This is the second book of the Cain Casey saga which
revolves around mob families in New Orleans focussing on Derby Cain Casey, an
amazingly influential head of one of the Families. This one begins right after
the previous one ends so there are continuing threads here.
At the end of book one, Cain and Emma were tentatively working
on getting back together (as little sense as that made). In this one, they are
back together and their children have accepted both women as their parents.
However, not all criminal families are on the adore-Cain bandwagon, and one of
them first rains bullets on the Casey home and then kidnaps their son, Hayden.
In response, Emma abducts an adult son of the family and bargains for Hayden’s
release. This is the same family that had embraced Cain’s disgraced and disgraceful
cousin who had tried to force himself on Emma and subsequently kidnapped,
tortured and raped Cain’s younger mentally-arrested sister, Marie Casey. It turns
out that Marie wasn’t the only one who paid the price. He was also responsible
for engineering the shootings of others in Cain’s family. The book details
Cain’s vengeance on the godforsaken family. Interestingly, there are two new
romantic tracks that also open up. One between Muriel Casey, Cain’s cousin who
is the family’s legal eagle and an FBI agent, Shelby Daniels.
The second between another ‘hidden’ cousin, Katlin Patrick,
who is a part of Cain’s security detail and Merrick, another
important security guard of Cain’s family.
This one was slightly better than the
first one. Slightly. In this Emma single-mindedly works on trying to prove her
love for and loyalty to Cain. With the past walking-out that she’d done, this
need to prove is really one huge, massive over-compensation. Cain is rather
overbearing in this. First she encourages Muriel to follow the attraction
between her and Shelby and then she is disapproving of the fledgling
relationship. Similarly, when Katlin and Merrick start a relationship, Cain
questions their ability to do their job (of protecting her and her family),
i.e. she is disapproving. She tries to end both the relationships. This is
particularly terrible in Muriel’s case because Cain and Muriel have always been
very close and Muriel is really a part of the Casey ‘family’ so she actually
doesn’t deserve to be treated as lesser.
What makes this book better than the
first one is the mob-style vengeance on the godawful men who had raped Marie. (In
this one the torture and brutalization is discussed in detail – so that is a
huge trigger warning).
⭐⭐☆
