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After My Four Childhood Friends Abandoned Me, I Inherited a Mafia Empire
Novelix
Completed
"People had called me slow ever since I was little. On my first trip to Europe for family business, the four mafia heirs I grew up with acted like they wanted to tie me to their belts. Each of them spoke Italian, French, Spanish, and Russian fluently. In New York's underworld, they were the kind of young men people lowered their voices to talk about. Even when my best friend, Nora Valenti, hit someone while driving without a license, they refused to let me get out of the car. ""We've got it,"" they said. But when the French police arrived, the four of them took Nora, jumped on their motorcycles, and disappeared down the street. They left me there alone to face the questioning. I couldn't understand a word. I tried to open a translation app, only to realize my phone didn't even have an international SIM card. In the end, I had to pawn the gold Madonna pendant my mother left me just to get temporary bail. When I rushed back to the hotel, I begged the four of them to help me get the pendant back. They turned me down without a hint of guilt. ""Isabella, you're being ridiculous,"" Leon said. ""Our visas and family travel papers expire today. We have to be back in New York this afternoon."" ""It was just a car accident,"" Victor added. ""You weren't even the one driving. Explain it and move on."" I told them I didn't speak the language and couldn't use my translation app, but Matteo cut me off impatiently. ""Are you stupid? You've been around us for years and you still can't manage one sentence in French?"" ""Nora was right,"" someone said. ""We spoiled you so badly you can't function without us."" ""Handle it yourself. Nobody's bailing you out this time."" In the end, Adrian De Luca, my fiance, was the only one who softened. He promised he would help. But when their plane took off, I was still being detained because the hit-and-run case hadn't been closed. Worse, the ticket in my hand, the one I thought was taking me back to New York, turned out to be for Reykjavik. Watching the five of them walk toward the gate together, I wiped my tears and called my family lawyer in Manhattan. ""Find me a lawyer in France,"" I said. ""Someone who speaks French and understands cross-border criminal cases."" ""And one more thing. That approval form I signed to make Nora permanent at my family's jewelry company? Cancel it."""
Chapters (3)
第1章
People had called me slow ever since I was little.
On my first trip to Europe for family business, the four mafia heirs I grew up with acted like they wanted to tie me to their belts.
Each of them spoke Italian, French, Spanish, and Russian fluently. In New York's underworld, they were the kind of young men people lowered their voices to talk about.
Even when my best friend, Nora Valenti, hit someone while driving without a license, they refused to let me get out of the car.
"We've got it," they said.
But when the French police arrived, the four of them took Nora, jumped on their motorcycles, and disappeared down the street.
They left me there alone to face the questioning.
I couldn't understand a word.
I tried to open a translation app, only to realize my phone didn't even have an international SIM card.
In the end, I had to pawn the gold Madonna pendant my mother left me just to get temporary bail.
When I rushed back to the hotel, I begged the four of them to help me get the pendant back.
They turned me down without a hint of guilt.
"Isabella, you're being ridiculous," Leon said. "Our visas and family travel papers expire today. We have to be back in New York this afternoon."
"It was just a car accident," Victor added. "You weren't even the one driving. Explain it and move on."
I told them I didn't speak the language and couldn't use my translation app, but Matteo cut me off impatiently.
"Are you stupid? You've been around us for years and you still can't manage one sentence in French?"
"Nora was right," someone said. "We spoiled you so badly you can't function without us."
"Handle it yourself. Nobody's bailing you out this time."
In the end, Adrian De Luca, my fiance, was the only one who softened. He promised he would help.
But when their plane took off, I was still being detained because the hit-and-run case hadn't been closed.
Worse, the ticket in my hand, the one I thought was taking me back to New York, turned out to be for Reykjavik.
Watching the five of them walk toward the gate together, I wiped my tears and called my family lawyer in Manhattan.
"Find me a lawyer in France," I said. "Someone who speaks French and understands cross-border criminal cases."
"And one more thing. That approval form I signed to make Nora permanent at my family's jewelry company? Cancel it."
...
The lawyer arrived quickly.
After proving I had nothing to do with the accident, I was released.
But when I asked for my gold Madonna pendant back, the police officer looked confused.
