Family Saga

I spent fifteen years taking beatings in the Bronx hellhole — beatings meant for my mother.
She's a Manhattan heiress now. Chanel suits, a daughter on her arm, and eyes full of disgust whenever they land on my hollowed-out frame.
"You're just like your disgusting father. A sewer rat. You've always reeked of something rotten."
What she doesn't know: on that rainy night fifteen years ago, I wrapped ...

For as long as I could remember, my family had insisted Vivian needed more because I could take more.
The pony I loved. The occasions meant to celebrate me. Time with my mother. If my twin wanted any of it, I was the one expected to go without.
Our induction into the Mafia Family was meant to be the exception. We were both daughters of Don Moretti. A crown was supposed to be waiting for each of us...

Three years ago, on their way to attend my graduation art exhibition, the cruise ship carrying my fiancé and my family caught fire.

Over the past three years, I downed sleeping pills countless times, desperately wanting to follow them into the afterlife. Every single time, my adopted sister, Serena, saved me, crying hysterically as she shoved her fingers down my throat to make me throw up.

"...

"Abort it," my husband said, his voice completely dead.
This was the man who had just fought off the guards to save me. The man who swore to protect me. But after one single croak from that cursed one-eyed raven, he condemned our third child to death.
My in-laws held me down. My own parents watched in cold silence.
As the abortion poison tore through my body and my blood stained the carpet, they ...

Fourteen years I gave him.
Every storm I shielded him from.
Every mess I cleaned up for him.
I made him a king of Manhattan.
On my forty-second birthday, he brought my enemy's daughter to my party.
He forged my medical records.
He tried to strip me of my trust.
He thought I was done.
He forgot one thing: I made him.
And I have a son he never knew existed.

I accompanied my husband's grandmother, who had just undergone heart bypass surgery, to quietly recuperate on the top floor of a private club. However, we were invaded by a woman adorned in the ruby necklace I designed, wielding my husband's supplementary card. She publicly humiliated my grandmother and locked us in a freezing cold chamber at minus sixty degrees, declaring herself to be my husband...

When my mother-in-law and I went undercover on our own yacht, a woman in a bikini pointed at us and screamed, "Broke trash!"

She ordered the bodyguards to throw us into the sea.

"This is the VIP section! You freeloading scum snuck on board for free food and drinks—get lost!"

She pinched her nose, looking at my mother-in-law and me with complete disgust.

I said coldly, "This is a public area. W...

When my younger brother got into a top university, the whole family celebrated for him.
I, suffering from a terminal illness, clutched my chest and desperately cried for help, only to be met with a disgusted slap from my mother and the words, "You just can't stand to see your brother doing well!"
She thought I was a spoilsport, so she roughly dragged me back to the room and locked the door from t...

Four years ago, I gave birth to my son, Leo, at a private hospital.
But when I woke up from the anesthesia, there was no baby waiting for me.
Instead, there was a bank card loaded with an enormous amount of money.
I stared blankly at Adrian Moretti, who was standing by the hospital room door.
"Why are you giving me money? Where's Leo?"
He avoided my gaze.
Meanwhile, Serena Vale, who was sitting co...

I woke up from a difficult labor, only to be told my baby was stillborn. For three years, I endured unbearable grief, praying and confessing before the priest every night, just hoping to see my child in a dream.
Everything changed at the hospital. I saw a little boy sweetly calling my college roommate “Mom”. My husband and my in-laws stood protectively beside her. I uncovered their brutal lie: tha...

I nearly died in the freezing ocean at my adopted sister Jane's birthday party.

When the yacht started tilting and alarms shrieked through the corridors, Dad grabbed Jane and bolted for the deck without looking back. Mom clutched Jane's ragdoll cat in her arms, following close behind under the bodyguards' protection.

They saved the cat.

But left their biological daughter to drown.

Three days l...

At my engagement dinner, my fiancé asked me to sign the prenup that killed me once before.

Last time, Adrian smiled, kissed my hand, and promised I would never be alone again. Three weeks later, debt collectors came for money I had never borrowed, black veins crawled under my skin, and his dying mother walked out of hospice in pearls.

This time, I turned to the second page first.

My name was al...

My boyfriend's stepsister was assaulted. She didn't survive it.

I knew the truth, but I refused to name the man who did it.

His parents got down on their knees and begged me. I didn't budge.

When the reporters showed up at my door, I chased them off with a kitchen knife.

He didn't leave me. He turned his back on his family and married me.

And then he made me pay. Every day, he brought people ...

On a stormy night, an intruder broke into the estate and slashed my husband's throat.
I didn't call the police. Instead, I grabbed the bleach and scrubbed away every trace the killer left behind.
The next morning, my mother-in-law dug her nails into my arm. "Tell them! Who murdered my son?!"
"Lady Cordelia, if you saw anything, now is the time to speak." The police captain stepped closer, his voic...

The car crash six months ago destroyed my body. I survive the agony only through the painkillers prescribed by my brother, Fletcher.
While shopping for my wedding dress, I simply swallowed a pill on schedule. My mother responded with a slap that made me spit blood. My father stormed in and kicked my ribs in without asking a single question.
I fled crying to my brother, only for him to grab me in d...

In this house, there was an unspoken rule: every time my adopted sister, Sloane, fed her gambling addiction at the casino, I was the one who had to take the punishment.

When Sloane racked up five thousand dollars in gambling debt, I was locked inside a sub-zero freezer overnight.

When Sloane stole and sold the family jewelry, my parents pinned my shoulders down while my husband ruined my f...

All my life, my family said Lucia needed more because I was stronger.
My pony. My celebrations. My mother's time. Whenever my twin wanted something, I was expected to give it up.
Our Mafia Family induction was supposed to be different. We were both Don Romano's daughters. We were both supposed to receive a crown.
Instead, Lucia's custom crown held both our diamonds while mine sat tarnished and emp...

For six years, my mother Isolde believed I had committed an unforgivable sin. Under the guise of "reforming my character," she continuously injected me with neurotoxic antibiotics, confining me to a wheelchair to act as a crippled companion to my sister, Alondra.
My entire family silently condoned this punishment, favoring my sister who was merely faking her paralysis. I had long since surrendered...

My fiancé, a ruthless mafia Capo, always had a convenient excuse for his betrayals.

Any trace of another woman was scrubbed clean.

Exhausted by the gaslighting, I planted a lipstick in his car just to see how deep the deception went.

When I confronted him, he put his phone on speaker.

The whole family stepped up to cover his tracks.

My brother claimed it was misplaced by my best friend. My be...

For six years, I sold my body to underground clinics as a human lab rat to cure my son's heart failure and pay off my husband's debts.

Today, my biological brother kicked away the medicine I bought with half my life.

"Lucas was never sick. We faked the medical records to teach you a lesson for upsetting Virginia."

My husband coldly chimed in:

"I never went bankrupt either."

Even the so...