Vengeance Road

4.5 stars-heart breaking, painful , graphic

4.5 stars--VENGEANCE ROAD is the second instalment in Christine Feehan’s contemporary, adult TORPEDO INK slighty-paranormal, erotic romance series focusing on the men and women of the Torpedo Ink MC. This is Breezy Simmons, and Torpedo Ink MC vice president Lyov ‘Steele’ Russak’s story line. VENGEANCE ROAD can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous instalment is revealed where necessary. The TORPEDO INK series is a spin-off from the author’s SEA HAVEN SERIES but you do not have to have read the original series to follow Torpedo Ink.

NOTE: Most of the characters including Torpedo Ink club president Victor ‘Czar’ Prakenski, and his wife Blythe Daniels were introduced in the final instalment of the author’s Sea Haven Series BOUND TOGETHER.

WARNING: VENGEANCE ROAD contains scenes, and makes reference to graphic violence, rape, murder, torture, child prostitution, and abuse against children, women and men, and therefore, may not be suitable for all readers.

SOME BACKGROUND: At the tender age of ten years old, Victor ‘Czar’ Prakenski set about to save and rescue over three hundred children from one of four Russian child sex-slave operations but in the end only eighteen survived. The Torpedo Ink series focuses on the survivors: their stories, their history, and their happily ever afters.

Told from dual third person perspectives (Steele and Breezy) VENGEANCE ROAD follows the second chance romance between Breezy Simmons, and Torpedo Ink MC vice president Lyov ‘Steele’ Russak. Four years earlier Lyov ‘Steele’ Russak went undercover with the Swords MC where he met and fell for Breezy Simmons, the daughter of the Swords MC President. Things went from bad to worse when secrets were revealed, and Steele maliciously pushed Breezy out of his life. Fast forward to present day wherein Breezy is desperate for Steele and Torpedo Ink MC help, help she knows will permanently bring Steele back into her life. What ensues is the rebuilding relationship and romance between Steele and Breezy, and the potential fall-out as Breezy is unable to come to terms between the man that she loves, and the man who pushed her out of his life.

Steele is a natural healer but like all of the Russian sex-slave survivors, Steele is a trained assassin; a stone-cold killer who isn’t afraid of protecting the people he loves. When Breezy’s past begins to spiral out of control threatening everything and everyone she loves, Steele and his Torpedo Ink family make it their priority to save one of their own.

The relationship between Breezy and Steele is one of second chances; a rekindling romance that struggles with sins of the past, and Steele’s treatment of our heroine three years earlier. Steele struggles with the memories of his time spent as a child sex-slave for the Russian mob, memories that continue to haunt our story line (anti) hero. The $ex scenes are intimate, erotic, aggressive and intense.

There is a large ensemble cast of colorful and charismatic secondary and supporting characters-Steele’s Torpedo Ink family- a family of survivors who have endured years of torture, rape, abuse and an education in the world of the deviant and sick.

The world building continues to focus on the years of abuse suffered at the hands of the Russian mob: the recovery and revenge; the betrayal and ramifications; the heart break, and damage caused to a group of children (now adults) and their struggle to accept, grieve and move forward with lives. As I have stated before in many of my reviews, I have remarked on the author’s increasing violent story lines and abuse against women and children but in the case of the Torpedo Ink series, the violence is part of their history and lives-ingrained and imbedded –into their very existence. The story line heroes are not the perpetrators of the violence and abuse against the women they love but are the saviors and salvation of those who suffered years before.

VENGEANCE ROAD is a heart breaking, painful and graphic story line of abuse and betrayal; vengeance and retribution. The characters are animated, broken but recovering; the romance is hard and impassioned. Christine Feehan pulls the reader into the dark and gritty world of Torpedo Ink.