Rating: 5 Stars

Publisher: Self-Published

Genre: Gay Romance/MM 

Tags: Mafia Family, Some Violence, Action, Murder/Mystery 

Length: 410 Kindle Pages

Reviewer: Karen

Purchase At: amazon, author’s page

Blurb:

The ultimate forbidden love: a Mafia Boss and his captive.

I’m a man without mercy. A Mafia heir.
Brutality was all that ever made sense to me…
Until I saw him.

Unfortunately, he happens to be the sole witness to my latest crime.
That should mean one thing.
Elimination.

But one look into those pleading blue eyes, and I lost myself.

I let a beauty live…
But – beast that I am – I’ve locked him away.

Little by little, he charms his way out of his cell and into my bed, until I begin to wonder which of us is the real prisoner.

After all, I’m the one trapped by my own brutal heart.

And that oh-so-innocent beauty I took and kept?

He has secrets of his own.

Secrets that could destroy me.

***

His Brutal Heart is the second book in the West Coast Mobsters series. Follow the men of the Los Angeles underworld in this page-turning romantic suspense series as they find love, danger and mystery in the most unexpected places.

Each book in this series tells the love story of a different couple who find their happy ending, as well as a resolution to the mystery they’re investigating, but there are cliffhangers to the wider suspense plot for the series.

Review:

I had trepidation going into this instalment of the Castellani Family because of Sandro. He’s such an odd bird and the way he’s treated Jack pissed me off. Sandro is now the new crime boss of the Castellani’s after his father dies. It’s not easy taking over what is essentially a poisoned chalice that Ciro Castellani left behind. Their own family is messy – two ex wives, both supposedly dead but as we find out Sandro’s mother, the first wife, is very much alive. There’s also two very different, and not especially close, half-brothers, Sandro and Julian. The Family business has been built off the back of divide and conquer within the ranks. 

Sandro now has to find out who killed his father. Because Julian was standing over the body, Sandro locks him in the house cells. There’s no closeness so it’s not hard for Sandro to do that. Julian is also pretty unhinged so it’s not a stretch to believe he killed his own father. Jack doesn’t believe it, though, and truth be told, with a bit of space to think, Sandro also doesn’t think it’s the way Julian would go about it. So who’s responsible? Heart attack is the official response to all and sundry so as not to cause more Family infighting, or to give other Families a leg up. While Sandro manages to keep things tight, the inner sanctum won’t ratify Sandro as the new Don. There’s no official ring kissing. They want answers as to who killed Ciro first. They want to know that Sandro can do that.

Teddy, the other MC, runs a site called Cute Crims. Readers of prior books know about Cute Crims since Angelo Messina and his boyfriend, Bax, visited the Castellani Family on behalf of Luca D’Amato, the Morelli Family boss. Cute Crims keeps tabs on all the Mafia men they think are hot. People pay good money to be a member of the site, it’s how Teddy makes a living. It’s a place members can disseminate updated info on the various Mafia goings on. Anything that is a bit of hot gossip or intel, new pictures of the various, predominantly cautious, Mafia men are highly valued. It’s how Teddy meets Sando. One of Cute Crims regulars DMs Teddy that Sandro – Teddy’s major obsession crush – is going to meet with members of PacSyn, and the whereabouts of the meeting. Teddy can be there and take pictures. Get some goss. Maybe get up close and personal. It doesn’t go well when Sandro discovers Teddy in a cupboard. His instinct is to kill Teddy because he thinks he’s either bait or a spy. But Teddy’s very attractive so, of course, Sandro defies his initial instinct and imprisons him near his brother under Redwood Manor, the Castellani home. Very romantic.  

From here there the investigation is ongoing about who killed Ciro. There are multiple suspect. It also l3qans into Sandro continuing to lean on Jack, despite not “trusting” him. lol.

Only this morning, I begged him to stay. I don’t want him here any more than Jacopo wants to be here, but I can’t trust anyone else in the Family right now.

There is also the LA Mafia world building. And I can’t forget about the spice. Sandro and Teddy are pretty hot together. Teddy, while cute and sweet, gets some decent intel for Sandro on more than one occasion, all thanks to Cute Crims. Sandro can tell himself that he keeps Teddy around for that reason, but he’s attracted to him. Even Julian knows Sandro has a type and that Teddy McCallum is it. However, there is always the moment when these Mafia MCs have a thought that they’re a’ bad man to be around.’ To which the other MC denies any such thing. They love them. I’m here for it because Greene does it so well.   

Both of the Castellani sons are problematic, Sandro is moody AF and shifts so hard with ideas that you get whiplash. He also gets pissed off pretty readily. Julian, again, he’s delightfully unpredictable and batshit crazy. He has an outwardly calm demeanour, and I love his humour, for the most part, but he has no fucks to give about killing someone. He doesn’t let morals get in the way of anything. Well, the exception is that blood and family seems (surprisingly) important to Julian. These guys all have a fucked up sense of honour. But Julian is next level.

“Sometimes you’ll need someone who is willing to put aside ethics. Put aside humanity. Jack certainly won’t, and we both know you’re hamstrung by your honor. I can be the dark thing that makes nightmares come true. And I’ll make sure you always have plausible deniability.”

It’s a touching brotherly moment. 😀

I was so glad that Jack and Miller are still going strong and both are littered throughout this book. Miller is a friend of Teddy’s. Teddy attends Miller’s house parties. Jack is Sandro’s go-to guy even though he has a ridiculous threat hanging over Jack’s head about something he did a while ago. Long story, but I am SO glad that the BS has been cleared up and that Jack is in the inner sanctum again because in spite of Sandro’s shit-on-liver, Jack has his back. Jack is reliable. Jack is transparent. Jack believes in the family, even though he isn’t related by blood to them. Even Julian knows Jack is reliable. 

Teddy and Sandro are like night and day, although Sandro loves a blond and Teddy is that. Teddy is also quite innocent and he’s a virgin, and doesn’t that crank Sandro’s chain. Sandro has a hang-up about the scar on his face but, ever the Sandro fanboy, Teddy loves every inch of Sandro, and I say that both metaphorically and literally. Teddy is a dampener on the moodiness of Sandro but Sandro takes a while to completely get past his inner turmoil. He has a hard time trusting anyone Teddy. I loved this MC combination. My entire thought process about Sandro did a 180 degree flip. I had no clue how Greene could make a book with Sandro as an MC work. She certainly works miracles. I was cheering for Sandro. It also helped that he saw the truth of the situation with Jack. That he also ended up working out just how much letting Teddy into his heart was important. A big step for him. I was glad that Teddy matured from being predominantly a fanboy to seeing the complex as well as the good about Sandro. It wasn’t just blind faith or purely obsession. 

Sandro’s mother, for all of her wanting Julian taken out, is an interesting character. I didn’t twig until it’s mentioned later who she is – we met her in Luca and Finch’s second book. Devoted to the Don.

The world is getting more involved. There’s plenty of Family goings on. I didn’t know for sure who had killed Ciro so that was interesting. There was a lot of pathos around it and I found myself getting (surprisingly) teary. Really good writing.

I’ve just started listening to the next book, Julian’s. It promises much. He really is something. I also listened to this book as well as reading it. What can I say that hasn’t been said before about Michael Ferraiuolo? He’s just awesome. Sandro spent a lot of his formative years in Italy so he has an Italian accent and MF did it justice. He stayed in character and accent throughout, whether voicing him or in his head. There are quite a few characters to voice and he’s uber reliable across the range. He remembers everyone’s voice and mannerisms. I thought this might be the book that went tits up for me but it ended up being such a good book. For His Brutal Desire, it’s 5 Stars!