Rating: 5 Stars

Publisher: Self-Published

Genre: Gay Romance/MM 

Tags: Significant Age Gap, Age Play, Kink, Big/Little, Violence, Kidnapping, Captive, Power Imbalance

Length: 509 Pages

Reviewer: Karen

Purchase At: author’s Instagram, amazon 

Blurb:

Kamden Blake has spent nineteen years surviving. Surviving an abusive mother. Surviving the revolving door of violent men she’s brought home. Surviving a childhood where being soft, femme, or different came with bruises instead of love. The only thing he’s ever wanted is to escape—to leave home, become a fashion designer, and finally build a life that’s his own. Instead, he witnesses a murder.

Adrien Delmonte has never failed an assignment. He takes pride in his success rate as a fixer. Until he discovers the witness is Kamden Blake—the son of the best friend who died beside him years ago, leaving Adrien with one final request.

“Take care of my boy.”

Adrien already failed that promise once, and he refuses to fail it again. So instead of killing Kamden, he takes him, hides him away. What starts as a desperate act of survival slowly becomes something far more dangerous—a bond built on comfort, devotion, and the kind of unconditional care neither of them ever believed they deserved.

Because some promises are worth killing for.

Don’t You Cry is a dark MM second-chance age play romance featuring a morally gray fixer Daddy, an abused little learning to trust, forced proximity, hurt/comfort, protective obsession, “touch him and die” energy, and a guaranteed HEA.

Review: 

A weak person would have broken years ago. Kamden didn’t. He adapted.

I read Hush, Little Baby before this and I liked it. I wasn’t sure if I was going to read another big/little age play book but I bought Don’t You Cry because I love the cleverness of the titles. The meshing of the lyrics of the lullaby juxtaposed against the pure grit of the stories. Especially this one. This one has extra grit. It’s also fleshed out more. I like these monochromatic covers the author uses. They suit the story. 

Don’t You Cry starts with a prologue set in 2015. Adrien Delmonte is a SEAL who’s been deployed for a while to Iraq along with his best friend, John Bake. They’re scoping out a compound from another building when there is an explosion in their building. John is dying and Adrien is severely injured. John asks Adrien to take care of his eight-year-old son. This was going to be John’s last deployment because he was certain that his estranged wife wasn’t taking good care of Kamden. He’d planned to challenge for full custody but his death changed everyone’s life. 

His fingers tighten once before loosening one by one. “Take… care… of my… boy.”
“I swear I will.”

After the prologue, Kamden’s life is front and centre in Don’t You Cry for a while. It’s shitty and on full display for over 20%. His mother has had a string of equally shitty boyfriends who also haven’t cared about her son. In spite of this Kamden is soft and gentle and likes fashion and creating pretty things. He’s recently received a scholarship to study design. This doesn’t sit well on his mother or her current boyfriend, Wade. He decides he’s going to make a man out of Kamden and takes him on a drug run with him. Cause nothing says real man like running drugs. Wade ends up dead because he’s been skimming from organised crime. Yeah, not smart, Wade. Buh-bye. The issue is that Kamden saw Wade’s brains blown out. Obviously this new set of circumstances freaks him the hell out. He tries hard to act like nothing’s changed after he makes it back home. Thankfully, because Wade has never been a paragon of virtue, his mother believes he’s off with another woman. And Kamden still goes to his job at the local supermarket, like every other day, but now everything makes him jumpy. He’s an understandable mess. He alphabetises soup on the shelf to try to block out the image of a dead Wade. He constantly looks for dark sedans, because that’s the car the killer was driving. He tries to be around people when he’s going to and from transport to his work. Still, his mother manages to make things so much worse because, again, she’s a shitty human.  

I’ve tried, for nineteen years.
Be quieter.
Be more useful.
Don’t cross your legs like that.
Don’t move your hands when you talk.
Don’t wear anything soft or pretty.
Don’t look at the women’s section when someone is watching.
Don’t cry, because crying never helps anything.

Eleven years have passed since Iraq. Adrien is now the Greco Family fixer, and he’s very efficient at what he does. He doesn’t just kill people, he makes their trail completely disappear as well. He cleans up anything Mathias Greco wants cleaned up. The SEALS gave him a skillset for this job. When his boss hands him the details about a drug run that went bad, and asks Adrien to fix it because there’s a loose thread, the moment he recognises the now nineteen-year-old Kamden in the CCTV still, he knows he’s not going to kill him. He’s not going to let John down this time. As the story progresses, he’s not going to let Kamden down either, you may or may not see this as a good thing – definitely check the author’s warnings – I, on the other hand, was here for it all. Hey, I love me some possessive, obsessive, morally grey, unhinged, stalkerish fictional characters. 

The man’s voice gentles. “It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you.” 
Liar.
Everyone says things like that right before they hurt you. 

Kamden knows nothing about Adrien because he was so young when his father died. He was trying to survive an abusive household further layered for him because of significant attachment issues. But Adrien knows Kamden quite well. He knows that he liked being called Princess Kammie by his dad, always delivered in a loving and supportive way. That he (still) has a stuffed rabbit John bought for him. That John didn’t have good things to say about Sherry. The now forty-one-year-old feels a lot of guilt that he didn’t do what John asked him to – look after Kamden. It’s not especially his fault. In real life he would never get custody of Kamden. But this is fiction so it adds to the storytelling. Adrien sustained significant injuries, he wears a prosthetic limb because he lost part of his arm. He had trauma to contend with and he had to get his life in some sort of order. He tried once, but he let the idea of Kamden go. Until now.

