The Smuggler by Leslie Georgeson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
She wants the bounty on my head. I want one night with no limits. Can we reach an agreement that will benefit us both?
The Smuggler
Ever since my discharge, I’ve felt useless.
Fighting and killing were my life. What I did best.
But they cast me aside like a bag of trash. Condemned me to die.
Now I am just a dreg.
I no longer have purpose. My mind is withering. Action is what I need. Violence. War. I thrive in chaos, my talents honed on its edge.
Then a gorgeous redhead tricks me. Takes me as her captive. Now I am chained like a beast with no way out. She has dared to take on the Smuggler. One slip and I will escape and make her pay. There will be utter carnage.
But suddenly, I am freed. And the tables have turned. Now she’s my prisoner, compelled to do my bidding. The challenge in her eyes calls to me. A fever rushing in my veins.
I can’t lose this battle. I won’t let her win. I will show her what the Smuggler can do.
Because losing means she’s taken something I don’t want to admit I ever had.
A heart.
Awesomely dark and broody Hero!
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💚🖤❤️💜🩵
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍
Character development: ☹️☺️😊😍
The Hero: Antonio – he was kidnapped as a young child, by a crazy general who was trying to create a team of super soldiers. The general and the other people that worked for “The Company”, experimented on the boys to create The Dregs, a new breed of soldier. The boys were kept prisoner in cells with only their cell mate to talk to. The ones that survived, developer supernatural abilities and a deep bond with their cell mate. Tony and Nate became best friends and leaned on each other through the worst times. They have since escaped captivity and live in a maze deep below a crumbling mansion on a Georgia plantation. The Company is still searching for them, and they have some gangs after them as well, wanting to use their abilities for their own advantage and to get back at them for what happened in the earlier books.
“Though my past had been erased with memory-suppressing drugs, my subconscious knew I’d never been the recipient of any type of kindness in my life. Violence and brutality were all I knew. No one had ever loved me. No one had ever cared.”
“All the experiments I’d undergone, all the painful injections of numerous drugs and animal DNA had turned me into something unique.
I was now The Smuggler.
I could disappear. Literally. I could become invisible for short periods of time. And I could escape from nearly any situation. My joints were more flexible than the other boys’. I was like a contortionist, though slightly different. And no locked door could keep me out. If I wanted on the other side, I simply imagined myself there, and used my energy to get me there. I was a true magician. Without the tricks.”
“Nate accepted me just as I was. He became the brother I never had. The best friend who soon knew all my secrets.
Well, except for one.
I could see ghosts. I could talk to dead things. And they talked back.”
The heroine: Grace – she was an Irish cop in Eatonton Georgia. Since the gang wars began in Augusta, her town had developed a bit of a prostitution problem, so she had been out on the streets posing as a prostitute and arresting Johns. Grace also did some bounty hunting on the side, so she was used to going up against men that were larger than her. She often used Rohypnol to incapacitate them so she could handcuff them and bring them in without a fuss. After her shift of undercover work, she was at a local Irish pub drowning her sorrows and thinking about her two foster girls that had disappeared days ago. She feared the Flesh King had them. He was a gang leader in Augusta who made his money from human trafficking.
The story: One night when Tony was feeling out of sorts, and Nate was busy with his girl Alissa, two of the other Dregs, Luke and Ryan, are going out to a local bar to pick up some women. They suggest that Tony come along since he obviously needs to relieve some stress, and it has been a long time since he was with a woman. He goes with them and immediately sees Grace sitting at the bar. He propositions her and is surprised that she wants to take him to her place for some fun. However, the fun turns into him being drugged and tied to her bed.
One thing I love about these books is the deep bond the guys share with their cell mates. Nate and Antonio were such opposites, but they really care about each other and want the best for each other. I read the first three books in this series a while ago and though I gave them five stars each, I couldn’t wait to read Antonio’s book because he was such a dark and tortured character. Though I did give it some time between books because sometimes when reading a series like this, you just need a break to go on to lighter stuff for a while.
I loved how Tony is so broody, and you can see why since he talks to ghosts that nobody else can see, add that to some PTSD and the fact that he just recently found out that his mother never wanted him. He is such a sexy character though, so you can’t help but love his darkness. The fact that one of his superpowers was the ability to become invisible, was pretty amazing as well.
I wasn’t as fond of Grace though. I like women with inner strength, often women who seem weaker at first but show a lot of grit and determination through the story. But Grace was a bit too much for me. Not only was she a cop and a bounty hunter, but she liked to be in charge in the bedroom and she kept fighting for what she wanted even when it didn’t make sense. Like when her two foster daughter were missing and most likely in the hands of a sex trafficker, where they could get raped or even sold at any second. Grace spent literally hours waiting around because she couldn’t get her way over something that shouldn’t have mattered given the situation. But overall, the stories and action in these books are so good that it just overwhelms anything I might not like, and this one is still a 5 star read!
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