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I Was Cast Out as a Fake Daughter, but Eight Dons Called Me Boss
Novelix
Completed
I spent twenty years as a Bellamy — until their real daughter came home and they threw me out like trash. They said I conned eight mafia Dons out of a fortune. My so-called mother splashed wine in my face. My so-called father told the guard not to give me an umbrella. But those eight Dons? They didn't come to collect. They came and knelt. Because I'm not their debtor — I'm their Boss. Now the family that humiliated my real parents will learn what it costs to cross me.
Chapters (3)
第1章
The whole underworld thinks I conned eight Dons out of their money.
And tonight, they all get to watch me get thrown out of the Bellamy Family.
I am standing in the middle of Vivienne Bellamy's welcome-home party.
She is the real daughter.
I'm the fake one.
Dante Bellamy, the man I've called Dad for twenty years, stands in front of hundreds of guests.
Then he reads the statement.
I'm no longer part of the Bellamy Family.
I don't get to carry the Bellamy name anymore.
Just like that.
Vivienne has tears in her eyes as she holds onto Celeste's arm.
Celeste Bellamy.
The woman I've called Mom for twenty years.
She's looking at me like she can't stand the sight of me.
Vivienne looks straight at me.
"My sister has completely humiliated the Bellamy Family."
"The eight Dons are all demanding their money back now."
"How is she going to pay them?"
Everyone in the party looks at me.
Nobody even bothers to hide their disgust.
Then Celeste picks up her wine and throws it in my face.
"You shameless little bitch!"
"Go apologize to the eight Dons right now!"
"Don't make the Bellamy Family deal with your mess!"
Cold wine runs down my face.
I look at her.
Something cracks open in my chest.
She used to sit beside my bed all night when I had a fever.
She used to be my mother.
For twenty years.
And now?
One glass of wine.
That's what those twenty years are worth.
I wipe my face.
"Fine."
"Consider it paid in full — twenty years, for one glass of wine."
There are eight debt notices on the table. One from each Mafia Family.
I pick up the top one.
It's from the Quinn Family.
I tear it in half.
Right in front of everyone.
Then I take out my phone.
The eight Dons all sit in one group chat.
I send them a voice message.
"You've got some nerve."
"You actually sent me a debt notice?"
The room goes dead silent.
A few seconds later, Vivienne laughs.
She looks at me like I'm pathetic.
"You've already been kicked out of the Bellamy Family."
"Who are you trying to fool?"
"Do you even know who the eight Dons are?"
"And who the hell are you?"
"You're really desperate, huh?"
Dante slams his hand on the table.
"Get her out."
"She's not a Bellamy anymore."
"From now on, whatever she owes out there is none of our business."
I look at him.
I thought I'd be fine.
Apparently, twenty years doesn't disappear just because someone says, "You're out."
Don't cry, I tell myself.
I reach up and unclasp the diamond necklace, then throw it on the ground.
My earrings come off next.
Then my bracelet.
Then my hairpiece.
One by one.
I let everything go.
Finally, I take off the Bellamy ring.
I stare at it in my hand.
I still remember my eighteenth birthday.
Dante put this ring on my finger himself.
He told me I was the daughter he was most proud of.
Now he looks at me like I'm something he needs to scrub off.
I throw the ring at his feet.
"Here."
"It's yours."
I look him straight in the eye.
"We're even now."
Dante freezes.
For a second, I see something change in his face.
Maybe regret.
Maybe hesitation.
Who knows?
Celeste's eyes are on my hair too — undone now, without the piece.
She looks shaken for a second.
Then Vivienne suddenly leans into her arms.
"Mom…"
"Is she still mad at me?"
"Is she mad because I came back and took my place?"
Celeste hugs her tighter.
Then she looks at me again.
Completely cold.
"You had Vivienne's place for twenty years."
"And you're still acting like the victim?"
My hands curl into fists.
Funny — everything they once gave me, they're now using to cut me down.
Vivienne sees that I still haven't completely broken down.
She has someone turn on the big screen in the middle of the room.
"Let everyone see where this fake daughter is going after she leaves the Bellamy Family."
The huge screen lights up.
It's a run-down building outside the city.
A broken sign hangs over the front.
Hayes Recycling Center.
In the middle of a muddy yard, a man and a woman in old work clothes are digging through cardboard and scrap metal.
The woman takes the only pair of work gloves and puts them on the man's hands.
Her own hands are red from the cold.
People start laughing.
"So that's where she's going?"
"No wonder she loves money so much. Look at the family she came from."
I stare at the screen.
Those two people are my biological parents.
Vivienne puts on a look of fake sympathy.
"Those are your real parents, Scarlett."
"They scrape together a living picking through trash and selling whatever’s worth a few bucks."
