Rating: 4.5 Stars

Publisher: Cora Rose

Genre: Twisted Gay Erotic Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Dark, Mob/Mafia, On Page Graphic Violence (A lot), Romance, Series, Sex, Sex, and More Sex!

TW: Graphic on page violence and detailed descriptions of violence, including dismemberment. If anything makes you cringe as far as violence is concerned, Bane has probably done it, thought about doing it, or will do it. The only sexual violence is 100% consensual.

Length: 349 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

Some say I’m too soft and cuddly for a guy who wields bone saws and strings friendship necklaces with human eyeballs—but I just call that work-life balance.

And honestly, I love my job as the Costellos’ reaper.

Lately, though, my biggest problem isn’t the dismembered corpses, it’s something far more seductive. Georgiy Sokolov. He smells mouth-watering, like disinfectant and fancy aftershave. Plus, he comes with a stern promise to ruin me with surgical precision—and believe me, I will be begging him for it.

If only I could get him to return my texts…

But when a shadowy evil threatens my found family, and my nightmares stir up repressed memories that somehow feel connected, Georgiy and I will stop at nothing to protect what is ours.

Armed with my bloody handsaw and Georgiy’s dainty scalpel, we try to uncover the dark truths about the past that haunts me and the Death that stalks me. It’s all very romantic.

So if you’ve come to witness my final chapter…good luck, friend.

My name’s Bane. Say it while you still have your tongue.

Review –

This review has few spoilers from the first three books.

My reviews for the previous books –

The Silencer (#1), His Prince (#2), His Enforcer (#3)

Where do I even begin? His Reaper is Bane’s story. Bane, introduced in The Silencer (#1), works for mob boss Anthony Costello. You either love Bane or you hate him. Bane is one of those characters that you want to shake one minute and hug the next. With this being the 4th book in the series, there’s already been way too much a lot of Bane. Good Lord, he’ll drive you crazy. If you’ve read any of the books before this one, you know what I mean. If you haven’t, and you drink, I suggest having a shot or twelve first. 😉

Below is a quote from my review of His Enforcer (#3). It may have been Luca and Viktor’s story, but Bane was all over it.

Dear God, I don’t know if I can handle a full book of Bane. Just thinking about being inside his head… geez. He’d give my ADHD brain a serious work-out. Even so, I know I’ll read it because I’m heavily invested in this world now.

I wasn’t wrong. Being inside Bane’s head was just as warped as one would expect after seeing him in the other books.

I never understood why Bane got away with so much with Anthony. He was always messing with Tatum, Anthony’s man, and causing trouble whether he meant to or not. He never followed orders, and was always involved in situations that had nothing to do with him. He attempted to hook up with Tatum in the first book – in Anthony’s bed. This was his first meeting with Tatum, I think. Then there’s the fact that he’s horny ALL THE FREAKING TIME. Every single conversation involves sex. He masturbates almost constantly – anytime, anywhere, regardless of the setting or who is around. He walks around naked a lot, and if he’s not, his hand is down his pants. So many things had me shaking my head and wondering why the big and bad mob boss tolerated it. Bane even unintentionally played a part in Tatum getting kidnapped and seriously hurt in the first book.

Well, now I know.

Bane has an abnormal obsession with Georgiy, the ‘reaper’ for Mikhail, Angel’s man. The feeling and obsession is quite mutual. Georgiy basically has the same job that Bane has for Anthony – torturing bad guys for information – but he’s much neater and cleaner. Bane gets off on chopping off body parts and getting very bloody while doing it. He also makes jewelry with said body parts and gives the jewelry away as gifts. Georgiy is a neat freak, and is very precise in his torture methods. They met in His Prince (#2). How did they meet, you ask? Bane stood outside of Georgiy’s window and openly masturbated, making sure Georgiy could see him. This was after Bane stowed away in a vehicle that went to Mikhail and Angel’s place.

When he showed up like a stowaway in the back of a car and masturbated outside my window, directly onto my plants… I knew I was going to have a problem on my hands.

~

I sigh and think back to when I caught Bane outside my window, his dick out his pants around his thighs. The crazed look in his eyes as he stroked himself. I should’ve closed the blinds and shut him out, but I stood there and watched.

Did I mention that Bane is the most inappropriate human being on the planet when it came to all things sex? Hell, when it comes to anything.

Georgiy doesn’t like to be touched. Bane only wants to be touched. The two of them together was… odd. The entire book has them going back and forth, with Georgiy being in control while Bane follows him around like a puppy. Georgiy’s control also involves a kidnapping and a trademarked butt tattoo.

Yes, really.

