Reviewed by True
TITLE: Festive Fugitive
SERIES: Murder and Mistletoe #3
AUTHOR: K.A. Merikan
PUBLISHER: Acerbi & Villani Ltd.
LENGTH: 249 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 2, 2025
BLURB:
I didn’t expect my Christmas gift to be six-foot-two, a trained killer, and obsessed with me.
Eli
One bullet. One dead man. And now my wreck of a life is spiraling out of control.
The bastard deserved it, but I’m just a regular guy. I botched the escape, and since I killed him while wearing a Santa costume, they call me the Festive Fugitive. Cute. Too bad I’ll be spending Christmas behind bars or in a body bag.
Then he appears. Cesar.
My dark salvation. A trained killer who looks at me as if I’m his personal miracle. I killed his boss, yet he says I did him a favor. He wants to protect me, claim me, cage me in his arms, and God help me… I let him.
Because what’s falling for a monster when there’s a manhunt hot on my tail and a target on my back?
Cesar
Taken as a child, I was turned into a loyal weapon. I killed, tortured, burned, and bled. I was respected and needed. Until I wasn’t.
When I lost an eye, my master pushed me aside, but as I waited for my ‘one last job’ so I could retire, Eli pulled the trigger.
I never expected some half-starved, grief-drunk civilian in a Santa outfit to free me, but that’s what happened.
Eli is everything I am not—fragile, impulsive, untrained. And yet he killed the man I was bound to. He doesn’t know it, but he owns me now.
He thinks I’m his protector, that I’ve taken him under my wing. But it’s more than that.
He’s mine. My obsession. My purpose. My beautiful, reckless mess of a man, and I’ll burn the world before I let anyone take him from me.
I guess Christmas came early for Eli this year.
REVIEW:
Cesar was given away as a child to erase a gambling debt, and given to a mobster, Arthur Sullivan.
A cruel man who trained Cesar and made him a killing machine and Sullivan’s personal bodyguard.
One day, Cesar lost one of his eyes. It was the reason he was set aside by Sullivan, no longer needed, but not free, never free!
For Cesar, at thirty-three, it’s time to have a life of his own. But the man won’t let him go.
At Sullivan’s Christmas party, an unexpected gift was given to Cesar. His freedom. Not by Sullivan, noooo, but by an unknown man who shot and killed Sullivan.
Cesar could have killed the assassin, but he didn’t, he wants to thank him.
Eli is twenty-five, and did something he never did before, he killed a man, not just a man, but Arthur Sullivan, the man who ruined his and his family’s life. He escaped from the Christmas party without being caught, he ran for his life.
He isn’t aware that Cesar is the reason he wasn’t caught.
“I’m gonna fill him with so much of my DNA we’re gonna fucking merge.”
Cesar was indoctrinated, conditioned, put on a leash, he lived only to obey.
With Sullivan gone, Cesar is drifting. In Eli, he finds his compass and purpose again.
Together on the run with a strong attraction, Eli ends up under the rough and tough Cesar.
Cesar has a rough exterior but there’s so much more under all those layers.
Eli is head over heels in love with his savior.
It was awesome to watch these men, to get to know them better. A lot is going on.
The journey to a happily ever after is tough but thank goodness they made it.
It was a wonderful story, strongly written, captivating, it has hurt comfort, many sexy encounters, and sweetness! Be aware there are some trigger warnings.
RATING: 
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