"After you leave the Bellamy Family, how are they supposed to help you pay the eight Dons?"
Celeste looks disgusted.
"A child carrying the blood of people like that…"
"Even after twenty years in the Bellamy Family, you still can't change what's bred into her."
That hurts. Badly.
Those two people didn't do anything to anyone.
They're being humiliated just because they gave birth to me.
I look at Celeste.
"You used to tell me something."
"You said money doesn't decide a person's worth."
Her face stiffens.
"That was before I knew your real parents were like this."
My voice gets louder.
"What did they do?"
"They work for what they have."
"They've never stolen a thing."
"Never cheated anyone."
"Never hurt a soul."
"And they don't owe anybody anything."
Silence falls over the room again.
Dante points at the door.
"Get out!"
"If you think they're so great, then go live with them!"
"Go run that crappy recycling center with them!"
My eyes burn, but I refuse to cry.
I walk to the door, then stop for just a second, waiting.
I'm waiting for someone to call me back.
But no one does.
Behind me, Vivienne starts crying.
Celeste starts comforting her.
That's it.
Whatever part of me still wanted this family is finally dead.
I walk outside.
It's pouring.
One of the guards picks up a black umbrella.
He starts to hand it to me.
Then Dante speaks.
"That belongs to the Bellamy Family."
The guard stops.
I let my hand fall.
Then I walk into the rain alone.
My dress is soaked in seconds.
I don't look back.
[The Eight Dons' POV]
Far away, inside a private training facility with almost no outside signal, eight young Dons are crowded around one phone.
The signal finally comes back.
My voice message pops up in the group chat.
"You've got some nerve."
"You actually sent me a debt notice?"
The message plays for barely a second — and the whole room goes tense.
第2章
I'm soaked when I stop in front of an old, battered door.
I stand there for a long time.
Then I knock.
The door opens. Warm yellow light spills out.
The two people inside freeze when they see me.
My mother stares at my face.
Her lips start shaking.
"Scarlett?"
Then she looks nervous.
She quickly says, "I'm sorry."
"I don't know if you want us calling you that."
My throat tightens.
They are scared to even call me by my own name.
My mother reaches for me, then stops halfway.
She looks at the dirt on her hands, at my designer dress.
She pulls her hand back.
A second later, she grabs an old towel.
It's worn almost white.
"Here. Dry your hair."
"Don't get sick."
I take it.
"I don't mind."
That's all I say.
My mother starts crying.
My father turns away. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.
Then he grabs an old raincoat and runs outside.
I stare after him.
"Where is he going?"
My mother looks flustered.
"Your dad doesn't know what to say."
"He heard your stomach's always given you trouble, so he probably went to get you something easy on it."
Thirty minutes later, my father comes back, holding a takeout box against his chest.
He's brought chicken soup, a sleeve of saltine crackers, and a bottle of ginger ale.
"Bought it down the street."
Head down, he adds, "The guy at the counter said the ginger ale would help more than anything."
I know how much this probably cost him.
At the Bellamy estate, I used to eat white truffles and expensive Wagyu.
I had everything.
And somehow, nobody ever showed me love could be this simple.
These two people have just met me.
And they're already giving me everything they have.
I sit down and start eating.
The soup is hot, the crackers a little stale, but I don't care.
Then I start crying, tears falling straight into the bowl.
My mother panics.
"What's wrong?"
"Is it bad? Too salty?"
"I can make something else."
I shake my head.
I can't get a word out.
My father stands there awkwardly.
After a while, he says,
"Take your time."
"If you're still hungry, I'll get more."
That does it. I break down completely.
One meal can't undo twenty years.
But this — this is what having parents is supposed to feel like.
The Bellamy Family isn't done with me, though. Not even close.
Rumors start spreading before the week is out.
That I always knew I wasn't their real daughter.
That I refused to step aside for Vivienne.
That I used their money and their name to get close to the eight Dons.
Then the rumors get even worse.
I'm supposedly using the eight Dons like ATMs.
I'm supposedly taking money from all eight men at the same time.
And when everything gets exposed, I supposedly ran back to my poor biological parents and started playing the victim.
Word spreads fast through the underworld.
Soon everyone knows about Hayes Recycling Center.
The next morning, shouting starts outside.
Someone is yelling my name.
"Scarlett! Get out here!"
Each of them wears a different Family's insignia, but no one can say who actually sent them.
They just want to see the fake daughter everyone's talking about.
Working for the eight Families doesn't stop them from enjoying a good kick when someone's already down.
"There! That's the place!"
"The woman who scammed eight Dons is hiding in there!"
"She owes them a fortune and still has the nerve to come back here?"
My parents stand in the doorway, watching the crowd with fear in their eyes.
