There is a photograph. First birthday. The whole family around the long table - candles lit, cake centred, everyone leaning toward Isabella reaching for the flame, everyone laughing, everyone looking at the same thing. At the edge of the frame, barely in it, a small dark-haired girl in a white dress is looking at the candle. Not at her family. Not at her sister. Not at the camera. Just at the candle. Quiet. Still. Already, at one year old, watching the warmth from a slight distance. Nobody remembers who took the photograph. It was never framed. Never put in an album. Found years later in a box in the study, loose, slightly creased, as though it had simply been waiting. Her name is Serena Marchetti. The second twin. Born eleven minutes after her sister into a room already arranged around someone else - and she stayed that way, at the edge of things, for as long as the Marchettis of Milan would let her. This is not the story they would tell about her. This is hers.

•𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫, 𝐀𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐚 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐨 𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐱, 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐣𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐨𝐫-𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐝• Once their everything, her life became a tormenting shadow, opposite her twin Ilaria's fairytale. Now, against her deepest will, fate forces her back to her nightmare's origin. She aims to finish quickly and leave, but destiny, with its knack for irony, throws her into the path of those she longed to forget, unaware of their secret yearning. The comforting proverb says time heals, but does it truly? Will she relive her horrors or face a different truth? Prepare to be captivated by Alessandra's journey of resilience and the past's power. Witness secrets unravel and the dance of pain and redemption. For within lies the answer to how, •𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐮𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐢𝐥𝐬 𝐚 '𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧' 𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐟𝐞𝐥𝐭, 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐝, 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐲𝐚𝐥.•

Seven years ago, Mafia Don Antonio Duarte's wife left their home in Italy with their baby daughter, leaving Antonio alone with his four sons. Antonio was heartbroken to lose his baby daughter and spared no expense in trying to find his ex-wife and his baby girl. Anastasia has grown up with her mother and her mother's husband, Gerald. She's been the victim of their abuse for as long as she can remember and doesn't understand why her Mommy would make her come and live with this man. But her Mommy also says that Ana's daddy doesn't love her. Because she's a girl. Because he is an evil and dangerous man. Ana hasn't spoken a word since meeting and moving in with Mommy's new husband when she was three years old. Gerald doesn't want to hear from her at all, so she doesn't speak. Anywhere. To anyone. Ana just hopes to make it through each day. When a social worker and two police officers come to collect Ana from school, she learns that both her mommy and Gerald have been killed. Across the ocean, Antonio Duarte learns of the death of his ex-wife at the hands of his associates. He learns that his baby daughter is in the care of Social Services until a more permanent solution can be found. Antonio is going to get his daughter back. However, he has no idea how broken his daughter is. His sons don't know how to treat or communicate with their baby sister when she returns home. And poor Ana doesn't know who she can trust anymore.

Raised to be holy. Born into something far more dangerous. Seventeen year old, Evienne Ellery spent her life preparing for heaven. Sent away to a secluded boarding school in the Swiss Alps by distant, unfeeling adoptive parents, she was raised by nuns and priests to be obedient, submissive and small. Behind stone chapels and cold classrooms, Evienne learned early that love was conditional, punishment was holy, and suffering was something to be endured quietly Her future was simple: be good, be faithful, and one day do her duty-marry a man who would secure her family's interests. Her life was planned. Controlled. Perfect. Until it wasn't. When everything she knows collapses, Evienne is torn from the only world she has ever known and sent to live with her biological family-six brothers who are loud, vulgar, violent, and unapologetically criminal. They don't pray. They don't obey. And they certainly don't believe in God the way she was taught. They believe in blood. With them, she learns the truth of who she really is: The lost princess of one of the most powerful mafia families in the world. Her brothers have been searching for her for years, and now that they've found her, they refuse to lose her again. In their world of power, crime, and betrayals, Evienne learns that love doesn't always look gentle-and protection often comes with a body count. But as old family feuds resurface, enemies close in, and the past she was hidden from begins to reach for her, Evienne is forced to confront an impossible question: What happens when the people you love will never be welcome in heaven-and you're no longer sure you want to go without them?

She wasn't the one they took home. But she was the one they lost. One mistake. Two lives. And a truth that was never meant to be found.

