his plans for the evening. "Marta and I still have some work to take care of at the office. Get some rest. Don't wait up for me." I smile and agree once again. But the moment he leaves, I head straight to the dressing room and start packing my bags. What Niccolo doesn't know is that I signed the divorce papers his mother prepared earlier this morning. From now on, I'll never wait for him to come home again.

On my wedding day, I slept for six hours inside my own dressing room. By the time I reached the DeLuca family chapel in the Hudson Valley, Matteo had already completed the entire ceremony with his childhood friend, Sofia Rinaldi, the daughter of one of the DeLucas’ oldest allied families. She wore the gown I had spent six months designing and the pearl tiara passed down through generations of DeLuca women. Allies from New York, Chicago, and Sicily had witnessed everything. No one had saved a place for the real bride. Matteo looked at my pale face and explained calmly. “Sofia put the sedative in your tea. She only wanted one wedding. The dose was small, so there is no reason to make this into something bigger.” Everyone waited for me to cause a scene. I only let out a quiet sigh and looked at Matteo with disappointment. My family had given me one final chance to marry for love. Now that the wedding had failed, I had to return to Sicily, obey their decision, and inherit the family.

When my husband's childhood friend came back to New York, he made her his personal assistant. After that, every promise he made to me came with an unspoken condition: unless Bianca needed him first. When I finally asked why being his wife always meant coming second, Luca Moretti gave me the same answer. “Her father took a bullet for mine, Elena. You know what that debt means to my family.” He was the Don. Apparently, loyalty was sacred—unless it was owed to the woman he had married. So I started learning how to get by without him. It wasn't until that night that the pain in my abdomen became so severe I collapsed beside the coffee table. I used the last of my strength to call for an ambulance. At the hospital, a doctor told me I was six weeks pregnant. My progesterone was very low, and the bleeding wasn't stopping. For a few seconds, I could only stare at her. Then I instinctively reached for my phone and called Luca. “Luca, the doctor just told me I'm pregnant, but…” “Elena, if this is another way of getting me away from Bianca, stop. She needs me right now.” The line went dead before I could finish a single sentence. The bleeding grew worse. The doctor said they couldn't safely wait any longer and recommended surgery. When I woke up, she told me I had lost the pregnancy. A little later, Bianca posted an Instagram story. First wisdom tooth out. One little text and he came running. He hasn't left my side. In the photograph, Luca was bending over her chair, holding an ice pack against her cheek. I looked at the picture until the screen went dark. Thirty minutes later, my phone lit up again. Luca asked me if I had learned to be as forgiving as a Donna should be. Instead, I unpinned his conversation and opened the number of a divorce attorney. I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life waiting for a man to decide I mattered. The countdown had begun.

"Are you sure about this, Nancy? Marrying that powerful man means ending things with Tad." "I'm sure. But not yet. Don't tell anyone. Especially not Celia." Celia — the girl I once begged my father to adopt, the one I defended and called sister — betrayed me. The two men who used to treat me like their world — my boyfriend Tad and our family friend Leo — now orbit around her like moths to a flame. I thought I saved her, but she only wanted to replace me. When Celia fell, they blamed me. When she got shot, they blamed me again. When I was in a car crash, they said it was an excuse to avoid "taking care of Celia." But I am Don DeLuca's daughter. And no one treats me this way and walks away unscathed. My boyfriend? He can go to hell. My so-called friends? They can rot with him.

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.

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.

In the seventh year of our relationship, Luca Valdieri received his twelfth late-night call from Sofia Bellini, his personal assistant. She had ended another relationship and claimed she could not breathe or remain alone. Luca immediately reached for his coat. In the past, I would have blocked the door and demanded that he choose between us. That night, I endured the pain twisting through my stomach and placed his car keys in his hand. “Go. She needs you.” Luca believed I had finally grown generous enough to stop minding the attention he gave his subordinate. He did not know I had recorded every time he abandoned me for Sofia. The first time, he missed my birthday. The fifth, he gave her my seat at a family dinner. The eleventh, he added her name to negotiations I had spent months completing. Tonight was the twelfth and final time. I had already surrendered my access to the Valdieri organization and accepted a position with an international risk management firm in London. My visa, flight, and legal documents were ready. The next afternoon, I would leave the city. By the time Luca realized I was gone, he would have no way to bring me back.

