Novel & Cerita East Milton Square

At twenty-eight, I held the dubious honor of being the last unmarried socialite on New York's Upper East Side. Everyone around me was growing increasingly anxious about my single status. In my previous life, my mother arranged a matchmaking cocktail party, where I was told to choose a husband from ten handpicked elite bachelors. I bribed the event planner to place Mark West's profile at the very top—and as I had hoped, I chose him. After we married, Mark treated me with what seemed like tender affection. He even bought me an oceanfront villa in the Hamptons, making me believe I had finally found true love. But that illusion shattered the day I was nine months pregnant, just hours away from giving birth. Mark drove a scalpel straight into my abdomen—then, right in front of me, hurled our newborn onto the floor. "If you hadn't forced me into this marriage with your family's power, Sofia wouldn't have been heartbroken enough to go drinking and get drugged and assaulted. This… this is what you owe her!" He tossed the scalpel aside, then calmly let his private doctor pin down my blood-soaked body. I fought through excruciating pain for six agonizing hours, until I finally bled to death. Afterward, Mark dumped my corpse into the Hudson River. But for Sofia, he hosted a grand funeral—funded with my money, under my name—and paraded himself to the world as a grieving, devoted widower. Given a second chance at life, I refused to step foot in that cursed matchmaking event. Instead, I went straight to my mother with a demand: marry me to Robert Black—the most ruthless, cold-blooded titan of Wall Street, whose scarred face was feared by all. In the end, stripped of my financial backing, Mark's hedge fund collapsed. He became a disgraced fraudster, spat on by everyone on Wall Street.

After I proposed to Kathy Johnson, my girlfriend of seven years, we went to City Hall to get our marriage license. Instead, she had her bodyguards throw me onto the street. Then, she walked through the doors, hand in hand with her childhood friend, Nate. She didn’t even blink when he saw me sitting there on the ground, shaking with disbelief. "Nate's son needs a legal guardian to secure his inheritance from the Johnson Group. The fastest way is for me to marry Nate and adopt the boy." "As soon as the paperwork is finalized, we'll get a divorce. You'll still be the one I really marry." Everyone assumed that I, the man who had been devoted to her for so long, would foolishly wait. After all, I had already waited for seven long years. But that night, I accepted the arranged business marriage my family had prepared for me and took a flight to Center City on the East Coast. I vanished from Kathy's world completely, and no one saw it coming. Five years later, I returned to Westlake City to visit my family. My wife, Rhea Weyland, was the sole heir to the Weyland family, a powerhouse that practically controlled the entire West Coast economy. She was tied up in a sudden international merger meeting. She had specially arranged for someone to pick me up from the airport. But I never dreamed that the "someone" she sent would be Kathy. The moment she saw me, her gaze immediately fell on the glittering watch on my wrist. "I can't believe that after all these years, you've stooped so low you're wearing a cheap knockoff." "Are you done with your little pity party? It's time to come crawling back. Nate's son is starting at an elite private school, and you're just in time to be his full-time driver and bodyguard." I gently stroked the watch on my wrist. What she didn't know was that this was one of the more modest gifts Rhea had given me.

Niccolo Rossi, my five-year-old son, accidentally wanders into the location where an underground firearms transaction between mafia forces is being conducted. He ends up dying from the gunfire there. Upon receiving the bad news, I collapse immediately. When I wake up, my husband, Luca Rossi, wears a guilty look. He takes my hand and comforts me, "Elena, Niccolo's death is a misunderstanding. Everyone thought he was a spy belonging to the enemy forces, so they started a crossfire with each other." In the middle of the night, I overhear his conversation with his assistant, Marco Giordano. "Don Rossi, Niccolo was still alive, but why did you order for the medics to stop treating him?" Marco sounds very confused. "Niccolo's injuries are far too grave. He'll just end up being a burden to us even if he survives," Luca says sorrowfully. "Besides, I've already promised Gina that the next heir of the Rossi family can only be our illegitimate son, Lorenzo. Now's the best time to arrange for the swap. No one will ever suspect a thing." "But… what should we do about Mrs. Rossi?" Marco sounds worried. "I'll deal with her." Luca's voice becomes calm. "I'll bring Lorenzo over and claim that he's an orphan from the orphanage. Since Elena has just lost Niccolo, she'll definitely raise Lorenzo as her own son. It's a win-win situation for us." As I lie on the hospital bed, I can only cover my mouth in agony to stop myself from sobbing out loud. Niccolo's death wasn't an accident at all. He was still alive, and yet Luca allowed him to die for the sake of his own bastard son! I dig out the high-explosive ammunition core data that my father has given to me prior to his death, which was once the most sought after item in the entire mafia underworld of the east coast. Then, I dial the hotline belonging to the Gambino family, which is the biggest mafia family in Novaro. "I can give you the core data under one condition—I want the Rossi family to disappear from the face of Earth in three days."

