Lexi Johnson | Author

The Shoebox

A missing scene from* Stay Brave — *Mak*ayla, sixteen, in the mail room of her Swiss boarding school, on the day the first letter arrived.

Mail call is at ten past four, after lessons and before chapel. I go every day. I don't know why I still go every day. The pigeonholes cover one whole wall of the mail room, floor to ceiling, little wooden mouths with brass numbers. Madame Brossard guards them from a desk by the radiator like they hold state secrets. For some girls, maybe they...

You’re about to step into the world of my newest Billionaire Mob Boss romance, A Bride for the Billionaire Mob Boss—and this is where it all begins.

Chapter 1 sets the hook: dangerous power, impossible attraction, and a decision that changes everything. Read it now and see for yourself why this story doesn’t ease you in—it pulls you under.

I’m sharing this first chapter free on my website so you can get a taste before you commit. If the tension, the chemistry, and the stakes pull you in (and...

"I had a good time tonight," she says, suddenly seeming shy.

"Just good?" I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn to face her fully. "Because I was thinking it was pretty incredible."

The space between us shrinks. I cup her face, my thumb brushing across her cheekbone. "Zoe..."

When I kiss her, it's gentle at first. A sweet goodnight kiss that should end here, should let her walk up to the house with her dignity intact. But then she moans against my mouth, and my legendary control slips and something in...

One desperate witness with nowhere left to run. One widowed Bratva king who should have eliminated her. And one little girl determined to keep them both.

Shantae Rose survived...

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

My mind would not stop. It circled back to the deposition the way a tongue returns to a cracked tooth. Kazan’s voice on the recording, flat and rapid. The name I had translated. Mercer’s pen moving across his notebook. The sedan on the street corner. Gerald’s voice on the phone. Yevgeni Kasan.

Can you develop a heart-throbbing crush on a man you’ve only seen once and never spoken to? Never actually met? My clit throbbed in response, and if my soaked panties...

Glossary of Foreign Language Terms

• Nadenka - diminutive/affectionate form of Nadia
• Zhenya - diminutive/affectionate form of Yevgeni
• Babushka - Grandmother
• Dedushka - Grandfather
• kotyónochek - kitten
• krasavitsa - beautiful
• Bozhe moy - Oh my God
• Ya v bede - I'm in trouble.
• Ya tebya lyublyu, durochka - I love you, little fool.
• Ya tebya tozhe - I love you too.
• Ya tebya lyublyu, Nadenka - I love you, Nadenka
• Дерьмо (Der'mo) – Shit
• Pakhan - Boss/head of a Bratva organization
• Bratva - Brotherhood...

A24 films feel like stories that crawl under your skin and stay there—and that is exactly the energy you can steal for your novel or ebook. These movies use techniques that work just as well on the page as they do on the screen, and once you start applying them, your fiction will feel deeper, tenser, and far more memorable.

The slow-burn trap

Most writers think tension means constant explosions: cliffhangers every chapter, twists every few pages. A24 flips that idea and builds dread like a...