Rating: 4 Stars

Publisher: Self Published 

Genre: Dark Contemporary Romance 

Tags: Morally Ambiguous MMC, Good Girl with Bad Guy. Serialised Story. TW: Attempted Suicide by Secondary Character, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, Human Trafficking Theme, and more 

Length: 131 Kindle Pages

Reviewer: Kazza

Purchase At: amazon

Blurb:

*Please be aware that this is a Dark Romance novel and deals with serious themes, including violence and murder*

This story is the first part in a series, each approx. 30-40k words in length.

Sloane

I’m not proud of the things I’ve done.
The things I’ve had to do.
The things I’ve given away.
but I’d give it all over again to find her.

Even if I die trying,
I have to find Alexis.

Zeth

She wants me to help her,
But I won’t.
She wants me to save her sister,
But I can’t.
She wants me to be her hero,
But I’m not a good man.

I am her damnation.

Review:

I’ve discovered I like this author. Callie Hart isn’t afraid to put her foot down around morally grey to morally bankrupt characters. That would be the MMC. And she’s paired him with a young woman, Sloane, who is originally a fifth year resident doctor, full of conventional promise, and worry. She’s been looking for her younger sister, Lexi, for three years and is willing to do anything to get information about her, even use a dubious PI who tells her she’ll get info about her sister if she has sex with a guy in a motel room. It’s all organised. Well, that’s one way to do it, I suppose. The experience is intense. All she really knows about the man who fucked her in a darkened room is he has scars, he made her feel them, and a distinct gravelly voice, and he has a kink. But as it happens she hated loved it.

“Place your hands in your lap,” he tells me.
I do it. I jump a little when I feel his hand reach out and touch my leg. “Scared?”
“No.”
He laughs, and it’s a cruel and wicked thing.

He comes back into her life two years later. She’s now a fully-fledged doctor, working in Emergency. He’s brought in a young woman who has tried to commit suicide, and she’s done a heck of a job of it. This sends up triggers, flares, fireworks. He tells her – menaces her – to make sure the female he dropped off isn’t, under any circumstances, sectioned. I’m not totally sure about America’s mental health system but here, good luck with that. 

Sloane gets enough details from “Carrie” – the name that dark, dangerous and detestable desirable gives her for the young woman – to know she doesn’t want to give away information to a shrink. That could be bad for her – not just for mental health reasons but for life and limb reasons. She also gets a name for the man who fucked her two years ago, Zeph. She didn’t originally get anything from Eli as he was dead when she went back there. Zeph has to know more. It’s worth it for Sloane to keep connected to Zeph to try to get any new information on Lexi, but Zeph is not an easy man to pin down. He’s an enforcer for an even more dangerous man.

Charlie isn’t exactly a lenient man, but he only brings out his most expensive toys for his most expensive problems. Miss a payment on a loan? Charlie sends Sam out to relieve you of a few fingernails. Lose a shipment of coke with the equivalent street value of a five-bedroom house and you get a visit from me. 

This all leads to a connection between the good girl who wants her sister back, if it’s at all possible, and a bad guy who now can’t get Sloane out of his head. Doesn’t mean he’ll play nice though. He knows how to bring the naughty girl to the surface. He doesn’t like the direction his boss is heading in either and if he can find some details on Lexi, which seems to tie into his boss, then that’s an added bonus.  

In this book there is voyeurism, knife play, autoerotic asphyxiation, and, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe I did that but I liked it… but I shouldn’t like it sex.’ 

I kind of hate him, but his larger-than-life presence, his magnetism, the way he looks at me like he’s already inside me…he slays me.

Yes, there’s plenty of sex in these pages but it’s balanced alongside an interesting story. Where is Lexi? Who is Zeph? I didn’t realise this was a serialised story when I went in but I’m invested enough to have bought book #2, Fracture. 

This dark novella will suit people who like a domination kink. An alpha male who plays his games but is also invested and possessive about the FMC and don’t mind that it’s part of a serial. I’ve already brought Fracture, novella #2.