Mosquito Coast Novelas e Histórias

Married to Don Victor for three years, I thought I could finally forget the pain and betrayal of my ex-husband, Dominic. This cold, ruthless man ruled the East Coast underworld. But he handed me the world on a silver platter, healing my broken pieces. Until late one night. Victor's underboss called, frantic, begging me to rush to Manhattan's top private hospital. Victor and Dominic were in a standoff outside the maternity ward. Guns drawn, surrounded by their elite hitmen. They were inches away from sparking an all-out mob war. And standing between them was my ex-best friend, Chloe. She was visibly pregnant. The Commission's mediator slid a truce across the table. His expression was painfully awkward. "The security tapes are clear. The two Dons nearly blew up the entire floor just to decide who gets to stay in her room tonight." Numbly, I signed the papers as the Donna of the Costello family. Prenatal vitamins bought by Victor already piled high in the room. Meanwhile, his and Dominic's men were still arguing over the schedule—how the two Mafia Dons would split their week to keep Chloe company, three days each. When I walked up to the bed, the two lethal men who were just at each other's throats now stood guarding her on both sides. Victor shielded her belly. The same lips that used to kiss every inch of my body now spit out bone-chilling words: "I forced her. If you have a problem, take it up with me." My ex-husband, Dominic, glared at me viciously. "Keep your mad dog of a husband in check. Tell him to stop harassing my woman!" I slowly shook my head. Watching this farce, silent tears slid down my cheeks. A mobster's love... in the end, it's just a cheap lie. Victor, I don't want you anymore either.

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.

At nine months pregnant, I was in the final stretch of my term, and my body heavy with a baby due any day. But my husband, Vito Falcone, underboss of the family, had locked me away. He held me in a sterile underground medical room and injected me with a labor suppressant. As I screamed in agony, he coldly told me to endure it. Because his brother's widow, Scarlett, was expected to go into labor at the exact same time. A blood oath he'd made with his late brother declared that the firstborn son would inherit the family's lucrative West Coast territory. "That inheritance belongs to Scarlett's child," he said. "With Daemon gone, she is utterly alone and destitute. You have my love, Alessia. All of it. I just need her to deliver safely. Then it's your turn." The drug was a constant, agonizing torment. I begged him to take me to a hospital. He grabbed me by the throat, forcing me to meet his icy gaze. "Stop the act! I know you're fine. You’re just trying to steal the inheritance." "To get ahead of Scarlett, you'll stop at nothing." My face was ashen. My body convulsed as I managed a desperate whisper. "The baby's coming. I don't care about the inheritance. I just love you, and I want our child to be born safely!" He sneered. "If you were really that innocent, if you had an ounce of love for me, you wouldn't have forced Scarlett to sign that prenup, waiving her child's inheritance rights." "Don't worry, I'll be back for you after she's given birth. you're carrying my own flesh and blood, after all." He kept a vigil outside Scarlett's delivery room all night. It was only after seeing the newborn in her arms that he remembered me. He finally sent his second in command, Marco, to release me. But when Marco finally called, his voice was shaking. "Boss... the missus and the baby... they're gone." In that moment, Vito Falcone shattered.

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.”