He is mine. I don’t care how long it takes. I will have Malik Amin.

Sullivan Beauchamp

Some people call me a monster. A psychopath. As if I care what others think. So what if I relish in the mayhem of slaughter or enjoy feeling the life blink out of someone? I am who I am. It was Malik who eventually brought me to his home and trained me to hone my skills to work under him as an assassin. Malik Amin is my equal, and he will be mine in all ways as soon as I can chip away at his ridiculous and completely unnecessary self-loathing.

Malik Amin

Sully lost everything as a teenager on my order. When I found him covered in blood four years later, I should have put him down, knowing what he was. Instead, I took him in to train him. It works for us until he wants me more than as a mentor. I cannot allow it. But if Sully is anything, he is a master at persuasiveness and discovering my weaknesses.

Each book in this series will be read as a standalone, however, reading in order will add more pleasure to the reading experience.

REVIEW:

I love me a good dark story, so this one called to me. Definitely heed the trigger warnings on this.  Ms. Dixon explains how the timeline will play out so we already have an understanding of a number of aspects.

Basically, Malik is an assassin for hire that was involved in organizing a hit on 12 year old Sully’s father.  Against Malik’s orders, the assassin takes out Sully’s entire family thinking Sully was out as well.  Malk, seeking to clean up loose ends, finds he was still alive and decides to help keep Sully safe against those who wanted the initial hit on his father.

Unfortunately, the foster family Sully ends up with is not good and leads to a lot of Sully’s abuse and turmoil and also helps shape his destiny.  Events occur that require Malik to step in again, and this time, he takes Sully under his wing with plans to finish his education and to train and hone his skills.  There is a big age gap with these guys, but Sully immediately claims Malik as his.

There are deep issues where Malik is concerned that add to his resolve at keeping Sully at bay, and he holds him off for a very long time.  But, Sully is nothing if not persistent and his patience and pushing eventually pay off, although this takes place over years.

The other aspect to this is Sully’s psychopathy which was very interesting to learn about his feelings, or lack thereof, his own understanding of them, Malik’s understanding of them and the situation, and how they all play a factor into things.  Suffice to say, as Sully well knows, Malik is one of the only people who understands and gets Sully.

This story is gruesome at times.  There is quite a bit of blood involved, including the killing and torture of targets, how Sully acts with it all, as well as his and Malik’s “kinks”.  I loved the power dynamics and shifts as this story unfolded.  Ms. Dixon did a great job of creating extremely flawed characters and making them likeable and endearing.  I was engrossed and quickly turning pages not wanting to put it down. There is an additional free Valentine’s story that I had to jump right into and it didn’t disappoint either.  I’ll definitely be looking for more from this author.

As an aside, this story states it can be read on its own, and I agree with that.  The first story apparently takes place during the timeframe that exists within this story, and I’ll definitely be going back to read that one.

RATING: