Before We Were Free

Luna has spent nineteen years living inside a gilded cage. As the daughter of one of the most feared mafia lords, every smile, every dress, every step she takes belongs to someone else. Her escape plan is simple: survive an arranged marriage to her childhood best friend, then disappear forever. But two days before the wedding, she's kidnapped. Her captor, Sandro, is everything she was taught to fear—cold, ruthless, and nearly a decade older than her. The entire underworld bows before him, yet he seems completely indifferent to the girl he stole. Unlike every victim before her, Luna refuses to accept her fate. She lies. She argues. She bites. She escapes. She turns Sandro's perfectly ordered life into absolute chaos. What begins as a kidnapping soon becomes something neither of them expected. Secrets unravel, old enemies resurface, and the lines between prison and freedom begin to blur. Then, when Sandro finally does the one thing no one else ever has... He lets her go. But sometimes freedom changes people. And sometimes, by the time you become the person you've always wanted to be, the one who broke your world is the only one willing to rebuild it, if you'll let him. A dark mafia romance about freedom, redemption, and a heroine who refuses to let any man decide who she becomes.

When Alex takes a high-paying job under the notoriously controlling CEO, Rowan Vale, they know the environment will be intensebut nothing prepares them for the psychological grip Rowan holds over every employee. Rules are absolute. Loyalty is demanded. Escape is impossible. Alex quickly becomes a target of Rowan’s attention, pulled into a dangerous dynamic where power is constantly tested and boundaries are deliberately broken. What begins as manipulation turns into a volatile push-and-pull, charged with tension neither of them can ignore. But beneath Rowan’s cold dominance lies something fractured something eerily familiar to Alex. As secrets unravel, Alex discovers that Rowan is just as trapped as everyone else, bound by expectations, past trauma, and a system they didn’t create but now control. Their connection deepens into something raw and consuming, forcing both of them to confront their own cages emotional, psychological, and physical. Together, they begin to push against the walls that confine them, but freedom comes at a price. Because breaking out might mean destroying everything Rowan has built… and risking the fragile bond forming between them. In the end, they must choose: remain prisoners of their pasts or burn the entire system down to finally be free.

THIS STORY CONTAINS EXPLICIT SEX SCENES. READER DISCRETION ADVISED. I Was Never Yours is an emotional romance story about love, power, and emotional survival in a world where affection can feel like control. Amara once believed in love with her whole heart. She believed in promises made under soft lights, in quiet conversations that felt like forever, and in a future she thought was guaranteed by a man who made her feel deeply chosen, until he didn’t. Julian is a man shaped by control, success, and emotional distance. To him, vulnerability is weakness, and love is something he can manage rather than surrender to. Years ago, Amara and Julian shared something intense but undefined, a relationship built on emotional closeness without public labels or clear promises. It was passionate, quiet, and dangerously addictive in its secrecy. Then Julian walked away without explanation. Not with betrayal. Not with arguments. Just silence. Years later, fate forces them back into each other’s world when Amara becomes an employee in his powerful company. But time has changed everything. The girl who once waited quietly is gone. In her place stands a woman who understands emotional survival, boundaries, and self-worth. Now the power has shifted. Julian wants her back, not just as a lover, but as someone he can emotionally possess again. He begins careful, strategic moves to stay close to her, protect her, and slowly pull her back into his emotional orbit. But Amara has learned something dangerous from heartbreak. She can love him… but she refuses to belong to him. As emotions resurface, both must confront healing, obsession, pride, and the question of whether love is about holding on or choosing each other again every day.

People in our circle told the same joke at every gathering. "Jason's wife can't give him children, so she sends women to his bed every day. I wish the hag at my house had that kind of sense." They had no idea that my mother-in-law, Kate, was the one who had found those women and used my name to send them in. The first time, Jason Gibson threw the woman out and had a terrible fight with me. Afterward, he spent over ten million dollars on jewelry to make it up to me at the auction house. The second time it happened, he had barely touched her hand when he threw up. Then, he fought with me again. Afterward, he bought an estate and told me I would be the only woman by his side. - That was until the tenth woman. This time, he shut the bedroom door and did not come out all night. We stopped fighting. We stopped speaking. Everyone thought I would do anything to secure my place in the Gibson family and hang on to them for the rest of my life. But when I finally took out the divorce agreement, no one believed it. Not even Jason himself.

When Isla Bennett lost her parents at ten, the Callahans gave her a home and Noah Callahan gave her a reason to stay. For eight years, they’ve been inseparable, an "anchor and ship" navigating life side-by-side. But senior year is changing math. As Noah’s perfect relationship cracks, he’s forced to admit a devastating truth: every girl he’s ever dated was just a substitute for the one he can’t afford to lose. Now, as Isla prepares to leave for Chicago, they must decide if their lifelong bond is worth protecting, or if the love they’ve denied for years is worth risking the only family they have left. Because sometimes the hardest person to fall for is the one who already feels like home.

Soon after I came back to the country, someone slapped me right across the face in broad daylight, yelling that I was a mistress. A crowd of reporters closed in, pelting me with questions about whether Chandler Armstrong, CEO of Armstrong Industries, was keeping me as his mistress. I was stunned speechless for a moment, but then I pulled out my wedding photo with Chandler from seven years ago and held it up. "What are you talking about? I'm his wife!" The crowd went silent, and the woman who'd slapped me turned white as a sheet. Only then did I finally get it: while I'd been overseas, Chandler had been openly involved with an actress, and everyone in his social circle had already decided she was the future Mrs. Armstrong. Today, they all came expecting to confront a mistress—only to find out that I was actually his wife. Later, Chandler tried to justify it. "Alina, you've been out of the country for years. I'm a man, and I have needs. She's just a B-list actress; it's not like she threatens your position. Why should you be upset? Just let it go," he said. "Don't make a scene." I handed him the divorce papers. "You make me sick."