The year I turned 20, Vincenzo Romano, the Don of the Romano family, suddenly confessed his feelings for me beneath the August meteor shower. He said he'd secretly loved me for years. I looked at his jaw, clenched so tight it looked unnatural, and said yes. For five years, he spoiled me rotten. Whenever he came home from a trip abroad, he brought me a bouquet of pink myrtle. Whenever we made love, he kissed the tip of my ear and called me his "little princess." Then one day, I overheard his right-hand man, Dario Bassi, talking to him. "Are you really going to keep up the act with Enora? Didn't you only get with her back then to make Lyla jealous? "Lyla's divorced and back now. You can drop the act, can't you?" That night, I opened the locked drawer in his study. He'd once told me it held little reminders of our love. Instead, I found his keepsakes from Lyla Ferraro: a watch, emerald cufflinks, a sandalwood rosary... Each piece was engraved with their initials. There was also a stack of love poems in Latin, written in his own hand. They were passionate and lyrical, nothing like the calm face he showed the world. Every one of them was addressed to Lyla. Five years. Five years of lies, shattered in seconds. I quietly booked a train ticket to Geneva. In two days, I'd be out of Vincenzo's life forever.

My husband, Vincent Moretti, had a nightmare. In the dream, he'd had a one-night stand at a hotel with a young woman who had a tragic past and no family. When I found out he'd cheated, I tricked him into signing divorce papers and faked my death to escape. Then I vanished from his life for good. After that dream, the Don whose word had once been law in New York became a different man. Every time he went out, he sent me three location updates. Even a warehouse inspection meant getting on a video call with me to prove there were no women around. I laughed and told him he was overreacting. Then, at our third-anniversary dinner, I went into shock after eating the dessert a server had brought me. When I opened my eyes, Lia Romano, the nun Vincent had once rescued, was standing beside my hospital bed. "I'm sorry, Eve. I didn't mean to..." Everyone there thought she was finished. A maid had once left a jar of hazelnut spread on the dining table. The next day, he'd had her thrown into the sea to feed the sharks. This time, he only frowned. "Eve, she didn't mean any harm." "I almost died from that allergy! Vincent! Get her out of my sight!" He was quiet for a long time. Finally, he nodded. That night, I got a text from an unknown number. "Tonight. The Queen's Hotel." "Sweetheart, will you join me for the fireworks? Let me make it up to you." My friends teased me, saying he spoiled me like a princess. I forgot all about that ridiculous dream. Until I opened the hotel room door and saw something I couldn't believe. Lia, who was supposed to have been driven out of New York, was kissing my husband. And he was kissing her back.

After I was kidnapped by my Family’s enemies, I was left with severe PTSD. I couldn’t stand the noise of intense sound. On our wedding day, my husband, the Mafia Don Andre, swore before God that he would create a world of silence for me. For five years, he never wore any device that made a sound. He even ordered that no gunshots were to be heard anywhere in Sicily, losing several major deals because of it. Until my best friend Alice returned to Sicily and openly played rock music inside the estate. The terror of being kidnapped came rushing back. I crawled onto the floor, begging and apologizing over and over. Tears mixed with the blood running down my face as I kept hitting my head against the ground. Half an hour later, the music stopped. Alice held up her phone, laughing so hard she could barely stand. “Oh my God. She actually thought she was being kidnapped again.” Andre recorded my humiliation with a phone in his hand while laughing and comforting me. “Alice said this is exposure therapy. After a few more times, you won’t be afraid anymore.” My brother stared at me through the screen and scolded me from the other side. “Monica, look at yourself. How can you possibly be worthy of being a Donna?” My entire body was drenched in sweat. My hair was covered in blood, and I couldn’t even stand. I stared at the note in Andre’s hand, and realized. Last month, he was the one who replaced my noise-canceling headphones with headphones that played nothing but loud noises. Last week, he was the one who took me to that noisy bar. The silence he once built for me was now being destroyed by his own hands. Slowly, I pushed myself up from the floor. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I simply looked at him.I no longer wanted to remain in his world.

