This book was still fine and I'm definitely going to finish this series but unfortunately, this book was my least favorite so far.

This book is the darkest so far for me. I actually didn't find the first two to be that dark because of the interactions between the love interests and this book definitely goes farther on that front. This book has the most blurriness when it comes to consent between the two people that end up in the relationship. The plot of this book is that another brainwashed fighter is sent to kill Zaal, the hero of book two, but ends up kidnapping his sister. Honestly, I didn't understand why he chose to kidnap Zoya. When he kidnapped her they were both at Zaal's house so there was really no need to get information from his sister. I know there has to be something to bring the love interests together, but I want there to be some logic behind it.

Because this plot does include the hero, Valentin, hurting his love interest (under the influence of drugs, but still) It made it a lot harder for me to see the connection between them. Zoya keeps insisting it isn't Stockholm syndrome but it really feels like it because there is so little connection between them beyond sexual. This was a bit of a problem with book two as well. I'm fine with a series being kinda insta-lovy, this is a fantasy after all, but I still want to see the relationship develop after that initial attraction and I didn't feel like we got enough of that here. I'm not sure this is a real spoiler but it also bugged me that Zaal was so judgemental about Zoya falling in love with her captor when he did basically the same thing with Talia. Like I know technically he was "rescued" but they still locked him up in their basement and he didn't know it was a rescue when he and Talia first met. also as a side note, the use of the terms "male" and "female" instead of man and woman went up dramatically in this book. I hate this type of thing it is a huge pet peeve of mine. And as far as I can tell from taking some Russian in college, this isn't a Russian language thing either. It just makes the gender dynamics even weirder and it's very distracting to me.

I'm interested to see where this goes in the final book because for the first time, the heroine is the person who has been imprisoned since childhood. I'll be interested to see how that plays out and who her love interest will be.
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Conflict in the lives of the characters of this story created conflict in this reader’s heart. I realize that evil people exist in this world and torture happens but I hate to think about it…and this book did make me think about just how difficult the lives of many must be.

In the first two books of this series we met two fight-to-the-death men who survived and finally were able to move on to something else and find true love. In this book we meet 194 and his sister 152. 194 was once known a Valentin and his sister was Inessa. Valentin never forgets who is in spite of the horrific life he lives for 18 year. His motivation is his sister and the goal is to reunite with Inessa someday. Sent out by his Mistress to wreak mayhem in one way or another while drugged to the gills his target in this book is one of the men who starred in a previous book of the series. Unable to reach his target he picks up a woman related to him. Poor woman!

I understand Stockholm Syndrome and wondered if perhaps Mzia Kostava “Zoya” was influenced by this until I read of her love for the Tbilisi Monster, a Fairy Tale her grandmother once told her that caused her to question “why would a monster behave that way?” and then took to heart when bad things happened. What a compassionate and loving woman Zoya must have been and hopefully such love will have the ability to move mountains – or monsters ;)

This is not a book for those who have triggers such as rape, torture, abuse, etc. It is a book for people who like dark fairy tales. And, it sets readers up for a fourth book in the series that I heartily look forward to reading although I am sure it may be even more disturbing in some ways than the three that will have gone before it.

One more thing – the characters in this series come from Eastern European Mafia backgrounds that were probably fraught with questionable behavior then some were turned into people who were even more brutal than they might have been BUT they all believe in family and I believe that family ties and love are what eventually save the heroes of these stories.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. ( )