Victor: Her Ruthless Husband

Ruthless Triad, Book #3

By Theodora Taylor

Author’s Website:  https://theodorataylor.com/

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

This book picks up shortly after the previous novel, Victor: Her Ruthless Owner, left off.  Dawn has left Victor and is pregnant with his baby, unbeknownst to him.  She is staying with another crime family, the Ferraros, while Amber Ferraro prepares the divorce proceedings.  However, Amber makes a shocking discovery:  Dawn and Victor were never legally married!  You would think that would be the end of things, but no, not with Victor involved.  Dawn left on the last day of her verbal contract with him before the day was complete, and now he wants a whole additional year! 

“What happened to letting this chick go on May 26th?”

Victor answers Phantom as he plans to answer Dawn. “She left before fulfilling her part of our agreement. So now her let go date is very much up in the air.”

“You know you sound like a psycho, right?” Phantom asks.

Yes, Victor does know that.

But after six weeks without Dawn, he can’t bring himself to care.”

Amber talks Victor down to three dates, and at the end of those dates, he will sign an agreement never to harass or come near Dawn again.  It’s the best option for Dawn if she wants to keep her pregnancy a secret so she can raise their baby in peace.

Victor now knows that Dawn was telling him the truth all those years ago.  She hadn’t known her dad had put a spy camera on her school blazer that eventually took down Red Diamond, and ultimately his dad.  The ten years of punishment he dished out were undeserved.  And, she did truly love him back in Japan as she had always insisted.  He had had a second chance with her and ruined it.  Now he will do anything to get her back where she belongs, with him.  But he has to get through her pit bull of a lawyer to do it.  These three dates don’t give him much time to woo her, but he has to try.

But what will he do when it all goes wrong?  Can the two of them really walk away from the only love they’ve ever known?

This is the first series from this author that I have read.  And, I have devoured it!  I just can’t get enough of these two, even when their relationship is like a train wreck, at times.  You can’t help, but stop and stare anyway.

I’m glad to see Dawn finally stand up for herself.  I was afraid she was giving in too easily and falling for him all over again, for a minute there it really seemed like it, but she proved me wrong. 

“I almost let go of the pole to ask him where we’re going in sign language. But then a voice inside my head warns, Dawn, you’re letting him suck you in again.

So, instead, I clamp my lips and remind myself that he’s the worst kind of monster. The kind that gives gifts.”

Even though I was happy to see Dawn not give in to Victor so easily, I was also elated when she needed him and he came riding to the rescue!  And, even then she made him work for what he wanted.  What they both wanted really.

Another thing I really enjoyed seeing, was Dawn standing up to her dad.  She finally called him out for using his own children to solve a case, something that has bothered me for the entire trilogy.  Although she didn’t touch, on the dangerous situation he threw them into.

I found that I really enjoyed Phantom in this book as well.  We got to see some of his dry humor with Victor and I loved it. 

“His cousin slices Victor a dark look after that edict and tells Victor in Chinese Sign Language, “If this bitch kills us, my reincarnation is going to hunt your reincarnation down, just to say, I fucking told you so. ”

One thing that did really bother me about this book are the chapters from other characters’ points of view.  They didn’t seem to really add anything to the story.  And, I get that Taylor sprinkled in characters from her other books, but beings as this was the first series I’ve read of hers, I didn’t know these people.  And, I honestly didn’t care about them. 

04And, I really needed the epilogue to be from Victor and Dawn’s points of view and it wasn’t!  This was the biggest let down for me.  I don’t want to hear about their happily ever after (or is it?) secondhand from characters I don’t know.  I wanted to hear it from THEM, the characters I have grown so invested in.  The characters that I’ve grown to love.

It looks like Hans and Phantom’s stories will be coming out in the near future, so I may need to check them out.  Based on what I saw in this book, I’m much more interested in Phantom’s book though!  Maybe we’ll even get a glimpse of Dawn and Victor.  Please!?!  Also, the author did list the books the other characters are from at the end so I may have to check out some of those series as well.  I just really wish I had gotten the ending I was expecting and hoping for.