Novel & Cerita Feel The Bern

When I accompany my best friend, Olivia Martin, to the hotel in hopes of catching her partner in the act red-handed, I end up catching my own husband, Wilson Gunner, instead. I don't break down in tears, nor do I throw a tantrum. In fact, I even shoot a smile at the young lady who's with Wilson. "Don't worry. I'll keep this a secret." The lady shoots me a grateful look before stumbling out of the hotel room haphazardly. Not only does Wilson not feel any sense of shame, but he also looks at me approvingly. "I knew you were sensible enough to not cause a fuss. Since you're a plastic surgeon, you should know that it's rare to see young ladies who have never gone under the knife nowadays. "The woman from earlier is au naturale. Besides, she's all clean and pure, so you have nothing to worry about." I lower my gaze and nod gently in agreement. But I don't plan on telling Wilson that the so-called au naturale woman was still a young man last week.

My husband, Don Vincent Corleone, has gotten ambushed during a trade-off. When he wakes up, he still remembers everyone… but me. Soon, Vincent makes an announcement in front of everyone that Angela Mancini is his actual Donna. That's how Angela takes over my position as the precision machinist in the family. When I'm in the machinery storage room, I accidentally overhear Vincent and Angela flirting with each other. "Since you've lent me the identity as the Donna for a week, does this mean I get to do whatever I want with your body during this period?" Angela asks. "Of course! The only reason why I've pretended to have contracted amnesia is so that I can appease you, after all." As I hide in the shadows, I feel my nails digging into my palms. Still, I don't expose Vincent's lie on the spot. At the family meeting the next day, Vincent forcibly snatches away the obsidian ring that I've been wearing. He yells at me that Angela is his actual Donna, and that I should submit all of my blueprints to the family before leaving Neplas once and for all. All the subordinates stare at me, waiting for me to fight back. Without moving an inch, I submit my resignation on the spot and file for a divorce. What Vincent doesn't know is that I'm the only one who knows the assembly technology of the latest batch of firearms. There are only seven days left till the Corleone family has to hand the batch over to the client. Seven days later, the batch starts showing issues, which implicates the Corleone family and putting them in a dire state. But that's when I've completely vanished from Neplas. When Vincent and I meet each other again, he grabs me by the arm angrily while questioning me, "Where the hell have you gone to, Valenna? Why did you ditch me back then?" I pretend to look confused. "Who are you? Do I even know you?"

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.”

Devan Williams, the richest man in the country, gets shot by an assailant when he's giving a speech. He's quickly sent to the hospital I work at to undergo a heart transplant surgery. But my girlfriend, Katie Wilder, insists that her childhood friend, Luke Rivera, has to become Devan's primary doctor. She even takes off Devan's oxygen mask just to coerce me into handing the position over. "Ashton Howard, if you don't get out of here once I count to three, you'll be facing imprisonment due to medicinal malpractice!" As I look at Devan, whose face has gone horribly crimson due to asphyxiation, all I feel is a strong sense of ridicule. So, I call the hospital's security guards on Katie and Luke with the intention to have them dragged out. But the security captain, Jason Wilder, is actually Katie's younger brother who relied on her just to get his hands on this job. He has me pinned on the floor instead. "From the way I see it, you're the criminal who wants Devan dead! Be honest with me; did you sneak into this hospital just so you can kill him behind everyone's backs?" I can't help but struggle against Jason. But that's when Luke tramples all over my fingers, causing them to fracture. At that moment, the vitals monitor begins beeping shrilly. I lift my head to glare at the culprits. "All of you can never escape your fate!"

During the mandatory freshman orientation camp, my skin had flared up with a severe allergic reaction, so I didn't use the plastic washbasin the school handed out. Instead, I opened my suitcase and took out the custom silver basin I had brought from home. My roommate, Louisa Carter, immediately made a snide remark, drawling, "You're really something, huh? Kids from broke families like us are lucky to have any basin at all." I didn't bother responding. I simply pulled out my facial essence to do a cold compress, but she immediately rushed over, slapped the bottle out of my hand, and jabbed a finger at my face. "Bet you get tens of thousands a month for living expenses. You have a sugar daddy, don't you? Don't you feel guilty making your folks work their fingers to the bone back on the farm? People like you don't deserve to be at our school. I'm reporting you to the student counselor." I laughed in disbelief and slapped her. … The next morning, the family photo I'd left on my desk had been slashed to ribbons. Across the back, carved in ink, were the words: 'Daughter of a homewrecker. Go to hell.' I went straight to the police. While officers pulled the dorm security footage, our student counselor and the university president rushed in. The moment the president saw the man whose face had been cut apart in my photo, his legs nearly buckled. He almost dropped to his knees.