"Look at her parents."
"They gave birth to a daughter like that. What good could they be?"
Mom goes white. Dad steps in front of her.
"My daughter isn't a scammer."
"You've got the wrong story."
Nobody listens. They believe whatever the Bellamy Family says.
One man lifts his coffee.
Then dumps it over the cardboard Dad has just sorted.
He smirks.
"Oops."
"Hand slipped."
Dad's face changes. He rushes over.
"Don't!"
"Don't ruin them!"
The man grinds his boot into the cardboard.
"You're protecting this trash?"
Dad drops down, covering the rest with his body.
"Please."
"We can still sell this."
"I want to buy Scarlett some new clothes."
The man laughs. Then shoves him.
Dad falls into a pile of scrap. Broken glass slices his palm.
Blood runs down his hand.
"Patrick!"
Mom screams.
Dad doesn't even look at his hand.
He gets back up and keeps protecting the cardboard.
"Don't touch it."
His voice is shaking.
But he keeps saying the same thing.
"My daughter didn't scam anyone."
"She didn't lie."
I get to the yard just as he says it again, grocery bags still hanging from my hands.
I can see he's scared.
Of course he is.
But he's more afraid that I've only just found them, and now the Bellamy Family wants to take that too.
I walk toward the crowd.
"Who did that?"
The man looks at me. Then laughs.
"Oh? The Bellamy Family's fake daughter is back?"
"She came to protect her poor parents?"
People around him start laughing too.
"I heard you're real good with men."
"You managed to fool eight Dons."
"That's impressive."
"Why don’t you show us how you’ve managed to keep all those men so satisfied?"
I don't answer.
I drop the grocery bags and bend down, picking up a shard of broken glass.
The man laughs again.
"You think that little piece of glass is gonna scare me?"
I look up.
Then I move.
I rush straight at him.
The glass presses against his throat.
His smile disappears.
My own hand is bleeding from gripping it too hard.
The whole yard goes quiet.
"What now?"
He swallows.
"You—"
"Shut up." I say.
His face turns red.
He goes for the gun in his waistband.
"You little bitch!"
"You really think you can order me around?"
I push the glass closer.
"Don't."
A thin line of blood appears on his neck.
He freezes.
"You people keep saying I hooked up with eight Dons, right?"
Nobody answers.
"Then answer me this."
"If they find out what you did to my parents today, what do you think they're going to do?"
The man's face changes.
I don't stop.
"You think the eight Dons will believe the Bellamy Family?"
"Or me?"
I don't tell them what those eight Dons and I really are to each other.
I just smile.
"Guess."
People start whispering.
“All eight of them… Do you think she really has something going on with them?”
"Who knows?"
"Maybe there's more between them than just money..."
I slowly pull the glass away.
"Believe me or don't."
"But anyone who touches my parents again better think twice."
I drop the glass.
The crowd goes quiet.
The man who'd just had a piece of glass at his throat forces out an awkward laugh.
Then he waves everyone away.
"Let's go."
"This is a waste of time."
As he leaves, he throws one last insult at us.
"Rot here with your poor parents."
They leave.
I go straight to Dad.
"Dad."
"Give me your hand."
He hides it behind his back.
"I'm fine."
"Don't get yourself in trouble because of me."
My throat tightens again.
"You got hurt."
"Why are you still worried about me?"
Dad lowers his head.
He looks like a kid who just got caught doing something wrong.
"I can't do much — I only know how to sort scrap."
"I don't want to drag you down."
I crouch in front of him and take his injured hand.
"You're not dragging me down."
"You're my dad."
We go back inside.
Mom cleans his wound.
Nobody talks for a while.
Then Dad suddenly pulls out an old metal box from under the bed.
It's rusty.
Inside are wrinkled bills and coins.
He pushes everything toward me.
"Scarlett, don't be scared."
"Your mom and I can still work. We can keep the business."
"And if we have to… we'll sell whatever we can."
"We'll help pay your debts."
I look at his bandaged hand.
Tears fall.
"I don't have any debt. I didn't scam anyone."
I hug them both.
"I swear."
Mom is crying too.
She nods over and over.
"We believe you."
"Even if everybody else says you're wrong…"
"We believe you."
第3章
A car suddenly screeches to a stop outside.
Mom grabs my sleeve.
"Scarlett…"
"Is it happening again?"
We walk out of the house.
Vivienne Bellamy is standing outside.
A group of Bellamy Enforcers is behind her.
They walk straight into the yard.
Dad immediately steps in front of us.
"You can't come in!"
"This is my home!"
Vivienne wrinkles her nose in disgust and laughs.
"I came for Scarlett Bellamy."
She pauses.
