Beautiful Scars by Ariana Black
My rating: 5 of 5 stars.
Kill
She is a means to an end.
Half my size and and ten times as innocent.
The job is simple. Ruin Meisie. Destroy her mother. Keep my business.
It’s the target who is complicated.
She’s broken. Scarred. Away with the fairies.
And everything I never knew I needed.
She wants to go home?
I’ll make sure she never leaves.
Meisie
He’s a nightmare parading as a dream.
He lured me in with the promise of a one-night-mistake.
If only I could have stayed that naive.
Cillian Hendry is a dangerous man, and I’d do my best to never forget that.
So why have I told him my darkest secrets?
Why am I walking down an aisle towards him?
I thought being abducted by the man they call Kill was a death sentence.
Turns out I’m wrong. Loving him will kill me.
And he’ll be there, like always, to twist the knife.
Beautiful Scars is a dark captive romance with mafia themes. This book is intended for mature audiences only as some scenes may be triggering.
Beautiful Scars
Gangster captive romance with a twin!
I started reading this book and thought It all sounded very familiar. I later found out out Esme Devlin and Logan Fox combined and are now known as Ariana Black. This book “Beautiful Scars” has two parts and the first half of the book, I read as “Fearless” by Esme Devlin and Logan Fox. The second half of this book was to be the second book in that series, so technically this contains two books and the Story of Cillian (sounds like Kill-ian), and Meisie are complete in this one book.
I had rated the book Fearless as five stars and I am keeping that rating for this book because the second half of the story was every bit as good as the first. I thought the character development was terrific, including the main couple and several supporting characters, including Cillian’s twin brother Cole and his girlfriend Sarah.
Cillian and his brother Cole are modern day gangsters. They run a high profile nightclub and are drugs and arms dealers. The brothers had a bad childhood with an abusive father. Cole is the idea guy and Cillian is the muscle. Cillian thinks that something happened in the womb and Cole got all of the emotions for both of them and Cillian got none. He feels no empathy and is somewhat numb. He can kill without feeling anything at all.
The brothers live in Scotland where the First Minister is soon to vote on a bill to legalize drugs. The entire community of drug dealers is worried about this because they feel they will be put out of business if that happens. So Cole comes up with a plan for Cillian to catfish the First Minister’s daughter and take some compromising photos to use as blackmail. Cillian kidnaps Meisie, the daughter of the Minister. However, the First Minister is smart and she cuts off their plan before it takes flight.
Cillian keeps Meisie locked up in his basement while they try another plan against the Minister. Meisie is damaged from something that happened in her past and suffers from PTSD, but is a feisty girl who ends up making Cillian feel things he never felt before and takes away the numb feeling he has lived with for so long.
The romance between the two is super hot and steamy and I liked the fact that Cillian is described as this huge guy (6’6” and built) while Meisie is a tiny woman (5’1” and thin). Cillian is in his early thirties while Meisie is in her early 20’s. The world building and descriptions of the people are fantastic and add quite a bit to the story. There were also several storylines and all were extremely interesting as well as exciting.
Cole is a drug addict and throughout the story he becomes more and more unhinged. Cole is not seen as the criminal that Cillian is, since Cillian basically does all the dirty work and runs the illegal businesses. However, Cole is not about rape, murder, beating women, and killing children. I don’t understand how he is going to be the Hero in the next book. Though I have a feeling he will be a completely changed individual. I can’t wait to find out.
I voluntarily read & reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts & opinions are my own.
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