They eventually come together as a couple, and that was nice in an unhinged and twisted kind of way. Well, as nice as any type of relationship including Bane could be. There was SO much sex, talking about sex, and being downright inappropriate about sex. Even so, I did eventually start to feel them as a couple outside of the sex stuff… kind of. In my opinion, the romance/mutual obsession wasn’t even the real story. The real story was the story of Bane’s childhood and how he came to work for the Costellos. It’s about his horrific childhood and how he was able to escape it, though I felt like that was overshadowed by Bane’s perviness. I found myself feeling sorry for him a few times. Even more interesting was that Bane and Georgiy were connected in ways I didn’t see coming. That was a nice surprise, though it should’ve clicked for me when Georgiy’s former profession came out.

The series up until now has been about bad guys and linked organizations trying to take down Anthony Costello and his mafia empire. People are being murdered with a specific drug and being left in places that make it look like Anthony and his people are responsible. They’ve been trying to find Henry, one of the bad guys, since the first book, I think? He’s connected to it all, but he’s not the only one. It’s the main bad guy who turned the story on its head. I didn’t see that coming either.

Anthony is in this a lot, which I loved. The Silencer is one of my favorite books, and he’s one of my all-time favorite fictional characters. What I didn’t love was how Georgiy treated him a couple of times. What happened to the bad-ass mob boss who killed without a second thought? Who cares that Georgiy works for his son’s (Angel’s) husband, and that he’s with Bane? None of Georgiy’s behavior endeared me to him in any way. That didn’t change even a little bit the more I read. I ended the book still salty over how he treated Anthony. He’s one of those characters who is easy to hate, even if he supposedly makes good later.

Bane has severe mental issues, and I’m not just saying that, nor am I making light of mental health issues. He’s seriously twisted, psychotic, and unhinged. There’s nothing sane about this guy. Even when his past came out, certain things were hinted at but not quite explained. One of those things is his obsession and pure giddiness of cutting up and torturing people. Doing so, to him, was as easy as breathing. He seriously got off on it. Yes, he had a horrific childhood, and I now know what brought him to Anthony. I get that, but I don’t get where some of the other stuff comes from.

Anthony is going to pay to renovate the far room into a nice seating area, where my guests can wait for me to take them apart. I’m the best host. I really should be on the next Good Housekeeping cover.

Some new characters were introduced, who I’m sure will get their own stories. One couple is Jax, one of Anthony’s bodyguards, and Kit, a Craigslist assassin who works for Georgiy. You’d have to read the book to understand the Craigslist thing. It was funny. The two of them together was cute.

“This is Kit. He rescued me today. He’s a Craigslist assassin.”

Others who I’m assuming will get their own stories are Teddy and Jake, Casey, and a few others. Teddy is Tatum’s mute bodyguard, and Jake is a deaf gardener. Casey is Angel’s longtime bodyguard.

Oh it’s Jake. I like him. He’s very cute and takes care of Angel’s garden.

I bet he jacks off into dirt piles and grows cum trees.

A lot of this book, including the ending, is downright ridiculous and silly. It’s expected if you’ve read the others in the series. If not, you’d be rolling your eyes a lot. There’s nothing even remotely realistic in any of the books, so you have to really suspend belief before you even start them.

I need to stress that His Reaper can NOT be read as a standalone. I don’t know if it’s listed as it can be anywhere, but it most definitely can’t. You have to know the stories leading up to it, and you’ll have to know Bane, for any of it to make sense. Even then, it probably won’t. 🙂 There’s nothing about Bane that makes sense.

He’s now flapping his dick around, like a helicopter, and I move inside, watching as he stutters and lets his eyes track over my body, his pupils blown.

“What are you doing with your dick?” I ask.

“Getting some wind,” he replies.

“It’s not a propeller. Stop that.” I slap his hand, and in turn, his dick, and he gasps, his cock growing erect.

“Oh, do that again. Slap my helicopter dick.”

At one point Bane and Georgiy travel to Alabama for information regarding Bane’s past. I live in Alabama, born and raised, and I know how some (not all) authors love to make us all look stupid. Thankfully, the author didn’t do that, though I do question the ‘there’s a large Russian population in Alabama’. I don’t know if around 6,500 Russian residents out of 5.16 million is a large population, but I do find it to be interesting. I had no idea. And, yes, I Googled it.

I loved seeing Anthony, Tatum, Angel, Casey, Teddy, and the others, including Agatha, who works for Anthony. She’s the type of mother slash grandmother anybody would love to have. Seeing Anthony’s softer side was sweet, especially considering how Anthony threatened to cut off Bane’s body parts in the first book because he wouldn’t leave Tatum alone.

I’m still not a fan of Luca, but I do love his man, Viktor.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. Bane has more or less been the comic relief of the series, so I admit that it surprised me a few times when I found myself getting misty-eyed. A little bit of Bane goes a LONG way, but I am happy to see him find the answers from his childhood and his own – albeit warped – HEA.

4.5 stars instead of less because it helped me to somewhat understand some of Bane’s behavior. It’s also because of Anthony and some of the others. I’m curious to see where the author will go from here now that the main mystery has been solved. I’m going to guess another series, as connecting series seems to be her norm.