12 year old Julie has learned that silence is safer than words. After a tragedy leaves her alone, injured, and grieving, Julie is sent across the world to live with seven half-brothers she never knew existed. Their home is grand, powerful, and unfamiliar - filled with people who want to protect her, even if some of them do not know how to love her gently yet. But Julie carries more than the loss of her mother. Behind her quiet eyes are secrets she swore she would never tell, memories she cannot outrun, and a heart that has learned to survive by hiding. As her brothers try to reach the little sister they never knew they had, Julie must decide whether silence will keep protecting her - or if family can become the first place where she no longer has to disappear.

Don Marcello Salvatore does not do mercy. He does not do soft. He has never, in his entire ruthless life, done children. Then his men find a three year old girl sitting alone in a Naples warehouse at two in the morning, no name, no parents, no explanation for how she got there. Just dark curls, steady eyes, and one small hand held out, waiting for someone to take it. He takes it. Six brothers. Three uncles. A house full of cousins, allies, one Spanish mafia capo who falls just as hard as everyone else, and exactly zero people prepared for what one tiny girl is about to do to all of them. Investigator Giulia Ferraro arrives looking for answers nobody in this family has. She finds a little girl already wrapped completely around the coldest men in Italy, and a mystery that goes back further than anyone wants to admit. Some families are built by blood. This one is about to be rebuilt by a three year old who chose them first.

Aurora has spent her entire life on a small farm in Montana, helping her grandfather harvest peas, lentils and wheat and learning the value of hard work, perseverance and loyalty. But when her grandfather can no longer care for her, he goes to the extreme and calls her father - a very powerful man who hasn't the slightest idea that he even has a daughter. Now Aurora must move to a city filled with luxury, privilege, and hidden rivalries, where she has to find her place among her new half-brothers she never knew she had. Facing a world so different from the one she's always known, Aurora must navigate intense expectations, complex family dynamics, and her own place in a life she never imagined. How will she handle this new reality, and can she find her own strength along the way?

"Nowhere is safe, you know?" Foster homes, orphanages, replacement homes, you name it, Georgia Monroe has never fit in anywhere. From a young age, she has only known that running away and constantly losing track of those that are supposed to care for her, is a way of survival. A way to escape. She hardly knows her real name, as people are constantly trying to change it, whilst all she wants to do is fit in. It's like she knows that she has a real family out there, no matter how many times people try to tell her that they either didn't want her, before explaining all the reasons why no one would want her, or that they all died, and she will never know them. For years, Georgia has tried to decipher the difference between words thrown at her in rage and due to alcohol, but as the years go by, it is harder to see the difference. It's harder not to believe the words. The words of her family not wanting her and that they may be dead, probably as a result of her sake. All she wants, is a pair of safe arms that will take the stress of her shoulders, for a little while. Only, she doesn't know how great of a deal she is asking of those that are her family. She will never understand the depth of the work that her real family has been intertwined, and maybe not living with them, has kept her alive. Has made her a stronger person than she would have been if she had grown up with them from the beginning. Georgia, though it may feel like to her, isn't the only one that has suffered. Though her brothers home may be idealistic and fit for a king and queen in her eyes, it is far from it. Behind all the luxury and money spilling from the walls, it hadn't been like that their entire lives. It wasn't easy to attain such wealth without risking a few lives here and there, including Georgia's, their sister. __________________________________________________________________ Started: 11.10.21 Finished: 21.08.22 Rewritten: 17.08.25 -

A 13 year old girl had to go through so much at just a young age. She had to see the true and dark side of the world at a time when she should be safe and happy, that too by her own mother who was supposed to protect her. She had to worry about when she would get her next food to eat, when these painkillers would do their work when the children of her age were thinking about what to wear, hang out with friends and vacation with family. Was it so wrong that she just wanted an escape?? A place to call home and a family to call hers. Meet 𝔸𝕣𝕚𝕒 , A girl who had been abused by her mother ever since her father died when she was a year old or atleast that's what she was told. She soon finds the courage to leave her house behind and run away. She is taken in by her best friend's family and has to learn to adjust to her new, dramatic and overbearing brothers and newfound family. Do they grow on her, accept her or push her away and lose her?? Join her in this story as she finds the true meaning of family, friendship, love, care and safety. What is the actual truth about her past and what made her mother make her life a living hell.....?? 𝑅𝐸𝐴𝐷 𝑇𝑂 𝐹𝐼𝑁𝐷 𝑂𝑈𝑇 ....***** Started: 9/1/2024 Status: ongoing