Multiple Identities Familial Bond Short Stories & Novels

I was the last person you'd expect to find on Manhattan's Upper East Side. My parents, Grant and Helena Sinclair, were fashion royalty, and size zero was their religion. But I'd been overweight since childhood, and there was nothing they could do about it. By the time I was five, I weighed far more than other children my age and ate like a bottomless pit. My parents called me "Meatball" in disgust and shipped me off to live with my grandmother, Margaret Sinclair, on a farm deep in rural Texas. It wasn't until I won a full scholarship to Columbia that I finally earned the right to return to their New York penthouse. My father, a fashion mogul, took one look at me and frowned with disgust. "An XXXL hoodie, oversized sunglasses, and a black face mask. "You look like a walking trash bag. Are you too ashamed to show your face?" My mother, editor-in-chief of a Vogue-caliber fashion magazine, scoffed. "She probably saw Isabella with us at Paris Fashion Week and knew she'd look terrible standing next to her. "As if being fat weren't bad enough, she's got an awful personality, too." My sister, Isabella Sinclair, hurried over with feigned warmth and took my hand. "Your weight doesn't define you. There's no need to feel inferior to me." I was about to take off my mask, but my hand froze.

At the university Ball, Ada ripped my necklace from my throat in front of everyone. Emeralds skittered across the floor. She planted her hand on her hip and jabbed a finger in my face. "Elena, you thief! How dare you steal my necklace? My brothers had it custom-made for me. You had no right to touch their gift!" The ballroom went silent. Her favorite lackey, Louise Parker, swept toward me with her chin high. "Ada is the Costa brothers' little sister. You're dead this time!" A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. "The Costa family? The one that controls the weapons pipeline along the entire Eastern Seaboard?" "Everyone knows the three Costa brothers guard their sister like their lives depend on it. The last guy who tried to get close to her supposedly had his arms and legs cut off before they threw him into an underground fighting pit full of starving wolves." "She's really their sister? Elena is in serious trouble this time!" I stared at the emeralds scattered across the floor, and a disbelieving laugh escaped me. The Costa brothers did have a cherished younger sister. That was me, Elena Costa.

For seven years of my marriage to Damian Moretti, my daughter and I were so poor that every night we collected empty bottles from the alley behind a bar. Every time Ella traded the bottles in for change, she would ask me, "Mommy, do we have enough saved to go to the aquarium with Daddy yet?" Damian always said we had no money. Then, on the day I finally saved enough for three tickets, I arrived at the aquarium only to find him at the entrance holding his ex-girlfriend's hand, with her son in his arms. A staff member stopped us. "Sorry, Mr. Moretti has reserved the entire aquarium for a private event tonight." A bodyguard in black stepped up beside Damian and bowed his head. "Don, the car is ready." The truth was that my supposedly penniless husband, the man who claimed he could not afford his own daughter's ticket, had reclaimed the Moretti Family long ago and become New York's new Don. It was not that he had no money. He simply refused to spend any of it on us. Later I took my daughter and left New York, and the Vitale Family found me. I inherited the family's ports, took control of the Atlantic Shipping Alliance, and became a Donna before whom countless mafia families bowed. Damian, eyes red, begged me to come home. I only pushed the divorce papers across to him. "Damian, I am already home. And you were never my family."

It’s been five years since my mother married into the Sterling crime family, and my relationship with my stepbrother, Louis, is still ice-cold. He’s arrogant, aloof, and wouldn’t give me the time of day. I know better than to even try. Until I saw it: a birthmark on Louis’s body, identical to the one on my online boyfriend, Rowan. I thought about the messages Rowan had sent me every night for the past two years, the ones that made my face flush and my heart race: Baby, I can only fall asleep thinking of you. I need to see you. I’ll show you how much I want you. I’m going crazy thinking about you… I just couldn’t square the man in those messages with the cold-as-ice Louis. To make matters worse, I had just lied to Rowan, telling him I’d failed to get into Harvard and wasn't good enough for him, before breaking up with him. If he finds out it was me who dumped him, I’m pretty sure he’ll tear me to pieces. I was already packing my bags, ready to bolt. But then Louis appeared, blocking my path. He leaned in, his low laugh a menacing rumble in my ear. "Think you can play me and just walk away? Who gave you the balls?"

