Blood Ties

A Hitman Becomes a Baby’s Guardian amongst Crime Warfare

This is the first book of the Blood Ties: A Jason Wright series and follows Jason as he finds his life changing in an instant as he suddenly becomes a dad, after his promise to the father to look after his pregnant wife, ends in both their deaths, he believes at the hands of others. With his brother being killed and clues leaning towards two crime lords, his vow to leave his dangerous career behind, soon evaporates! He is determined to find out who was responsible for their deaths and due to his life as an assassin and hitman, he is ideally placed to do so. He has gotten himself into the middle of a gang war, between the two biggest drug cartels of the north and south.

Adriana has run from her past after her father called to say he was in hospital having a kidney transplant, but by the time she got to Atlanta, her pregnant and favoured sister and her father had died in a house explosion and her best friend Leia, had overheard conversation in the hospital about the transplant supposed to have gone to a crime lords daughter! To say he was after vengeance against her family is an understatement. Luckily Adriana had changed her last name some months before and left with Leia to start a new life. Jason Wright has the problem of looking after a mother, who left him in a dumper as soon as he was born! She has never wanted him in her life, but for some reason, Jason feels responsible for looking out for her, to try and keep her away from the sort of men she relies upon for drugs and who beat her badly daily. He pays for her keep, but sets her certain conditions, which she breaks all te time.

The story continues some six years later, as his ward, Miguel is at a posh school and he finds out that his son’s teacher has retired and he is unhappy with the young replacement teacher, Adriana Carballo, who has been hired in her place. Added to the problems is the fact that Miguel has become besotted with a girl called Sofia, who is in fact one of the crime lords daughter! He is also unhappy the former teacher ignored his orders, not to retire! Basically nobody ignores his orders, without facing dire consequences. Jason has hidden his past, but is still taking on contracts as a hitman, whilst having the cover of an investment company to cover his lifestyle. Sofia’s father, Angel Mercado, is one of these crime lords and is not one to cross. People from the rival gang are out to kill Angel and doing so at the school, ends up targeting Miguel and Sofia as well as Adriana.

Angel apparently knew the real identity of Adriana, who was known as Adriana Sousa, but he has not taken any action against her and it seems that everything Jason thought he knew about Angel and what he was responsible for in the past. Jason’s son Miguel is in danger as well as the girl he states he is going to marry, Sofia, who he has taken responsibility for looking after and taking care of whilst at school and then also at a secret play area they go, where they both should have been safe. The rival crime gang attack this place and the kids realise that one of Angel’s trusted men is on the other side and Miguel acts as a protector again, with Adriana ending up following them to a treehouse, when she finds they have disappeared to play, just when the attack starts.

Adriana places herself in danger to protect both of the children from her class and ends up taken by the attackers. Jason’s trusted employee Francis is also attacked by these men, but the children are covered up by Adriana, just outside of a safe room which they were unable to access, and are unseen by the attackers. Jason and Angel will now have to work together to get her back and to stop this war. Maybe the secrets behind who was responsible for the deaths of Jose Lopez and Deloris Charter, will finally be revealed. I look forward to reading the next book, Blood Secrets, to find out what happens to the main characters and especially the ever so protective young boy Miguel and the father figure Jason, who holds so many secrets of his own!

This book was a bit confusing for me at the start, as I tried to make sense of who Jose and Deloris were in connection with Jason Wright, never mind the talk of numerous lawyers hired to defend Jose. Once it got past that part and started up again years later as Deloris’s son Miguel, who Jason became the legal guardian of, is at elementary school and matters start to escalate, it was much easier to follow. Jason is a multi-millionaire and money is no issue for him. His hitman work earns him tens of millions with every hit and even his other business is a high earner. Some hits he turns down, but one for a hundred million, is going to make matters dangerous for his son and lots of others. I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.