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She Married the Mafia Heir, I Married the Next Don
Novelix
Completed
After twenty-two years of abuse, I returned to my wealthy family expecting love. Instead, I got the dresses their other daughter rejected and lectures about my manners. They promised her the future Mafia Don. I married his overlooked younger brother. Nico had little money and less influence, but we wanted the same thing: power nobody could take away. I used my dowry, my knowledge of garages, and the people everyone ignored to rebuild his businesses and expose his brother's theft. They gave her the chosen heir. Together, we made my husband the Don.
Chapters (2)
第1章
"This is my daughter, Mara." my father told the staff.
Bianca smiled, too.
The girl who had grown up in my place, with my parents and everything that should have been mine, took my hand.
"I've always wanted a sister."
She taught me which glass to use at dinner.
How to greet the wives of my father's associates.
How to walk in shoes that cost more than three months of rent in the apartment where I grew up.
Nobody openly told me I didn't belong.
They didn't have to.
A dropped fork.
A spilled drink.
My heel catching the hem of a dress.
There was always someone nearby trying not to laugh.
Then, one evening, I knock over a cup in the sitting room.
One of the maids turns away.
Not quickly enough.
I hear her laugh.
I slap her.
The room goes silent.
"Mara!"
My mother's voice cracks across the room.
"What is wrong with you?"
I look from the maid to her.
"She was laughing at me."
"Then tell me. You don't hit the staff."
"They all do it."
"That isn't true."
"Every time I get something wrong. Every time Bianca has to show me how to do something."
Bianca rises from the sofa.
"Mara, I don't mind helping."
"I know."
My voice shakes.
"You're very good at helping. Everyone makes sure I know that."
My father puts down his glass.
"Watch your tone."
I look at him.
Then at my mother.
"Everything she has was supposed to be mine."
Bianca goes still.
"This house. This family. The chance to grow up knowing there would be food the next morning."
"Mara," my mother says softly.
"Why am I the one everyone gets to laugh at?"
My father's mouth tightens.
"None of that was Bianca's fault."
There it is.
The answer to everything.
Not her fault.
Not her choice.
Not something she should have to lose.
"And it was mine?"
"Nobody said that."
"Then choose."
My mother stares.
"What?"
"Her or me."
Bianca's face drains of color.
"I won't keep living like this," I say. "Not in my own family."
My mother reaches for my arm.
I pull away.
"Don't touch me."
My father crosses the room.
The slap turns my head.
For a second, I hear nothing.
Then my mother says his name.
"Vittorio."
He ignores her.
"Look at yourself. Is this how a daughter of mine behaves?"
I press a hand against my cheek.
"A daughter of yours?"
"Yes."
"Then where were you while I was learning how to behave?"
His face hardens.
"I didn't know."
"But you know now."
My voice rises.
"You know where I grew up. You know what they did to me. And you still act surprised that I don't look like her."
I sweep my arm across the table.
Cups shatter on the floor.
My mother flinches.
"The dresses come to her first. The jewelry comes to her first. Everything that reaches my room is something she didn't want."
"That's ridiculous," my father says.
"Is it?"
Last month, two dresses arrived from a designer my mother liked.
I had never worn anything so beautiful.
I asked Rosa to help me fasten the blue one.
Then I went downstairs, smiling like an idiot.
In the hall, two women were sorting flowers.
"She thinks they were ordered for her."
"Well, Bianca said no to them. Someone might as well wear them."
They hadn't seen me.
I went back upstairs without making a sound.
Now I look at my mother.
"You watched me thank you."
Her lips part.
"You said blue suited me."
"It does."
"Did you order it for me?"
She hesitates.
That is enough.
Bianca comes closer.
"You can have anything in my room. I don't care about the dresses."
"I don't want you giving me permission."
"I'm trying to make this right."
"Then leave."
My mother moves in front of her.
It is instinctive.
Quick.
As though I were something she needed to protect her daughter from.
I look at them.
My father beside the table.
My mother holding Bianca's arm.
Bianca crying.
And me, standing alone with a burning cheek.
"I want her out of this house."
"Mara, be reasonable."
I laugh.
I can't seem to stop.
A guard steps closer.
Someone says my name again.
Everything after that happens in fragments.
