Tragic Love Short Stories & Mafia Countdown Novels

Five years ago, my older twin sister, Victoria Hayes, disappeared in an accident shortly after giving birth to Lily. The Moretti family's men searched the wreckage. They found her belongings, but no body. Adrian Moretti, head of the Moretti crime family, needed another Hayes bride to preserve our families' alliance. He arrived at my parents' house with his crying, premature daughter in his arms and asked to marry me in Victoria's place. I married Adrian in my sister's place and entered the guarded Moretti estate as his lawful wife. Adrian placed the Moretti family ring on my finger, and every night, I fell asleep in his arms. When Lily fell ill, we stayed beside her until dawn. After my final architecture licensing exam, he was waiting outside with Lily in his arms and pulled me close for a kiss. In our fourth year together, Lily wrote three words on the back of a family photograph: Daddy loves Mommy. I framed it and hung it in the living room. Adrian never corrected her. Yesterday, Victoria came back. She swept past the guards in a red dress, stopped in front of Lily, and laughed. “I couldn't stand being stuck here with a baby, so I faked my death. Look how big she is now!” Adrian watched her, his expression unreadable. That night, he held me close. “You don't have to worry, Evelyn. You're the only woman I love.” Today, he dug out Lily's old videos and played them for Victoria, explaining each one. I thought he was catching her up on the years she'd missed. Then I came home from the architecture firm with Lily and saw our family photograph. Someone had added a small beauty mark beneath my eye. Victoria's beauty mark. They had kept the family I helped build and replaced me in it. I opened my calendar and marked a date three days away. Enough time to put my affairs in order. Then I would leave.

To the world, I’m the wife of Kael Voss. In truth, I’m the daughter of the Grim Reaper. I once defied death to save Kael Voss, the Mafia godfather. After ninety-nine proposals, his persistence melted my heart. I hid my divine heritage, abandoned the Underworld, and became his beloved Donna. After the marriage, he firmly kept his vows, turning our marriage into a fairytale. With our fifth wedding anniversary approaching, I wanted to get him a gift. Instead, I overheard a conversation between him and the maid, Luna. "Honey, your birthday is coming up soon. What gift do you want?" "I want you," Kael replied, his voice dripping with affection. "I want you by my side forever. I need to make sure Iris never finds out about us... and I want you to give me an heir." "Are you sure?" "Positive." Kael’s tone was unwavering. The grin slid off my face the moment I heard the answer and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The blood drained from my face. The hope I had cherished shattered into dust. The love he had sworn to me had rotted away in just five years, leaving nothing but a hollow shell. If he no longer wanted my heart, I would take it back. The full moon rose in two days. It is time for my return to the Underworld.

I was eighteen when I left Italy for Chicago. My brother Leo handed me over to his most powerful ally for “protection.” Don Damien Volkov. His eyes locked on me the first time we met. They never looked away. By day, I was his private doctor. By night, I was the only thing in his bed. His seduction was a slow, deliberate hunt. The way his body brushed against mine during an exam. A stray kiss that landed behind my ear. The weight of his hand resting on the small of my back. I fell fast and hard for his dark charm. I gave myself to him, letting him claim me, again and again. For four years, our affair was a secret hidden in the shadows. In that time, he sculpted my body, teaching it to crave his touch, molding me into his perfect obsession. Then she came back. Isabella, his exiled ex-fiancée. He sent his private jet for her. I swallowed my pride and crashed his reunion. An hour ago, his hands, still smelling of blood, gripped my chin. He forced his kiss on me. But now, right in front of me, he was stroking another woman's hair. "Elara, you're the one who climbed into my bed four years ago." "You act like a whore, but you expect me to treat you like a Donna?" The way he looked at Isabella was so tender. The way he looked at me was pure scorn. Shame burned through me. Head down, I sent my brother a coded text. Accept the Moretti proposal. I looked up. A smile bloomed on my face. "Fine. Then this is goodbye, Damien."