Now, Adrien has a reason to track Kamden. He goes into his house and plants recording devices. His boss is asking if the problem is dealt with. Time’s a ticking. He has to make a move. So, Adrien drugnaps Kamden in a dark alley on his way home from work. I mean, he scares the shit out of an already frightened teenager. He then zip ties him to a bed at his isolated safe house and sets about making Kamden his. He does eventually graduate to fuzzy padded and pink handcuffs. At first Kamden feels scared. Then increasingly unsure. Then safer with the older Adrien. Adrien likes littles. He likes being the Daddy. He apparently visits a club with his boss and the bosses brother, Quillan. Adrien believes if he can make Kamden his little, his boy, Mathias will come around and allow him to keep Kamden because they understand the dominance in that. Just go with the flow, people. Adrien is also pretty certain that Mathias knows he’s kept Kamden.

Mathias goes quiet.
“What?” I ask.
“You tell me.”
“Nothing to tell.”
“Adrien.”
I lean my head back against the couch. “What?”
“You handled the witness.”
“Yes,” I answer shortly, voice flat.

As I’m typing I’m aware that this is a quite literal interpretation of the plot. It’s a lot more nuanced than that. Adrien does things for Kamden in his morally grey way. He definitely makes him feel cared for because no one has ever put the time into Kamden after his father died. Even then, John had limited time at home before his death. Because Adrien and John were so close, bit by bit he makes sure Kamden hears about his biological father. He also buys him playthings. Pretty things. He helps Kamden with his sexual awakening. Kamden absolutely enjoys being a good boy for Daddy. Adrien makes sure that Princess Kammie is allowed to be seen. That what Kamden likes – dresses, lacy panties, nail polish, glitter, crayons, is all AOK, and no one will ever tell Kamden anything different again. Adrien buys more and more things that he likes and hopes Kamden will take to as well. He believes Kamden is submissive, but will he like being a little? Eventually Adrien pulls out pacifiers and nappies and sippy cups which he hopes Kamden will enjoy, but he’ll take having a ‘good boy’ if he isn’t a little. Kamden was always going to drop into being a little because he has someone looking over him and after him for the first time in forever. Still, Kamden takes a bit more time to ease into some things.    

The fact that I am already mentally budgeting for the future of a boy I kidnapped approximately three minutes ago should concern me more than it does.

The way E Baileu wrote this book is very much within a couple of bubbles. In the beginning, Kamden’s life exists within a double bind. He has to conform to his abusive mother and her boyfriend’s control where he can never be right. His backstory is already fleshed out for over 20% of the book, but we learn more as Kamden opens up to Adrien. Then this book becomes very much centred around a safehouse and the MCs developing a captor/captive relationship, then a kind of dominant/submissive role. From here then they delve into a big/little relationship within the bubble of that safehouse – mostly within a couple of rooms – and it’s riveting. This book is over 500 pages and I flew through it because it was addictive. 

Don’t You Cry is a full blown age play book with a twenty-one-year age gap – 40 to 19. Again, attachment issues abound at the core of the story. There is a distinct power imbalance. It’s meant to be morally grey. It doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t. You certainly need to understand that going in. If any of that bothers you, don’t go any further.

There is dark content. Some graphic violence. Payback. There is emotional (discussions of physical, not sexual) abuse by a parent, and her boyfriends, on her child. 

Adrien is extremely possessive to the point of not wanting anyone to have touched Kamden previously – newsflash, he’s a virgin. The story does nothing to disavow you of that notion, of that “touch him and die” energy mentioned in the blurb. It’s absolutely that vibe, but on steroids. Energy level p o s s e s s i o n. 

There’s the kink. The whole Daddy activated mode. Where the big/little things take shape – like Kamden being able to wear nail polish because Adrien makes it okay after Kamden has been shown it’s dangerous during his childhood. Adrien lets Kamden paint his nails first. I wrote in my Kindle notes while reading –  Good on you, Adrien. You may be a murderous fixer who 2 days ago drugged and kidnapped your dead besties 19 year old son, but you’re an awesome Daddy. Pfft. Nothing wrong with me. The story progresses delightfully from my note to self.

“You really are a little, aren’t you?” he says, voice low and warm. “I take off the cuffs, and you think I don’t want to keep you anymore.”

This book hits unhinged moments, the devil’s in the details for me. The little things the author uses in their sentences that make you think, ‘Oooh… the implications of that sentence.’ 

“You take this, princess, you’ll show me you’re ready for my cock.”
I swallow. My throat is dry. I nod, because I want to impress him, want to be so good he never even thinks about getting rid of me. “I’m ready, Daddy.”

And..

Daddy has a two-bedroom bungalow, and he says the empty second bedroom will be my room. More like my playroom instead of a bedroom, though, because I’ll get to sleep in Daddy’s bed with him every night.

I will add that there is growth for Kamden. I was glad to see him develop some sass and humour as well. That he can show that side of himself now. There is a happy ending and the author makes it soft(er). Still possessive, but softer. That’s part of the delicious juxtaposition, after all.  

Overall: 

I am a bona fide fan of this series. I’ve gone from no big/little books to two. Both by Baileu. I love that the author pushes the boundaries more with this second book in the Bedtimes Stories for Broken Boys series. It gives you depth behind the MCs. More backstory and connection is built. This is one of my favourite books of 2026. I don’t know what’s next but there are two other characters in this book who are looking for their possessive, obsessive time to shine with a found little, or maybe something/someone else. I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out. For Don’t You Cry, it’s 5 Stars!    

There are crayons on the coffee table now, a half-finished drawing on the kitchen island, and Rabbit—real creative name, I know, but also, I’d shank a bitch for saying that to my sweet angel’s face—appears in rooms Rabbit has never technically been invited into…