Rating: 3 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Lucas Russo doesn’t know any other childhood than the one he lived. He was kidnapped as a small child along with his brother, Nick, from their foster home by a man named Shane. They were then trained and raised to carry out Shane’s missions.
Lucas’ memories are now fragmented and sometimes he doesn’t know which are memories and which are dreams. He does know that at some point his complicated feelings toward Shane changed and he needed and wanted more from the man. For a time, Shane became everything to Lucas and he didn’t need a way out. But now, Shane is dead and Lucas has no anchor.
As Lucas and Nick continue on Shane’s missions, Lucas learns that Shane is still alive. Now, Lucas is desperate to find Shane. Desperate for his guidance, desperate for his cruelty, desperate for his love, and desperate for answers.
I liked the dark feel that the blurb had for this book and I was intrigued to find out Lucas’ story. The book is told entirely from Lucas’ point of view and, since he doesn’t trust his own memories, it’s difficult to get to know him. I also found it difficult to piece together this story. By the time the book was finished, I still didn’t fully understand Shane’s history and what exactly these missions were that Shane had trained Lucas and Nick to complete.
When the story opens, Lucas and Nick are still carrying on missions. The story is completely told to us and nothing is shown and really I don’t have a clear understanding of why Lucas and his brother were kidnapped, what they were training for, and what kinds of missions they were on. There is talk about a missing girl, but I had no idea what the connection was or what they were searching for. Lucas meets a few characters along the way and, again, it was not clear how they fit into the overall story.
Nick was able to get out and go to college, but Lucas’ entire life is Shane and, now that the man is no longer there, Lucas has absolutely no idea what to do with himself and his life. Lucas does feel like he’s being watched and he feels guilty at times over the need he developed for Shane. When Lucas was nineteen, his relationship with Shane became sexual and Lucas still dreams about Shane’s hands and mouth on him. In the beginning of the book, the author adamantly notes what this book is not. That it’s not a father/son relationship and that there was no sexual grooming. There is too much to unpack with this note, but Shane, being 20 years older and in charge of Lucas, was the only parental figure that Lucas knew and Lucas has so much trauma tied to Shane that the author’s message seems to try to simplify an extremely layered and complicated relationship.
At the end of this book, I had way more questions than answers and little idea of exactly what the men were involved in. I did like Shane and do want to know the rest of his story, as this is a duet with no ending in this first book, but getting a good grasp of this story was difficult due to the overall execution.