I hid behind the study curtains, heart racing with a fragile, trembling joy. In my hands: an ultrasound photo—two heartbeats—and a no-limit black card. Alessandro had given it to me last night, his lips on my neck, calling me his Donna, his queen. Tonight, I was going to tell him about the twins. "The Petrov family needs to see my good faith," his voice drifted in, smooth as velvet. "Vittoria arrives Thursday. I’ll announce the engagement then." My blood froze. "What about Elena?" someone asked. "She’s been with you three years. She manages the books, dug that slug out of your side herself. Is this fair to her?" "Elena?" He leaned back in the leather chair, cigar smoke curling around his jaw. "She’s like a trained hound, Salvatore. After the Rossi family got wiped out, I pulled her from the gutter, gave her a gun and a bed. Have you ever seen a hound leave its master? I could kick her, and she would lick my boot and ask for another." My nails sank into my palms, crumpling the ultrasound. "Aren’t you afraid she’ll leave?" Marco, his Capo, asked. Alessandro paused. Then he said: "She would die for me without question. How could she ever leave?" Those words struck my chest like two 9mm rounds. I didn't wait. I ran through the cemetery, past the tombs of dead Dons, and hurled that card into the Hudson. I vanished into the night with his heirs in my womb and three years of lies in my throat. "I'm sorry, my babies," I whispered to my belly. "Mommy was a fool." But I wouldn't be a fool anymore.

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.

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.

When Luca Moretti chose the jewelry for our wedding, he still bought two pieces and let my twin sister Bianca choose first. One was a ruby cuff from a Sicilian auction. The other was an off-the-rack black onyx bracelet, the kind sold in every mall jewelry store. For the first time, I reached before Bianca could. I pointed at the ruby cuff. "This time, can I choose first?" Luca set his palm on my head with the easy affection he used to make me behave. "Bianca has always been stubborn about quality. If it's not the best, she won't take it. You don't care about this stuff, Elena. The other piece isn't bad." I didn't answer right away. Something inside my chest went quiet. In my own family, Bianca always got the first slice, the clean seat, and the room with the view. My mother said she needed the best because she carried the Bellini name better. My father called it practical. Marriage worked that way too. The Bellinis and Morettis had promised one daughter to the Moretti heir long before either of us knew what love was. Everyone assumed that daughter would be Bianca. Instead, she made her position crystal clear: she'd rather keep her freedom and her spotless public image than become Mrs. Moretti. So Luca turned to the remaining Bellini daughter. I had known Luca for twenty years, and in his world, I always stood behind Bianca. I looked at the black onyx bracelet on the table and pushed it back. "Bianca can have both. I'm not choosing." I didn't want another leftover choice. Not anymore.

On what should have been our wedding day—for the eighth time—Luca Romano was called away yet again by his childhood sweetheart, Vivian Marino. I didn't argue or make a scene. I even smiled and wished them well. Everyone stared at me in shock as I calmly announced that the wedding was canceled. No one knew I had been reborn. In my previous life, I instinctively grabbed Luca and tried to stop him. After hesitating for a moment, he stayed and went through with the wedding. But Vivian was heartbroken. In a fit of despair, she agreed to a marriage alliance in Moscow, only to die in a car accident on the way there. From that day on, Luca hated me. I was still his Donna, seemingly blessed with the status, power, and man everyone envied. But in reality, he ignored my feelings and shut me out for twenty years. Until a rival Family laid an elaborate ambush for us. The moment the bomb went off, Luca pulled me tightly into his arms and shielded me with his body. Warm blood smeared across my cheek. He gave a faint laugh as he wiped away my tears. “Diana, I've repaid everything I owed you in this life.” “If there's another life, let Vivian and me be together.” I eventually died, consumed by grief. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day Vivian agreed to the marriage alliance out of spite. This time, I would give him what he wanted. So why did he lose his mind with regret after I left?

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.

Just how rich can a person be? My husband, Don Leonardo Bianchi, is incredibly wealthy. Every time he abandons me for his childhood sweetheart, Sofia Rossi, he gives me a building. The first time, it was a luxury apartment building with a sea view. The tenth time, it was a commercial property in the prime downtown area. By the 50th time, the general managers of several real estate companies had started calling me "Boss". Five years into our marriage, my real estate spreads across the entire country. When the deed to the 97th building is delivered to me, Sofia sends me a taunting voice message. "You might have the property deeds, but I have Leonardo. Aurora Esposito, tell me, which one of us is the real winner?" After listening to it, I don't cry or make a scene. Instead, this time I take the initiative to draft an agreement and wait for Leonardo to sign it. Once Leonardo comes back, he signs it and praises me for being magnanimous. He then takes me to a party as his date. At the party, Sofia loses game after game and is stripped down to only her underwear. When she loses once more, she turns to me—who is wearing only a dress—with a meaningful smile and says, "What's the fun in just me taking things off? I think Aurora, the perfect Donna, should join in too." Amid the clamor of cheering, I quietly look at Leonardo. "You just have to take off one piece of clothing. Don't spoil everyone's fun. When we get back, I'll give you another building," he whispered to me coaxingly. I calmly acquiesce. Little does he know that he won't have another chance to give me anything, because what he blindly signed earlier is our divorce papers.

During a family trip to a private island, we agreed to leave at four thirty to watch the sunrise. I waited alone for half an hour before discovering that my parents, my brother, and my fiancé, Leon, had already left with my adopted sister, Selena. At the cliffs, they posed for a family photograph. Mom adjusted Selena’s wrap. Dad pinned my family insignia to her coat. Leon stood behind her with his hands on her waist. No one noticed me. Leon posted the picture: [The people I’ll protect for the rest of my life.] His fiancée wasn’t in it. For years, I waited for my family to choose me and for Leon to remember the woman he planned to marry. That morning, I stopped waiting. I took the first ferry to New York, canceled the wedding, and left them on that cliff behind me.

“System, I want out.” The dressing-room door stood slightly open. Through the gap, I could see my husband holding the foundation’s young assistant against a wardrobe. Her coat lay on the rug we’d chosen together. “Matteo, stop.” She caught his hand, lowering her voice. “The doctor confirmed it. I’m pregnant.” His smile vanished. “You told me birth control wouldn’t be a problem.” “I thought that one time would be okay. I’ll take care of it. Please don’t be angry. Elena won’t find out.” He stepped back and buttoned his shirt, his tone as cold as if she’d botched a business deal. “You think this makes you the next Mrs. Moretti? Violet, you know who that title belongs to.” She fell silent. The System spoke in my ear. [Assessment complete. He still loves you and has no intention of replacing you as his wife.] [Leaving will cause your body in this world to die. It cannot be restored. Do you still wish to proceed?] I watched Matteo reach for her again. “Yes.” [Request accepted. Departure scheduled in twenty-four hours.]

After I rejected my ex-boyfriend’s proposal, he left New York in a rage and went to Sicily. Seven years later, Santino Moretti returned as the most feared Don of the Moretti family, with a new woman at his side and plans to marry her in the very church we had once chosen for our own wedding. That same day, my doctor told me my cancer was completely out of control. I had less than a month left. When Santino came to my mother’s house with his fiancée, he saw me sitting in a wheelchair. Something in his eyes changed for a split second before he looked away. “Seven years, Elena. What happened? Did you forget how to walk?” I tugged my sleeve lower, hiding the needle marks covering the back of my hand. “I fell. That’s all.” He believed me. Then Sofia smiled and asked if I would help them prepare for the wedding, including the church we had once chosen together. Everyone expected me to refuse. Instead, I agreed. Santino thought I had finally moved on enough to watch him marry another woman. He didn’t know I had already signed my discharge papers after my doctors told me there was nothing more they could do. I had come home because I wanted to see him one last time. I probably would not live long enough to see him stand at the altar.