"Actually…"
"Scarlett Hayes now, right?"
"She owes eight Dons a fortune."
"She thinks hiding here means she doesn't have to pay?"
"Being your home doesn't make it off-limits to me."
Vivienne takes a few printed pages out of her bag.
Screenshots of my messages with the eight Dons.
"Look."
"You said all of this yourself."
I glance at them. Then laugh.
"You spliced those messages together."
"And now you're using that to accuse me?"
"Accuse you?"
Vivienne smiles.
"Scarlett."
"The whole underworld knows you owe the eight Dons money."
One of the Enforcers takes a step forward.
Dad tenses.
His hand is still wrapped in a bandage. But he stays in front of us.
"Nobody touches my daughter."
I grab his wrist.
"Dad. Relax."
Then I look at the Enforcers.
"This is private property."
"Whoever moves first better be ready to answer for it."
The Enforcers stop.
Vivienne laughs.
"You spent twenty years living in luxury with the Bellamy Family."
"And now you've been dumped back here."
"And you actually think you belong here now?"
Mom's face turns white.
Still, she speaks.
"This is her home. She belongs wherever we are."
Vivienne rolls her eyes.
"Of course you'd say that. You're her mother."
Then she looks at me again.
"Scarlett."
"Admit you lied to the eight Dons."
"Apologize to them in public."
"I can put in a good word for you."
I stare at her.
"You?"
"Who are you?"
"You're not a Don."
"You don't run any Family."
"You have a few edited messages and now you're collecting money for eight Dons?"
"Vivienne. You better hope they haven't figured this out yet."
A flicker of panic crosses her eyes.
Then it's gone.
She turns toward my parents.
"Starting today, Hayes Recycling Center is closed."
Dad's face goes blank with shock.
"What?"
I step forward.
"Our contract isn't over. They can't just shut us down."
Vivienne gives me a cold look.
"They can if the Bellamy Family tells them to."
"We only need to make one call."
"Then your parents won't have a place to stay."
She turns around. At the gate, she stops.
"Three o'clock."
"The Grand Bellmont Hotel."
"All of you come."
"You and your parents are going to kneel in front of the eight Dons and their Family representatives."
"Admit your mistake."
"If you do, I'll let them go easy on you."
Then she looks at me.
"If you don't show up…"
She smiles.
"You'll find out what happens."
She walks out.
A few minutes later, the landlord comes running over.
He slams a notice down on the table.
"Patrick."
"The Bellamy Family already talked to me."
"I can't rent this place to you anymore. Get your stuff out by tomorrow."
Mom starts shaking.
"No."
"No, no…"
"Then what are we supposed to do?"
"How are we supposed to live?"
"How are we supposed to take care of Scarlett?"
She grabs Dad and pulls him inside.
A few minutes later, they come back out with an old envelope.
I frown.
"Where are you going?"
Mom won't look at me.
"You stay here."
"Your dad and I will fix this."
They run outside.
I follow them.
By the time I get there, they're standing next to a black car.
Vivienne is in the back seat.
Two Enforcers are beside the car.
Mom and Dad walk over.
Then they kneel.
"No!"
I rush forward.
Two Enforcers block me.
Mom holds up the envelope.
Her voice shakes through the tears.
"Miss Vivienne…"
"This is all the money we have."
"Please."
"Take it. Just leave Scarlett alone."
Vivienne takes the envelope.
She opens it and looks inside.
Then laughs.
"That's it?"
"This is everything?"
She looks at the money again.
"This wouldn't even buy one tire on a Bellamy car."
"And you actually brought this to me?"
She drops the envelope.
It lands in the mud.
The bills spill everywhere.
Mom gasps.
Then throws herself into the mud to grab them.
Mud cakes her hands and soaks into her clothes.
I just stand there and stare.
It feels like something's crushing my chest.
If I had never come back into their lives, they would still be poor.
But at least they wouldn't have to suffer this.
Vivienne looks down at them.
"Three o'clock."
"The Grand Bellmont Hotel."
"You kneel in front of the eight Dons and their Family representatives."
Then she looks at me.
"Or your daughter goes into the Bellamy Family's private cell."
The car drives away.
I run over and pull my parents up.
"Why did you kneel?"
My voice is shaking.
"I told you."
"I don't owe them anything!"
Dad looks down.
He's still holding the dirty envelope.
"We can't take that risk."
"Scarlett…"
"Your mom and I don't have any pull."
"We don't know what else to do."
"We can't just stand there and let them take you."
I clench my fists. My nails dig into my palms.
I watch the car disappear.
"Okay."
"Three o'clock, we'll go."
I wipe the mud off Mom's face.
Then I look at both of them.
"But the ones who really need to apologize…"
"Won't be you."