My husband, Luca, had a childhood sweetheart named Sophia. Years ago, during a brutal gang shootout, Sophia shielded him from the worst of the bloodshed, and since then, she had suffered from severe PTSD. Because of that, Luca would push aside family business every year and fly to our estate on a secluded island off the coast of Sicily to spend three months “helping her recover.” “Victoria, she lost her mind because of me,” he told me. “I’m responsible for her. I hope you can be magnanimous.” So, I nodded. And eventually, I got used to the fact that every year, my husband would disappear for three months to fulfill what he called a moral obligation. That was until the day I flew in without warning to inspect the family’s money-laundering network on that island and saw him. In the town square, under the bright Mediterranean sun, Luca was standing there with a five-year-old boy by his side. “Papa, how long do we have to hide on this island?” the child asked. “I want to go to New York. I want to see the Empire State Building.” Luca laughed gently and scooped him up in his arms. With his other hand, he held Sophia’s. “Antonio, be good,” he said affectionately. “Papa’s position is… complicated. When you turn eighteen and pass the family’s initiation ceremony, I’ll kill that woman and her dead old man. Then, I’ll take you back to New York to inherit the entire Corleone family.” I stood in the shadows, unseen. Slowly, I lit a cigarette. The smoke curled around me as their voices drifted over, the conversation getting more vicious as it went. Sophia leaned into his chest, her tone sweet and coy. “Luca, I’ve been with you for seven years without a name or a title. How much longer are our son and I supposed to live like ghosts?” Luca sighed. “I don’t have a choice. The old man in the Corleone family is still alive. I married Victoria just to get her territory. Don’t worry. I’ve been adding something to her milk every day. She’ll never get pregnant in this lifetime. My family bloodline will only continue through you.” The last thread of reason in my mind snapped. In the six years of marriage we shared, I had been infertile. I’d taken countless hormone injections to stimulate ovulation. I’d knelt in church and prayed more times than I could count. Yet, all along, the devil poisoning me was my own husband. The initial shock faded quickly into rage. I crushed out my cigarette and pulled out my phone. Then, I dialed my uncle, the family’s clean-up man. “Uncle Rocco,” I said calmly, “Luca betrayed me. He betrayed the family. Order a coffin in the finest black walnut for me, and make it large, large enough to fit a family of three.”

Chuck Bassett, heir to an Urbington East fortune in Nuvark City, has dated 42 girlfriends—all foreign, all in white dresses, every single one with a mole at the corner of her eyebrow. People joke about his obsession, saying he'll never get over his first love, Lylith Fowler. Then, Lorrie Scarrow shows up. She's sharp, short-haired, hates dresses, and her eyes are clear and bright. She's nothing like the women he's dated before. Chuck buys her a private island. When she mentions how much she loves the stars, he fills the sky above their estate with millions of drones, crafting a shimmering galaxy just for her. He even gets her initial tattooed beneath his collarbone. Everyone is amazed. Chuck has finally moved on from the past. Even Lorrie starts to believe it. Until she spots him in the red-light district, shelling out a fortune to book a hostess for a whole month. The woman has short hair and a button-down shirt. She looks just like Lorrie. Chuck's friends are floored. "Have you lost your mind? Lylith changed her look, and now you're after someone who looks even more like her? Remember how she dumped you for that wealthy foreign businessman when she thought you were broke? "She only came crawling back after she found out you're the heir to one of the Four Great Families. You've always said there's nothing you hate more than women like that!" Chuck knocks back the shot. "I hate her, and I love her. She pulled me out of a fire ten years ago. No one else can ever replace her in my heart." "And what about Lorrie? You proposed to her! She gave up a career at one of the world's top design firms for you. Aren't you worried she'll walk away when she finds out?" Chuck leans back on the couch, his expression cold. "I won't marry a traitor. Lorrie's pure, innocent—the closest thing to how Lylith used to be. So I'll still marry her. She loves me too much to walk away." Unseen in the shadows, Lorrie stands frozen, her heart plummeting. Turns out, she's just another her.