Rating: 4 Stars

Publisher: Wayward Press, LLC

Genre: Dark Gay Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Dark, Blood/Knife Play, Mafia, On Page Torture and Violence, Series, Sex Trafficking

Length: 385 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi 

Purchase At: Amazon

TW: See above tags.

Blurb –

River Laskin is a lot of things. Mortician. Sociopath. The kind of man who buries problems — and the people who cause them.

When he walks into a dive bar and sees a bruised, collared redhead being passed around like property, he doesn’t call the cops. He makes an offer. When the offer’s refused, he makes it permanent.

Theo has survived things he can’t name and a man he only knows as Master. He should be terrified of the stranger who just killed a man in a parking lot and told him you belong to me now. But River’s hands don’t hurt. His house is warm. And his family — a retired serial killer mother, a mafia-connected father, and a house full of brothers who are each dangerous in their own right — treat Theo like he matters.

The problem is Theo’s old life isn’t done with him. And River’s version of protection leaves bodies.

Body Count is book one in the Wayward Sons series — a dark MM romance featuring a family of killers, a revenge arc with a sky-high body count, and the kind of devotion that’s either love or a life sentence. High Spice. HEA guaranteed. No cliffhangers.

Review –

“When I wake up in the middle of the night, I want to feel you next to me. I want to be the one to hold you when you cry and when you laugh. I want to wash your back, and taste your skin, and still be the only one to make you come.”

River goes to a dive bar, not even sure of why he’s there. It clicks when he sees a cute redhead near the pool table with a couple of other guys. The man is wearing a collar, has visible bruises, and it’s pretty obvious that he’s not there by choice. River offers to ‘buy’ him from the main guy. Of course, that’s a big no, so what does River do? He takes him anyway. That’s River. He wants something, he takes it. He doesn’t wait around for permission.

We stared at each other from across the bar, and the itch under my skin went quiet for the first time all night. There you are.

Are you why I’m here, little finch?

Theo has been trafficked his entire life by a man known only as Master, so when River shows up and takes him, he’s not sure if he’s being rescued or being taken to another type of prison. All he knows is what he’s done for Master.

“Are you going to run away from me, Theo? Because if you run, I’ll have to chase you, and if I chase you, I will catch you.”

River is a sociopathic killer, and he’s not ashamed of it. He was adopted as a child after his bio mom died of a heroin overdose. Annie and Uri (and Tatty) took him in and raised him, teaching him what to do with his rage.

I put ‘and Tatty’ in parentheses because the relationships in that family are unconventional. Annie and Tatty are a couple. Uri and Tatty’s husband are a couple. It’s a polyamory relationship, though it was only really mentioned a couple of times, with not a lot on page about it.

River also has a strange obsession with mushrooms. Mushrooms make me gag, so all that kind of went over my head.

Then there are the brothers. First, the triplets – Xavier, Xander, and Xion. Xion is in an institution, only on page for a little while. Xion’s story is a couple of books after this one, I think. I’m not sure if I’ll read it because of something regarding a pet in the past. I can read and watch about serial killers all day long, but if a pet is injured or worse, I’m out. There’s also Warrick, a plastic surgeon, and Shepherd, a psychiatrist. They’re all killers with their own psychological issues.

Calling River obsessed is a major understatement. He makes it clear to Theo from the start that Theo belongs to him now, and there’s no escaping him. Theo is understandably scared, but what can be worse than what he went through with Master?

“You do realize, River, that most people don’t consider murder a romantic gesture?” War asked.

“Most people are boring.” Someone hurt what was mine. I killed them. How was that not romantic?

River may have been obsessed, but he was very patient with Theo regarding sex. Nothing was forced (until later, but it was consensual), and it didn’t happen until Theo wanted it to happen. He may have been a killer who could inflict horrific torture without emotion, and he may have made it clear that Theo would never be able to leave him, but he never forced anything sexual. He allowed Theo to come to him when he was ready. Once he did, they did it a lot, with the majority of it not exactly being vanilla. River got off on pain, so it got pretty rough a few times.

Through it all, they’re trying to find Master and anyone connected to him that may have harmed Theo and others. This is done with the help of River’s family, connected to both the Russian and Greek mafia. They come together to take down the trafficking operation. Neither side was innocent by any means, but they did work together on this.

The violence in this book is quite graphic, including detailed torture on page. The brothers also don’t exactly have a loving and brotherly relationship like most series involving brothers I’ve read.

As for Theo, he broke my heart in a lot of ways. He never had any type of education, so he couldn’t read or write. All he knew was sexual violence. Theo always knew what would happen with Master. He was like a fish out of water away from him. It was really sad.

Strangely, I liked River. He made it clear who and what he was from the very beginning. Granted, Theo wasn’t exactly given a choice when it came to being with him, and like I said, it was like Theo went from one type of prison to another. Even so, genuine feelings came into play for both men, though River had a hard time with it. He knew obsession. He knew rough sex. He knew killing. He didn’t know love or if he was even capable of feeling it.

He was my killer. Not a killer who happened to have me, but my killer, the way other people had dogs or lovers or gods they prayed to. River killed for me. He’d keep killing for me. And I didn’t want him to stop.

There were a couple of sad moments, as well as some sweet ones. There was some confusion as far as who was who with the Russians and the Greeks, but not so confusing I didn’t understand what was happening.

I wouldn’t call this a happy book by any means, but I wouldn’t call it overly sad or too dark either. Theo and River were an odd couple, but strangely, they worked.

It’s set in Ohio. I just spent several months there.

I liked the family for the most part, though Warrick was a bit of an ass. His book, Skin Deep, is 2nd in the series. Xion’s is 3rd, Vicious Cycle. The 4th book, Body and Soul, Shepherd’s story, is the one I’m most eager to read, but it’s 649 (!!!!) pages. Why is it 649 pages????? That’s the equivalent of two long books or three relatively short ones. It took me longer than normal to get through Body Count‘s 385 pages. I can’t imagine a book keeping me interested for over 600. Not sure if I’ll be committing to it.

“Why do you love me?”

“Just ‘cause,” he said, shrugging. “You get me, and even I don’t get me. Plus, you’ve got a big dick and you know how to use it. You’re like some sort of… sexy psycho killer wizard with a big dick.”

I snorted, holding back a laugh.

“Technically, I’m a sociopath, not a psychopath.”

“Whatever you say, dick wizard.”

Till Death

There’s a link to a short story, Till Death, at the end of the book. I read it after typing this review, not knowing that as soon as it got to the good part that the reader would be sent to the author’s Patreon for the rest of it. Had I known it would stop like that, I wouldn’t have wasted my time reading it. I won’t be signing up for a Patreon for an author I’ve read exactly one time just to see Theo deal with one of the men who’d hurt him in the past. I did sign up for the newsletter, though I’ll likely be unsubscribing now. This makes me not want to continue with this author at all. I’d downloaded a few of their other books, but I’m rethinking them now.

I’ve gone back to the end of Body Count to see if maybe I missed where the author said it would continue on Patreon. It says, “Read the bonus epilogue here when you sign up for my newsletter.” Nowhere does it say Patreon.

I’m all about authors promoting themselves and their work, even with Patreon. What I’m not all about is not being told going in.

4 stars for Body Count.

0 for Till Death.