My fiancé had spent the past two weeks planning an extravagant birthday party for me. But when I finally arrived at the ballroom, I discovered that everything had been decorated to suit my younger sister’s taste. Even the three-tier birthday cake was made with mangoes, which I was allergic to. When the servers wheeled out the cake, I had barely closed my eyes to make a wish when my sister took it upon herself to blow out the candles. “Claire, you’re always so unlucky. Let me make a wish for you instead. I guarantee it’ll come true!” Julian smiled indulgently as he helped her remove the candles. “Mia’s just a kid at heart. Why hold it against her?” When it was time to cut the cake, my sister once again stepped in ahead of me, taking Julian’s hand and guiding it to make the first cut. Our friends started teasing them. “You two are the real stars of this birthday party, aren’t you?” Mia ducked shyly behind Julian, who immediately came to her defense with a laugh. “Eat your cake and leave her alone. Mia’s shy. Stop teasing her.” Everyone crowded around Julian and Mia, while I was reduced to little more than a background prop. I turned to leave, but just before I reached the door, I heard my sister call out in alarm. “Where’s Claire going? Is she upset?” Julian paused for a moment before answering casually, “It’s nothing. She’s always been the jealous type.” With that, the last shred of hope I had left finally died. I accepted an offer from VELMONT, one of Milan’s leading fashion houses, and booked a flight to Milan for three days later. My engagement party with Julian was supposed to take place that day, but I had no intention of showing up.

My husband was the Don of the DeLuca Family. As his Donna, I had spent years tolerating his indulgence of his stepsister. That was, until My five-year-old son and my husband's beloved stepsister were strapped to ticking time bombs. My terrified little boy screamed for me. As the DeLuca Family's lead bomb disposal expert, I knew I could save him. But my husband Matteo, the Don who ruled a mafia empire, pressed a cold gun barrel between my eyes. "Disarm Lilia's bomb first, or I'll shoot our son myself." He gave the order without a flicker of emotion, all to protect the stepsister who had perfected the helpless-innocent act. I could only watch as Noah vanished in a ball of fire. But Matteo forgot something. I wasn't merely his wife. I was the intelligence and explosives expert who kept his entire weapons empire alive. When I ripped his precious Family out by the roots and returned on the arm of his greatest enemy, the untouchable Don finally broke. He dropped to his knees and begged me to come back.

After I was caught in a dockside explosion, I was bound to a Survival Program. It gave me twenty-five years and four designated targets. If even one target’s Love Score or bond score reached 100%, I could wake up in my real world. But I failed all four. Because every target I tried to reach eventually turned toward Sophia Lane, the heroine of this world. They called my pain a performance. They called my tears manipulation. They said I was only pretending to break down so they would choose me over Sophia. But if they never loved me, why did they lose control when my mission failed and I chose to leave this world for good?

I shared a joint covenant account with Antonio De Luca. We had agreed that we would get married once the account reached ten million euros. When it reached 9.99 million euros, I scheduled a wedding rehearsal at the church. But it wasn’t until dusk that Antonio finally sent me a message: “The new adviser was ambushed and lost too much blood. The surgery requires absolute security. I have to stay with her.” At that very moment, fifty thousand euros were withdrawn from the covenant account. I scrolled back through the transaction history. Before that, there had been opera tickets, custom leather goods, and a bracelet—the same one I had seen the new adviser wearing on her wrist—all paid for in smaller installments. I clenched the pregnancy test report in my pocket and suddenly let out a bitter laugh. Since he had been secretly favoring someone else, there was no need for him to know about the child growing inside me.

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."