I accidentally come across a post made by my mom's smurf account on the Internet. "Is it too cheap for me to prepare just a set of gold bars as a coming-of-age gift for my daughter?" My heart skips a beat. My parents are known for being extremely stingy. To think that they are willing to spend this much on me! I'm worried that my parents might overwork themselves just to prepare such a lucrative gift, so I take a screenshot and save the link to a three-year vacation tour that's priced at 999 dollars. Then, I decide to respond to the post as an anonymous user. "Your daughter will feel very happy as long as she receives her parents' love. No materialistic gift can ever outshine that." Five minutes later, Mom responds to me, "Thank you for your suggestion, but I've already taken my darling on a graduation trip in Enora last week. She had so much fun there."

Just a few days before my wedding, I accidentally come across a post while scrolling online. The title reads, "To the guy getting married in this city, your fiancée's already cheated on you." Curious, I click in to see the gossip, only to realize I'm the one being talked about. A deep male voice plays in the video. "I heard you're getting married?" The woman in the frame, bare-backed and trembling, chokes back a sob. "After you left, I realized you're still the one I love most. I'm done with him. Take me away, please!" The moment I hear her voice, it feels like someone punches me straight in the chest. Then I notice something on her wrist—the luxury couple's bracelet I gave her just yesterday. And in that instant, I feel like the biggest joke of all. Turns out the fool was me.

At the company's gathering, everyone has the right to order for themselves. When it's my turn, however, the new intern, Hayden Belmont, snatches the menu from me. "The order's complete, so there's no need to order anything else." I merely ignore Hayden as I tell the server, "I'd like some continental herb-baked snails, please." But Hayden slams the menu at my face while glaring at me angrily. "I said you're not allowed to order! Who do you think you are, huh?" The hard edge of the menu leaves a scratch on my face. Blazing pain is all I feel at the moment, which fuels my temper even more. So, I pick up the menu and throw it back at Hayden's face. He's quick to shriek and yell at me in fury. "Do you have any idea who I am? My mom is Natasha Belmont, the biggest client of this company! Even the CEO has to show some respect to me, and yet you have the nerve to lay a finger on me? "I'll have your 800-thousand-dollar bonus canceled right away! Soon, the entire industry will blacklist you!" I'm stunned, to say the least. My biological aunt, Natasha Belmont, has been single for 40 years. Since when does she have a grown-up son?

On the train back home, I found a scathing post online. [My sister-in-law is pushing thirty but isn’t married yet. She comes home all the time. Would you be bothered by it?] The comments were numerous and ran the gamut of opinions. The post got wildly popular, and there was an argument between the poster and commenters. [It’s bad enough that she won’t get married. She wants to stay with us when she’s home. Shouldn’t she feel ashamed? I’m at the end of my rope. She even drank all my lemonade last time she was here. I really hate her. [She has no boundaries. I’ve been wanting to teach her a lesson for ages. I turned her bedroom into my walk-in closet. Let’s see if she can still stay here.] When I got to this point, I closed the post. It was lucky that I bought the house where my parents and brother live. Because of that, I would not be at risk of losing my own room. But when I got out of the train station, I received a text from my mother. [Sweetie, I booked you a hotel room. You don’t have to come home and stay this time.]

We had agreed to spend the New Year with our own families, but at the last minute, my husband, Drake Murrell, changed his mind and insisted I go back with him this year. I agreed, planning to take this opportunity to finally tell him the truth about who I really was. When we first got married, my parents told me to keep a low profile so that Drake, who came from a single-parent household, wouldn’t feel pressured. So I hid the fact that I was the daughter of the richest family in the capital, the Thorntons. When we returned to his hometown, I specifically bought my mother-in-law, Diana Murrell, a pair of gold bangles. She accepted them with a beaming smile, praising me again and again for being such a thoughtful daughter-in-law. However, the next day, as I passed by the old oak tree at the edge of Willow Creek, I overheard her talking about me with a group of people. "Oh, you have no idea. My daughter-in-law is absolutely ridiculous!" My hand froze midair, still holding my phone, as I instinctively ducked behind a haystack. I heard her continue loudly, "She bought me a pair of gold bangles this year. The moment I touched them, I knew they were fake! I’m telling you, they’re probably those cheap online knockoffs, like the kind that cost next to nothing and start fading the moment you wear them!" I was stunned with anger. She called pure gold fake? Looks like the million-dollar New Year gift I had prepared for her wasn’t necessary anymore.