Reviewed by Anna Lynn

 

TITLE: Proof

SERIES: Targes Executive Protection Book 1

AUTHOR: Sloane Kennedy

PUBLISHER:  Self-Published

LENGTH:  409 pages

RELEASE DATE: October 26, 2024

BLURB:

One night, one bullet, two lives changed forever.

Cass
A legal technicality might be the reason I’m out of prison after serving only two years of what should have been multiple life sentences, but all I care about now is finding the man who put me behind bars in the first place. JJ Ferguson needs to see firsthand what his lies have turned me into.

Two years ago, JJ and I should have been talking about how we’d break it to his older brother that not only was JJ gay but he was also dating me, the guy who’d been his brother’s best friend since childhood.

Our lives had changed that night, just not in the way they should have. I saw JJ fall when the bullet tore through his brain, and I begged him to stay with me as his blood stained my shirt and ran down my arms. My own life ended the moment his did.

I’d been sitting in jail when my piece-of-crap public defense attorney had told me of JJ’s survival. I’d waited for days, then weeks for JJ to tell the cops the truth about that night, even if was still from his hospital bed. Dreams of being reunited with him and being at his side for every step of his recovery had made the nights easier, but waking up every morning and seeing the iron bars that stood between me and freedom had been a unique form of torture.

That was two years ago.

JJ hadn’t come for me. No one had. There’d been no alibi or admission that I hadn’t shot him and murdered three innocent people. The coward never showed, not for my farce of a trial, not for the guilty verdicts, not even for the reading of my sentence.

It doesn’t matter what got me out of prison. All that matters now is teaching JJ what he taught me so well…

The true meaning of suffering.

JJ
Cassius “Cass” Ashby is a free man.

Apparently, two years behind bars is the going rate for murdering three innocent people and attempting to take the life of an LAPD officer. I’m that officer and Cass, a guy who’d been more a part of my family than his own, is the one who put a bullet through my head and left me to die.

Everyone calls me a “medical miracle” because I survived the shooting. If they only knew the things I’m doing with my so-called second chance at life. I spend my days trying to prove to my older brother that I’m back to normal by working for his executive protection company as a bodyguard to the stars.

Nights, though, those are all mine, and I never waste them because they’re my only escape from my “God-given” second chance at life.

Now Cass is out and he’s coming for me. I can feel it in my bones.

I’m looking forward to it. I might have crushed hard on him as a teenager and maybe those feelings had intensified over the years every time the former Marine had come home to visit, but a bullet to the brain makes those feelings go away fast.

When Cass finally does come, he’ll be expecting a naive, complacent, terrified man who’ll beg for his life. There will be begging, but I’m not the one who’s going to be doing it. The second Cass and I finally do meet face to face, he’s going to learn that the tables have turned.

This time, I’m the one who will be doing the hunting and by the time I’m done with my prey, he’ll wish he was still safely cowering behind bars because all the wealth, power, and influence that comes with the Ashby name won’t save him.

Nothing will.

REVIEW:

A long-awaited new series from Ms. Sloane Kennedy, the amazing writer of The Protectors series. Proof is the first book in Targes Executive Protection Series. The Targes Executive Protection agency is owned by the older brother of JJ Ferguson who is one of our main character in this first book. JJ was a Los Angeles Police Officer until that fateful night two years prior that changed his life forever.

Cassius “Cass” Ashby was Sully’s best friend, JJ’s older brother. Cass found his family with Sully, JJ and their father. His own wealthy family never really cared for him like a family should so when he found the Ferguson’s he never let them go. Up until that day two years before that change his life forever.

Two years after he was put in prison, Cass is out due to a technicality and he wants to confront JJ who never refuted what he was accused of, who never defended and stood out for him. He never shot those three people and he would never harm JJ, he was in love with him and they were starting a relationship at that time.

When the confrontation did happen, it only brought up more questions rather than answers. JJ was not convinced at first that Cass was not guilty. But through all these, Sully was the adamant one who says that Cass never did those things. That there was something off about all that happened. That Cass was only used to carry out those crimes, he was not the shooter. It was carried out to blame him.

Cass has a very dysfunctional family. A grandmother who controls everything, although it might not look so at first. A father who was never around, although looks can be deceiving as well.

When things come to a head, what Cass found out was that things really were not as it seemed. Family secrets started unraveling and he and JJ started realizing that the person they thought capable of doing all these things was not that person at all but rather someone that Cass trusted and who he believed loved him, the only person who loved him, or so he thought.

This first book is amazing, it is different from The Protectors series but it holds its own in this beautiful genre. Congratulations Ms. Sloane Kennedy, you are an amazing writer and I cannot wait for the next book in the series!

 

RATING:

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