My dad owned a boxing gym. He gave me one rule: If you're right, don't back down. Then I turned eighteen, and my biological parents—Jonah Gautier and Diana Saun—showed up. Apparently, I was the son they'd lost years ago. Dad always taught me to remember what people did for me. They gave me life. That had to count for something. So I grabbed Dad's beat-up canvas duffel and headed to the Gautier estate. Liam, their adopted son, popped up from the couch with a fake-sweet smile. "Troy, rough trip?" I raised the bag. "Nope." Gary, the butler, showed me to my room. An hour later, I came back downstairs. Liam clung to my biological mom, Diana Saun, tears streaming down his face, a handprint bright on his cheek. The second he saw me, he flinched. "Troy, why'd you hit me?" Every head snapped my way. I walked over and lifted my hand. A sharp whoosh cut through the room. Everyone froze. My hand stopped inches from his face. I spread my fingers and held my hand next to the mark on his face. Ten years in the gym had hardened my fists. Thick calluses covered my knuckles, and my hand was way bigger than the handprint on his cheek. "Does my hand look anything like that?" His fingers twitched against his cheek. "Couldn't even bring yourself to hit that hard? Next time, have someone else do it." I dusted off my hands. "When you're done with the performance, let me know dinner's ready."

Every time my assistant booked a private room for me, he brought his girlfriend along. I let it slide. The room was on his way home anyway. Then today I pushed the door open and found a sticky note slapped on the head chair: "Freeloaders not allowed." I peeled it off and turned to him. "What's this about?" His girlfriend was already sitting in the head seat, glaring at me. "Can't you read?" she snapped. "Mooching off my boyfriend every damn day. Have you no shame?" "If you can't afford Michelin, don't show up. I can't stand cheap old hags like you. Honestly, if I lived your life, I'd kill myself." I just stared at her, baffled. Justin rushed over and lowered his voice. "Boss, I'm so sorry. She thinks I'm paying for this dinner." "She's a bit of a princess. Doesn't like sitting with people who can't keep up. Tell you what. Let us eat first, and you can order after we leave." Then he took my black card and handed it to the server. I stood there for a second. Then I picked up my phone and called the restaurant manager. "Send security to the private room. Someone stole my card. Call the police."

I was the best healer in the world. The Alphas of every pack fought over me day and night. To escape that exhausting life for good, I faked my own death. Then I put on a pair of dark glasses and pretended to be completely blind. When the Silver Moon pack found me and brought me home, I thought I was in for the usual family drama: the biological daughter and the adopted one fighting over their parents' love. But my older adopted sister, Evelyn Howard, turned out to be sweet and kind. She learned Braille for me right away. My father, the Alpha, and my mother, Eleanor, were consumed by guilt and heartache over me. My seven older brothers, the backbone of the pack's defenses, guarded me as if I were the most precious thing in the world. I didn't have to save anyone. All I had to do was sit there quietly , play the part of a proper little blind girl, and do nothing. That all changed when eight packs joined forces to crush our family. William Carter, an Alpha and the Cedar pack's heir apparent, kicked in our front door with his wolf guards. "All Silver Moon territory is under our control. If your whole family isn't off this land by morning, I'll slaughter every last one of you. "As for the older sister and the little blind girl ... they stay. I'll lock them in my private cage as pets." I looked at my seven brothers. They had been beaten until they coughed up blood, yet they still shielded me with their bodies. Then I looked at my adopted sister, sobbing as she offered her life to save us all. I twirled my cane between my fingers and let out a slow sigh. Without the pack to protect me, how was I supposed to keep doing nothing? As my family watched in despair, I rose from the shadows and calmly took off my dark glasses. "William, go ask the Chief Elder something for me. "Three years ago in the Alps, I repaired his heart myself and injected a life-saving serum into it. How's it working out for him? "Tell him his three years are up today.And now I'm cutting him off."

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.