"Didn't your fiance already take it? He showed me a photo of the two of you and said it was very important to you."
The officer pulled out the release log.
The signature on it was Adrian De Luca's.
I called him.
He hung up.
I called again.
His phone was off.
Unwilling to give up, I called Leon, Victor, and Matteo.
Same result.
Three men. Three phones. All switched off, as if they'd planned it.
My lawyer walked over with concern in his eyes.
"Do you want me to file a claim? Handing over your property to a third party without authorization is a serious mistake on their part."
"But your fiance may be implicated too. He could even face jail time."
I didn't think it was that serious.
Maybe Adrian had taken the pendant and simply forgotten to return it.
The next second, Nora Valenti updated her social media.
[Back from Europe and already spoiled. Thank you to my four favorite people.]
In the photo, the gold bracelet on her wrist looked expensive.
The receipt she posted showed a weight of 19.99 grams.
Exactly the same as my mother's pendant.
My head buzzed.
I called Nora before I could stop myself.
"How could you melt down my mother's pendant into a bracelet?" I demanded. "You knew it was the only thing she left me."
Nora rushed to explain.
"Bella, you misunderstood. The four of them pooled their money to buy this for my graduation..."
I cut her off.
"A gift? Then why does it weigh exactly the same as my mother's pendant?"
"It wasn't enough that you made me take the blame for you and left me alone in France. You had to take the only thing I had left of my mother too?"
The other end of the line went quiet.
For a second, I thought they had finally realized they were wrong.
Then Adrian's voice came through.
"We bought the bracelet for Nora. Your pendant is with me."
"I know you're upset about being left in France, but we were trying to make you more independent."
"The fact that you were able to call us proves Nora's method worked. You should be thanking her, not slandering her."
第2章
The other three immediately backed Adrian up.
One by one, they accused me of being petty and ungrateful.
"You've always had terrible life skills. You rely on other people for everything."
"At eight, you couldn't sleep alone. At fifteen, you couldn't even cross the Brooklyn docks by yourself. Nora waited forever for this graduation trip, and you still expected the four of us to stay on call for you twenty-four seven."
"Come on, Isabella. You're twenty-three, not three. Do you really need everyone orbiting you like you're some helpless little kid?"
Their words left me frozen.
I wanted to explain, but I didn't know where to start.
After all, I had been "slow" since childhood.
But I hadn't always been like this.
When I was eight, Adrian, Leon, Victor, and Matteo were kidnapped by a Sicilian enemy clan.
My parents found a lead before the federal agents did. They couldn't wait, so they went after them.
The four boys were rescued.
My parents were murdered in front of me by those monsters.
After that, I developed severe trauma.
I couldn't be alone. I couldn't talk to strangers. Whenever I was thrown into an unfamiliar place, I would shake so hard I lost control of my body.
It was the four boys who stayed with me through recovery.
They helped me return to normal life little by little.
Once, someone joked that I was too fragile.
The four of them used their family connections to have him expelled.
The line they repeated most often was:
"Bella's parents died saving us. We owe her."
"As long as we're here, it doesn't matter if Bella never has to do a thing for herself."
Everyone said I was lucky.
Even a mafia princess usually had only one knight.
I had four.
I believed that too.
Until senior year, when Nora Valenti transferred into my class.
She was an orphan too.
Because of that, I felt sorry for her and couldn't help looking after her.
At first, the boys warned me to stay away from her. They said they couldn't trace her background.
So when did they start changing?
Was it when they secretly altered my college preferences to help Nora chase her dream of becoming a designer?
Was it after graduation, when they threatened to pull their family security from my company unless I gave Nora a full-time position?
Or was it on this European trip, when they staged the whole car accident just so Nora could get her photos alone, then left me on a foreign street to answer police questions by myself?
I didn't know.
I took a deep breath and asked Adrian:
"Fine. Let's say the bracelet really was something you bought for her."
"You went to the police station. Why didn't you explain that I wasn't the driver? That Nora was?"
He answered without hesitation.
"Under French law, driving without a license and fleeing the scene could put her away for years. Nora just graduated. If she gets dragged into a case like that, her life is over."
