Fifteen-year-old Ainsley Myers doesn't look like someone who's afraid. She's quiet, loud when needed to be, flat, and sarcastic. The kind of girl who fills silence with humor and defiance, who keeps people laughing just far enough away that they never get too close. Where her twin sister Athena learned to move gently through the world, Ainsley learned to hit it first, using noise, wit, and distance as armor. Athena was protected. Ainsley was not. Athena grew up kind, soft-spoken, and trusting, never fully knowing the depth of what her sister endured, only sensing that something was wrong. Ainsley never told her. Not because she didn't love her, but because she didn't know how to explain it. Because the worst parts didn't feel explainable. Because silence felt safer than truth. When their current foster dad is arrested, everything they believe about their lives collapses. They weren't abandoned. They were stolen. Waiting for them is a family that never stopped searching: a father who left space at the table, brothers raised on stories and hope, and a home built on patience instead of punishment. For Athena, the return feels like a chance to finally breathe. For Ainsley, it feels like danger. Because sarcasm doesn't survive gentleness. Armor doesn't work in a house built on patience. And distance becomes impossible in a family that refuses to give up on you. As Athena begins to settle into safety, Ainsley resists closeness with jokes, walls, and emotional deflection. But the longer this family stays, the harder it becomes to pretend she doesn't care. The harder it becomes to keep fighting a world that no longer looks like a threat. Surrounded by people who don't demand, don't push, and don't leave, Ainsley must face the one truth she's spent her life outrunning: That maybe she doesn't have to be loud to be safe. That maybe she doesn't have to be sharp to survive. And that love doesn't have to hurt to be real.

"People think silence means there's nothing inside you. But silence is where I hide everything I can't survive saying out loud." Fourteen-year-old Aluna Amari has only ever trusted one person: her father, who raised her alone after her mother abandoned her. But when he's diagnosed with cancer, Aluna is forced to move in with the mother she hasn't spoken to in years. What she doesn't expect is that her mother is engaged to Andrei Petrov-a cold, feared Russian mafia boss-and that his home comes with six ruthless sons who see Aluna as nothing but an unwanted inconvenience. A silent little "freak" their father's fiancée brought into their world. Another thing about Aluna is that she is selectively mute, trapped in a house full of danger, secrets, and people who don't want her there. And as her father's medical bills pile up, she realizes she may be the only one who can save him. The only voice she has left... is music. Because hidden behind her silence is something no one expects: Aluna is a musical prodigy-and music is the only language that's ever made her feel alive. It's her escape. Her weapon. Her prayer. And in a world ruled by violence, power, and secrets... the quietest girl in the room may be the one who changes everything.

Solus - (adj) alone or by oneself Lainey, a fifteen-year-old who has only ever known her little sister and mom, is forced to move in with her older brothers.

Seventeen-year-old Valencia has been raising her younger siblings for as long as she can remember. With a mother lost to alcohol and reckless nights, Valencia is the one making meals, cleaning up messes, and shielding the kids from the worst of it. She's sharp-tongued, guarded, and mean to almost everyone except to the few people she dares to let close. Trouble clings to her: cigarettes on the porch, alcohol stolen from the cabinet, scars carved into her skin when the weight gets too heavy. And through it all, the fear lingers what if she's becoming just like her mom? Then the night comes. Her mother, drunk behind the wheel, crashes the car. She survives, but barely. The state steps in, and Valentina and her siblings are swept into the system. For the first time, the control Valencia fought so hard to keep is ripped away. That's when she learns the truth her father by blood the man she's never really known and his partner want to take her and the kids in. Suddenly there's a chance at stability, at something like a family. But can Valencia trust it? Will she clash with her siblings now that she's no longer the one in charge? Or is this the break she's been waiting for-the moment where something good finally begins to grow out of all the pain?

At seventeen, Hayden Keppner is already a master at lying, stealing, and pretending he doesn't care. But when he discovers the wealthy Rivers family have been hiding him his whole life, he decides to lie his way into their world through Dakota Rivers, the youngest son. The plan was supposed to be simple: get close, get money, and never get attached. But Hayden discovers more than he bargained for. What was supposed to be a con starts feeling dangerously real, and the deeper Hayden gets, the harder it is to keep his lies from cracking. Because losing control was never part of the plan. Neither was wanting to stay with them. This book is about family and belonging.

Part 1- Mafia Brothers √ Part 2- Mafia Dark Romance √ Ashley, a free spirited sixteen year old girl who ran away from her foster family two years ago, finds herself indulging with her real family. Her brothers. The Ivanos, a deadly mafia organization who rules a whole side of New york doesn't know they had a sister. Or did they? What happens when they take her in, not realizing the chaos they are taking in along with their sister. Will she ever agree to accept them as a family or ran away again. Not to mention, someone's eyes are already on Ashley either to destroy her or to make her his.

Luca's the loud one. Marco's the one who watches his back. Their whole lives, it's been just the two of them against their mother. Then she crashes her car, the state runs a DNA test, and suddenly they have five older brothers and a father who aren't supposed to exist.

One last chance...... That's what she told herself again and again, because if your own family doesn't love you... you start hating yourself. Pale skin, blond almost white hair.... people will instantly start questioning because she looks nothing like her family. First it started with family members, then her own parents and then her siblings. She's breaking and no one sees it. All she has is the voices in her head, the drugs and the pain of being abandoned by the very people who were supposed to love her no matter what.

At just a few months old, Myra was stolen in the dead of night; torn from her father, her brothers, and her twin. Escaping the orphanage, surviving the streets, and blind to the people that 'saved' her, Myra didn't just endure. Myra clawed her way out, and she burned everything in her wake to ashes. Seventeen years later, she's not just alive. She's powerful. Dangerous. Untouchable. Myra built her empire from the blood she's bled, the blood she's spilled, and secrets she'd kill to protect. It's not just her identity she's concealing - it's the cracks. She's back. But she's not the little sister they imagined. Can she keep everything hidden when a twist of fate drops her into the lap of her so-called family?