The Party Princess and the Thug

Thorne McKelvie has meticulously and ruthlessly worked his way up through the ranks of criminal organisation the Hangmen, a group that doesn’t shy away from human trafficking in sweat shops, drug or arms smuggling. The leader of the Hangmen is suspicious of Thorne, however, and worried that he is gunning for his spot next, taking over the whole organisation. So after a series of unexpected attacks on the gang’s and their allies’ warehouses, he sees an opportunity to have Thorne framed and removed as a threat. Thorne needs to prove that he’s not responsible for the raids, and to do so, he needs to search the mansion of his former employer, and face the only woman he ever had feelings for.

Nadia Volkov used to be known as “the Party Princess”, obliviously spending her father’s money and partying with his many henchmen and bodyguards, without really caring what her father actually did for a living or where the money fuelling her extravagant lifestyle came from. Two years ago, she had an affair with Thorne, her father’s most dangerous henchman, which ended when he cruelly cast her aside. When Thorne unexpectedly turns up at the house where Nadia is living with her sister, one of her father’s former bodyguards, and her young son, she’s terrified that Thorne will discover he’s a father and that their child will be in danger once his crew mates realise that there is a toddler that can be used as leverage against him. She also hopes Thorne doesn’t discover that she, along with some hired goons, are responsible for the warehouse raids he’s investigating. After her father’s death, she was appalled when she discovered what he’d been responsible for. Having discovered that her mother is probably alive, in one of the sweatshops now run by the gangs who divided her father’s assets after his death, she’s systematically raiding each one, freeing the enslaved women in order to locate and liberate her mother.

Thorne believes that Nadia just used him for sex, having overheard and misunderstood a conversation where Nadia discussed him with her sister and offered to “share”. Filled with self-loathing and with no illusions about his ruthlessness and inability to feel any sort of softer feelings since his sister was brutally killed when they were teenagers and swore revenge, Thorne and Nadia’s former relationship was an extended role play on “the princess and the thug”. Nadia actually had feelings for Thorne though, and was uncomfortable with the dirty names he wanted her to call him. She never had second thoughts about keeping his child when discovering she was pregnant. When they reunite, the sparks fly once more, but can they have any sort of future, with Nadia responsible for the crimes Thorne is being accused of? He needs to locate and present the individuals responsible to his boss, or be killed.

Full review here.