Genre/Tags: Gay Mafia Romance

Author: Leighton Greene

Story Rating: 5 Stars

Narrator: Michael Ferraiuolo 

Narrator Rating: 5 Stars

Length: 11 hours and 18 minutes

Audiobook Buy Links: Audible, Leighton Greene

There’s nothing more lethal than a hitman in love.

When Castellani Family hitman Jack is ordered to find a missing Hollywood starlet, the last thing he expects is for his only lead to be the out-of-his-league guy who spent last night flirting with him.

Miller Beaumont is gorgeous, charming and looks at Jack like he’s the only person in the room. Jack was captivated from the moment their eyes met.

But Jack’s not built for love. Not after the sins he’s committed.

Yet as Jack works with Miller to find his sister, they get closer. And the closer they become, the more Jack drowns in Miller’s light—even as shadows gather to tear them apart.

Loving Miller could be Jack’s chance for salvation…or the final nail in his coffin. Jack knows the cost of failure, but for Miller, he’s ready to risk it all.

But as danger closes in, will their love become a lethal mistake?

Review: 

New York Families had construction; Vegas Families had the casinos. LA Families? We had The Biz.

I did not expect to love this book. I bought it off the back of the fantastic Clemenza Family series and the Morelli Family series. I’ve also DNF or been deeply dissatisfied with more than a few 2026 books and I’ve found Leighton Greene doesn’t let me down so I’m reading her back catalogue. I’ve gone from virtually no Mafia romance to a whole lot of them because of this author.  

Where the Morelli’s felt like a found family, and the Clemenza’s like their gritty cousins, the Castellani Family feel so messy. Ciro Castellani, the Don, and his two sons, Sandro, the insecure but perpetually moody eldest – man, he can hold a grudge – and Julian, Sandro’s half-brother, definitely unhinged – are nothing if not interesting. At this point none of it makes for a stable actual family or working Family. Ciro makes everyone suspicious of one another. The rot starts at the top of this Mafia Family and leeches its way down. Going to be some personality glow ups in these books.  

Jack first came to light in Angelo and Bax’s second book in the Morelli Family series, Vow of the Vigilante. I didn’t know how he would hold my attention like Luca or Teo or Nick did. Miller was a complete unknown and he was competing against some elite company like Luca’s husband, Finch, or Aiden or Carlo Bianci…. However, both Jack and Miller stepped right on up. I loved them. I was here for Miller’s initial flirting with Jack when Jack was collecting money at the Bear Trap, a club, on his rounds. He has no idea that Jack, or JJ as he nicknames him, is part of the Castellani Family. Even when he did know, he wasn’t stopping what he started.      

Jack tries really hard to not get involved with Miller but once he’s ordered by his boss, Ciro, to find Anais Beaumont, the missing daughter of a Hollywood mogul, it’s game on. Miller just happens to be Anais’s twin brother so they’re thrown back  together in the search for, as Miller calls her, Annie. Miller knows a lot about Hollywood. Has access to people Jack could never get close to without Miller, so Miller was in. Once this happened, Jack was always going to be a goner. Yes! It’s the West Coast Mafia’s time to gay up.

The romance was good. My god, I was so invested in this couple. Johnny ‘Jack’ Jacopo and Miller Beaumont. They just worked. Jack is the hitman with honour. However, he’s been relegated to a bagman with a bit of muscle by Don Castellani. He left Sonny Vegas’ team to join the Castellani’s after they gave him a kind of sanctuary. Basically the Don said ‘you’ll do whatever I tell you and I won’t kill you or send you back to Sonny Vegas.’ During his time with the Castellani’s, he became close with Sandro, the Don’s oldest son, until they had a falling out. Sandro vowing to kill Jack when he becomes the next Don. I don’t think much of Sandro for his reasoning and rigidity. Eyerolling bullshit – chewy on your boot, Sandro.

Miller’s missing sister has always been the golden child in their father’s eyes. Annie also made somewhat more of a career in acting. Miller was a child star but that career ended. He dabbles in art but mostly he dabbles in being a Hollywood party boy. Greene effortlessly makes Miller a sympathetic character. He could have come off as shallow but not at any stage did that occur. Jack is the standard ‘don’t get involved with me, I’m too dangerous’ MC, and he was. He made no excuses for enjoying being a hitman. For his loyalty to Family. But he loves Miller and we totally get to see that side of him. Miller sees that side. I mean, if there’s the ability to be an honourable hitman, for someone to actually see you that way, who better than someone who’s been in the middle of rarefied Hollywood entitlement.

Jack had honor. He was fair and he was kind, and he did things not because he wanted a reward, but because they were the right thing to do. It was a simple form of honor that I rarely came across in LA, and never in Hollywood.

I hope Jack and Miller feature throughout this series because I want more of them. The nickname Jack gives Miller is Trouble. Loved that. That’s a theme for the author but she never abuses or overuses nicknames. Never makes them cringe-y. 

The mystery is solid. I predicted beforehand something about the arc but that didn’t make anything less enjoyable. I loved being on the hustle with Jack and Miller. I could not stand Annie, even though she was missing. She’s the quintessential Mean Girl. So different to her twin brother. The book is very well paced. There are lighter and darker moments. Moments of action. Sexy times. Intrigue. The characters are multidimensional and I was cheering for them. I truly was surprised at how much I was into this book. I picked it up because I thought it would be solid to listen to of a night, and that was, but it was so much more than that.  

But we did need to find out what mess Anaïs Beaumont had gotten herself into. Because what I kept coming back to was the fact that Edgar Beaumont had gone to his friend in the Mob when his daughter had disappeared, instead of to the police.

The West Coast politicking and world is being steadily built by Green. She is very good at threading the spool and craftily stitching things together. She is absolutely brilliant at writing HIGHLY addictive characters that tug at your heart in some way. This story ends with a HFN for Jack and Miller with some threads still to be tied off in coming series books. A fair bit has happened within the pecking order by the end of this book and I’ve bought the next one. It’s Sandro and he is far, far removed from someone I like so this is going to be interesting. I am very keen on the chaos demon that is Julian, book #3.      

I listened and read this book at the same time with an emphasis on listening. Michael Ferraiuolo is just the bomb with his narration. I love this series even more because of his skill. I can’t recommend Green’s Mafia series highly enough. They’re the total entertainment package. For His Lethal Desire, it’s 5 Stars!