My fiance, Victor Blackwood, is a mafia boss who rules the country's underworld with an iron fist. To the rest of the world, he is the epitome of power. Yet to me, he is the embodiment of love. But I do not realize the cost of loving a man like him. On Valentine's Day, I cook his favorite dishes and wait for him to come home. However, time passes, and his chair stays empty. Uneasy, I go to Queenie Stone's social media page. She is Victor's foster sister. She posts, "All I said was that I felt lonely, and he came right away. "Even when I accidentally spilled wine on him, he didn't mind. Victor is still someone who puts family first, even if it means neglecting his lover. "He never lets me down. I hope things stay that way." In the photo, Victor's shirt is soaked at the waist. Queenie's handkerchief lingers near his most private parts, but he doesn't pull away. He merely looks at her affectionately. I do not make a fuss and give Queenie's post a like. Then, I send Victor a message that reads, "Let's break up." Victor ignores it as always. Later, I discover that when my breakup message popped up, he had said offhandedly, "Vivienne can't live without me. She's just acting out. "If I ignore her for a few days, she'll come crawling back by herself. She's easy to please." What he doesn't know is that I was easy to handle only because I once loved him. But now that I have decided to leave, he cannot make me turn back, no matter how he tries to win me over.

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.”

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 have been able to smell people's emotions since I was a child. Love is sweet, and sadness is bitter. After being with Dante for ten years, the scent on him had always been sweet. Until last month, when my sister Sofia agreed to the arranged marriage with the Colombo family. In that very moment, the scent on him abruptly turned bitter. That night, I heard their suppressed voices: "Sofia, you clearly love me too, so why are you marrying that useless man?" My sister cried back at him: "You are Gia's fiancé, and she is my sister. We cannot continue this mistake." Only then did I realize the truth. My fiancé had been in love with my sister all along. I canceled the engagement party and booked a flight to Sicily in three days. But why was it that only after I left did they both go mad with regret?

After the car lost control on the highway, the passengers around me were all panicking, calling their loved ones to say what they thought might be their final goodbyes. The airbags had gone off. Glass covered the seats. My hands were shaking as I pulled my burning-hot phone from my pocket. Only after a long while did I finally call Vito Moretti. When he rejected my call, I sent him a text instead. 【I probably won’t make it out of this one. Vito, what a shame that we won’t get to grow old together.】 As I stared at the chaos outside the car window, I was strangely calm. The driver managed to avert disaster, and after I escaped the accident unharmed, I saw that Vito had posted my text on his social media. A group of his Mafia brothers flooded the comments, calling me dramatic and accusing me of seeking attention. I calmly liked his post and uploaded one of my own. “After narrowly escaping death, maybe my luck is finally about to change.” His brothers immediately swarmed the comments under my post, mocking me one after another. “Oh, weren’t you almost dead? Looks like you’ve got quite the life in you.” “Serafina, did you know Vito was with Mia tonight and deliberately choose this moment to cause a scene? Who exactly are you trying to disgust?” “Why couldn’t you be the one having the anxiety attack?! A woman who stays by the Don’s side and still gets jealous of a young girl. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

When I got together with the Don of the Moretti family, everyone bet we wouldn’t last a month. To outsiders, I was a lawyer who was calm, quiet, and exacting, nothing like the docile women who usually surrounded Nico. Yet he would pull me into his arms and say, “You’re the only one I want.” For five years, he spoiled me rotten. Even when he flew to Europe to negotiate multibillion-dollar deals, he would take a red-eye flight back just to place the black-diamond-encrusted fountain pen he had just won at auction into my hands himself. Then a young woman appeared at his side, an orphan who was the younger sister of one of his late brothers-in-arms. At first, he said he was only helping her out. Now, he would personally step in to deal with the mess whenever loan sharks came after her, even postponing his plans to attend the family gala for her sake. Everyone was waiting to see me make a fool of myself, eager to find out how I, the proud woman who had been regarded as the future Donna for five years, would handle the situation. But they had forgotten one thing: I had always been meticulous about everything I did, right down to calculating the exact day I would leave. Six days later, I would walk away with my suitcase, determined to leave for good. That night, Nico would tear the world apart looking for 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.