My heart went cold.
I had thought Adrian didn't understand French law.
Or that maybe he really had made one terrible choice because he wanted me to be independent.
But he knew everything.
My voice came out hoarse.
"What about me? Did you ever think about what would happen to me?"
The other three cut in.
"Stop being dramatic. We told you, you weren't the driver. You'll be fine."
"And even if you're not, you're slow anyway. A few years in prison won't change much for you."
I listened to their mockery and forced myself to ask Adrian:
"Is that what you think too?"
He didn't answer directly.
He only said:
"Stop making a scene. You're fine now, aren't you?"
"The graduation gala is tonight. We're taking Nora to choose a dress. We don't have time to babysit your tantrum."
I was about to say it was my graduation gala too.
Adrian hung up.
The French lawyer beside me looked at me with pity.
"Miss Moretti, do you want me to book you a flight back to New York?"
But France was too far from home.
Even the fastest flight would take more than ten hours.
By the time I arrived, the ceremony would be over.
I sniffed and shook my head.
"No. Help me draft the lawsuit."
第3章
When the lawsuit was placed in my hands, I was still hesitating.
I had grown up with the four of them.
We had always been close.
And Adrian had taken care of me more than anyone else.
When my parents first died, I refused to let anyone near me.
After several families discussed it, they decided to send me to a trauma rehabilitation facility in Switzerland.
Only eight-year-old Adrian stood in front of the medical staff who came to take me away.
He begged them to give me one more chance.
He ate with me, slept beside me, and never gave up on me, even when I hurt him by accident and left him covered in bruises.
At last, I lowered my guard and agreed to treatment.
During recovery, Leon, Victor, and Matteo often lost patience with how clumsy and broken I was.
Only Adrian remembered what the therapist said:
"The company of those she trusts most may be the medicine that eases the pain."
Again and again, he stayed with me through the most boring, exhausting exercises.
Slowly, I learned to live like a normal person.
If someone didn't know my past, they would never guess I had once nearly lost the ability to live independently because of trauma.
If I filed this lawsuit, it wouldn't just destroy more than twenty years of history between us.
It would destroy Adrian's future.
Maybe even the De Luca family's reputation.
I asked the lawyer for more time.
I wanted to think.
But in the middle of the night, my professor called.
His voice was urgent.
"Isabella, I know you and Nora are close, but how could you hand over the graduation collection you worked so hard on?"
"And why did you give up your chance to study at the Royal Icelandic Design Institute?"
My mind went blank.
"Professor, I didn't give it up..."
He sent me a video from the graduation gala.
In the video, Nora stood onstage as an outstanding graduate.
She was wearing the evening gown I had ordered three months in advance.
In her hands was the jewelry collection I had spent half a year creating.
She held it up proudly for everyone to see.
The auditorium thundered with applause.
The dean announced excitedly:
"Ms. Valenti's graduation collection not only won first place in an international jewelry design competition, it also earned her admission to the Royal Icelandic Design Institute."
"Congratulations, Ms. Valenti."
I immediately logged into the school website.
On the outstanding graduate showcase page, my collection had Nora's name on it.
Then I checked my email.
The admission letter from Iceland also said Nora Valenti.
Only then did I remember the strange looks on the boys' faces before the Europe trip, when I had excitedly told them my work had been recognized and I was going to Iceland to study.
I didn't know where it had gone wrong.
Then I opened our encrypted group chat and saw Adrian casually asking for my school portal and email passwords.
He had said he wanted to help "his little scatterbrain" double-check whether the collection and application had been submitted.
In that moment, my heart turned to ash.
With shaking hands, I called Adrian.
He picked up immediately.
I could hear the party on the other end, the four of them celebrating Nora.
It was loud and bright there.
But I felt like I was standing in the middle of winter.
It took me a long time to steady my voice.
"Was it you? Did you change the name on my collection to Nora's and use my work to get her that study placement?"
"Adrian, you know how much I gave up for this. My parents' company was counting on this opportunity to break into the European market. Do you have a heart at all?"
Adrian laughed and said to the people around him:
"Just a spam call."
Then he hung up.
When I called again, I was blocked.
