I was the girl no one looked at twice. Until they saw me.

My whole life, no one has had my back. My parents are dead, my adoptive mother is a drug addict, and the mean girls on campus mock me for my scars.

So when I end up desperate for money and out of options, I agree to sell the one thing I have left: my innocence.

On the night I’m meant to give my body to a brutal Russian mobster, three men storm into the room like dark shadows and kill him before he can claim me. When they drag me from the blood-soaked bed, I’m certain they’re going to kill me too.

They don’t… but they don’t forget about me, either.

These three dangerous brothers will do anything to make sure I keep my mouth shut about what I saw, even if it means stalking my every movement. I’m a loose thread to them—but somehow, I’m becoming more than that too.

I’m becoming an obsession.
A temptation.
A craving.

And no matter how much I try to deny the terrifying attraction that pulses between us, I know if I don’t find a way out of this tangled web soon…

Their darkness will swallow me up.

It has been a long time since I have read a book. Ordinarily I would be full of excuses as to why I haven’t read and be promising myself that I would read again soon. However, I have had a troubling few months. I finally left the workplace that made me redundant and started my new job – then I took a break to go on holiday to the English seaside with my parents. Reading has been the last thing on my mind and for once I haven’t felt guilty about the stack of tbr books staring at me in my flat. I’ve just been enjoying the change of pace and the move from toxicity to friendliness.

I managed to read this book on my holiday, a cosy afternoon with the dogs while my parents enjoyed an afternoon on a steam train. It’s been a long time since I have read a book by Eva Ashwood – I’ve been heavily consumed by Eva Chase as of late. This book is set within the same world as the Kings of Chaos series (which has become one of my all time favourite series). I knew this book would be intense, that the spicy interactions would be well written and consuming and I knew there would be a good plot to carry the reader through and I wasn’t disappointed.

The story follows Willow and the 3 men who become embroiled in her life. Of course, as with any Ashwood book, we have chapter POVs from Willow and the 3 men. We’ll start with Willow.

Unassuming, head down, fighting for a better future for herself. Willow is a person a lot of us can relate to. She doesn’t fit in with the normal crowd, she gets her fair share of bullying and jeering but she has a determination to study for her degree and create a better future for herself. She has a terrible mother and is covered in scars from an unknown previous incident. The 3 men find her in a compromising situation. She is down on her luck, her money has run out, she needs to pay rent and college tuition and she doesn’t know what to do. She works as a waitress in a strip club and asks her boss if she can strip. Predictably for the character set up, he declines, stating her scars as an ‘ugly’ reason not to put her on stage. But, he does have a deal for her. Certain people in the criminal underworld pay a lot of money for a virgin…

That’s right, dear Willow is a virgin and she is pure and innocent for most of the book. There is fire and resilience to her character though and a need to prove herself and beat herself out of her own comfort zone. She gets tangled up with the 3 men when they burst into the room of her and the John about to take her virginity and, well, you can guess.

The 3 men are, Malice, Ransom, and Victor (Vic).

Three men, three brothers, three monsters, three criminals.

Malice is the hard one, the one full of unrestrained anger and aggression. Everything he does is violent and testing the limits. He ‘goes hard or goes home’. He is tattooed everywhere, literally. He butts heads with Willow a lot, there is clear chemistry between them and it is hot and spicy but it is resigned to looks and small moments until it boils over. Malice sees himself as a monster, not a hero but I don’t think he was prepared for the wildfire of Willow to come into his life and turn it upside down. His character never wavers, he remains true to himself throughout this book but I did see some subtle changes in how he viewed Willow and how he acted around her.

Ransom is the ‘happy go lucky’ character of the trio. He is the youngest brother and as such, he has experienced less pain and hardship than his brothers but he still carries his own trauma and has a deep sense of loyalty to his brothers. He is the first of the three that Willow finds herself comfortable around. He makes her feel things that she hasn’t felt before and essentially starts her on the course to learning more of her sexuality and what she enjoys. Ransom is all chiseled looks and soft corners but while he is a man that Willow needs in her life, he is also his own character and has his own journey to explore.

Vic, is, in a word, broken. Of the three brothers, he had it the hardest growing up and this is revealed throughout the book. He has OCD. It’s not labelled in the book, but reading about how he handles himself both through his words and the thoughts of others shows this. I also have OCD myself, so I recognised the behaviour patterns. It’s clear to me that through the chaos of his upbringing, he clung to the one thing he could control and that is how the OCD first manifested. It’s grown since then, infiltrating every aspect of his life but it is clear that it calms him and brings back a sense of control that he once lost. Both Malice and Ransom let him have his ‘quirks’. They both understand they are a result of some very bad parenting and allow him to navigate his own life in a way that allows him to function. Vic is a silent man. But he is obsessive in his silence.

The ending was fairly obvious to me because there was a ‘high’ moment between all four characters a few chapters beforehand and knowing Ashwood, I knew there needed to be a drop for the plot to continue. I didn’t however, know how or where that drop would take me (or the characters). I think it fell very in line with the plot and the character development. I think Willow had found herself self-assured in the intense feelings between her and the 3 men and because she had come from such innocence, it put her in a very vulnerable position. I can absolutely understand why she reacted the way she did and I think there will be a tense conversation between the 4 of them once reunited.

The spicy side of things is present through the book, I’d give it a 3/5. It comes across as more intense because of Willow’s lack of experience in that department.

There is some much, criminally, going on in this book. Murders, chopping deals, mysterious jobs, the list goes on. I have many speculations as to who Mr X is. And I also have many speculations as to who is after, or targeting Willow.