My boyfriend, Don Alessandro Moretti, wanted a Donna who never got jealous. Whenever I disobeyed, he used silence to teach me my place. When he started taking his childhood sweetheart, Lucia,everywhere on his arm, I confronted him. He froze me out for a week. At one family dinner, Alessandro seated Lucia at his right hand, the place meant for his future wife. When I objected, he shut me out for two weeks. “Lucia and I are only friends. I love you, Eva.”He told me afterward. “But a Donna must be above petty jealousy.” Every time, I remembered the man I had fallen in love with and apologized first. But this time, two muggers cornered me in a parking lot. Still punishing me, Alessandro declined my call. During the twenty minutes I spent alone at the police station, I finally understood something. There was no future in twisting myself into the woman someone else wanted. I opened the offer from a leading research institute in Zurich wanted me to direct its five-year neuroprosthetics program and signed it. Alessandro thought my silence meant his lesson had finally worked. He didn’t know I had stopped trying to become the woman he wanted. I was leaving in seven days, and choosing my own life.

For seven years, everyone believed I was nothing more than the mistress of Raffaele Moretti, the Mafia Don. Domenica, on the other hand, was known as the woman he truly loved. Years ago, Raffaele’s older brother took a bullet for him. Before he died, he asked Raffaele to take care of Domenica. To help Domenica secure her place within the Family, Raffaele protected her at every turn, even publicly claiming that she was the woman he loved. Raffaele once promised me that after seven years, once he had repaid the debt he owed his brother, he would marry me as promised. But today, I overheard a conversation between him and his underboss. “Are you really going to make Domenica your Donna and ask Livia to remain your mistress for another two years?” Raffaele was silent for a moment. “It’s only a marriage on paper. Nothing will happen between Domenica and me.” “Livia loves me. Even if she finds out, she’ll keep waiting for me.” I had waited all these years because I believed he loved me just as much. But now, clutching the pregnancy report in my hand, I finally gave up on him. If I kept waiting, all I would be giving my child was a father who would always choose someone else first. I accepted an offer from a historic-preservation firm in Paris. In a few days, I would leave with my baby.

I was with Marco, the New York Mafia heir, for seven years. He never told his family about me. But when I walked in on a wedding rehearsal and saw the groom embracing the bride-to-be. It was Marco! "Her fiancé's held up in Italy. I'm just a stand-in," he told me, but his eyes never left her. "You're the best wedding planner in New York. This wedding has to be flawless." But I saw something in his eyes I'd never seen before. A possessiveness that bordered on resentment. Isabella, the bride, hated every idea I had for her. In the end, Marco told me to give her the wedding I'd spent five years designing for myself. "Our wedding can wait. I'll give you something bigger, I promise. It's just a plan, Sophia. It's what you do. Giving it to a client should be easy, right?" He didn't know. It wasn't just a plan. It was my dying wish. In the end, I gave him what he wanted, quietly preparing to die. Later, he went mad, kidnapping the world’s best doctors—risking a global manhunt—all to save me.

On the day of our graduation trip, my boyfriend Roman, a mafia heir, and his childhood friend Clara left me stranded on the side of a deserted highway. Their off-road vehicle had been driving for over half an hour before they even noticed the back seat was empty. When Roman called, there was no panic in his voice, only a hint of irritation. "Blair, why didn't you get back in the car?" "Stop messing around. We're rushing to the canyon to catch the sunset. We don't have time to go back and get you." "Figure out a way to hitch a ride here yourself." Through the receiver, Clara's amused voice came through loud and clear. "She's not a three-year-old girl. She can't expect you to wait on her hand and foot." In the past, I would have assumed it was my fault, apologizing to him with teary eyes. Then I would have tried everything in the blowing sand, even running, just to catch up with his car. But this time, looking up at the blinding sun in the desert, I suddenly didn't want to chase after him anymore. I took out my phone and canceled all the luxury suite reservations along the canyon route. I bought a bus ticket to a small coastal town. It was the place they said was totally boring. The coastline stretched on forever, and the world was wide open. I was no longer following anyone.