A startled shout.
My mother's face changing.
A gun in my hand, pointed at myself.
For the first time since I came home, nobody is looking at Bianca.
第2章
The guard reaches me before I can do anything else.
Then the gun is gone, and my mother is holding me so tightly I can barely breathe.
"Mara. Look at me."
I struggle against her.
"Let me go."
"Please."
Her voice breaks.
"Please don't do this."
I can't stop shaking.
For a moment, I'm back in the apartment where I grew up.
Someone holding my arms.
Someone telling me to shut up.
I push harder.
"Let me go."
My mother loosens her grip, but she doesn't release me.
Across the room, Bianca wipes her face.
"I'll leave."
My father turns.
"Bianca—"
"It's all right."
She tries to smile.
It looks painful.
"I'll go."
I stop struggling.
She looks at me.
There is hurt in her face.
But no anger I can recognize.
"Just don't do that again," she says. "Please."
My mother starts crying harder.
Bianca touches her shoulder.
"You found her. You shouldn't lose her again because of me."
For one awful second, I feel like the cruelest person in the room.
I hate her for that, too.
My father stands beside the table.
He looks older than he did an hour ago.
Finally, he nods.
Bianca goes upstairs.
The next morning, a car takes her away.
I watch from my window.
My mother stands on the front steps until the car disappears.
My father keeps a hand on her back.
Neither looks up at me.
I have her room cleared that afternoon.
The pale curtains.
The photographs.
The little dishes of jewelry beside the mirror.
I tell the staff to pack all of it.
My bags are carried down the hall and put in her closet.
It is bigger than the bedroom I shared with the people who raised me.
I stand in the middle of it and wait to feel something good.
Relief.
Satisfaction.
Anything.
The maids who laughed about the dresses are dismissed.
After that, nobody whispers where I can hear.
They lower their eyes.
They say, "Yes, Miss Mara."
The house is quiet.
My parents are quiet, too.
At dinner, my mother asks whether I need anything.
I say no.
My father asks whether I'm keeping up with my lessons.
I say yes.
That is most of the conversation.
I decide I haven't tried hard enough.
So I try harder.
I practice walking in heels until my feet blister.
I learn the names of my father's associates and which subjects not to mention around their wives.
I sit at the piano until the notes stop sounding like separate things I have to chase.
When Rosa tells me to rest, I shake my head.
Bianca learned all of this.
So can I.
The invitation to the garden luncheon arrives three weeks later.
My mother says it will be good for me.
I choose a cream dress.
Nothing too bright.
Nothing someone could call cheap or loud.
I check my shoes twice before getting out of the car.
For the first half hour, I think I'm doing well.
I remember names.
I don't interrupt.
I laugh when the other women laugh, even when I don't understand what is funny.
Then Bianca's friend Claudia looks at me over her glass.
"So you're the real daughter."
The women beside her go quiet.
"Yes."
"The one who made Bianca leave."
"She chose to leave."
Claudia smiles.
"Of course she did."
I feel heat move into my face.
"You weren't there."
"No. But everyone's heard about it."
"Then everyone should find something else to talk about."
Her eyebrows lift.
One of the women gives a small laugh.
There it is again.
Claudia sets her glass down.
"You can wear her dresses, Mara. That doesn't make you her."
"I'm not trying to be."
"Then stop acting as though she owes you an apology for knowing how to behave."
I want to throw my drink.
I want to leave.
Instead, I hold the glass so tightly my fingers hurt.
"I'm my parents' daughter."
"Yes," she says. "You've made that very clear."
She steps closer.
"Do you know what people actually care about in families like ours? Whether they can take you into a room without worrying about what you'll do."
I can't answer.
She watches me for a moment.
Then her expression changes to something almost pitying.
"You really think they threw Bianca out?"
My stomach tightens.
"What does that mean?"
"She has a house. A beautiful one."
I stare at her.
"Your mother helped choose everything."
I put my glass on the nearest table.
Carefully.
Claudia leans closer.
"And your father settled the marriage arrangements this morning."
"With whom?"
She looks surprised.
Then pleased.
"Alessandro Morello."
The Don's chosen heir.
The man everyone expects to run the family next.
Claudia picks up her glass.
"Enjoy being the real daughter."
