I hate Dante Moretti. He is cold, calculating and vicious. It’s no secret that he wiped out his former fiancée and her entire family on the eve of their wedding. He’s the kind of evil that makes even devils cry. But that’s not why I hate him. I hate him because he has taken the only thing I have left in this miserable world – my freedom. He has chained me to him because of a debt that I don’t owe. I just have the misfortune to share the bloodline of the man who does. And now I’m trapped in his gilded cage and the only thing I have left to do is run. And I try. I really do. But he is everywhere.
Suffocating. All consuming. Intoxicating.
He is a paradox. A man with a heart as cold as ice, whose passion rages like an inferno. Why does he see into my soul in a way that nobody else ever has? Why does the slightest brush of his skin make my pulse race? My mom always warned me never to play with matches. But if Dante Moretti is fire, then I want to burn.
Dante is the first book in the Chicago Ruthless series, featuring the Moretti siblings. Each book is a standalone with a HEA. This is a spicy Dark Mafia, enemies to lovers, forced proximity romance, which features scenes of a violent nature as well as those of an explicit sexual nature. Publishers This book deals with dark themes including discussion and flashbacks of past SA.
I'm a contemporary, dark romance author. I love to read and write about hot, filthy talking alphas that would burn the world down for the women they love.
I love chatting to readers about my books, or books in general, so please get in touch! You can follow me on Facebook and instagram as well as on here as Sadie Kincaid Author.
*spoilers 🙄* So I got to like 50-60% of this book and honestly skimmed the rest because I couldn’t do it anymore. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Sadie Kincaid. I was very much looking forward to this book but it just got progressively worse for me.
We start out with Kat being taken by Dante to repay her brother’s debt. At first you’re thinking she’s going to be this feisty bad *ss h who throws bats and tries to shoot people. It all goes out the window when they hook up. But then it just becomes pages and pages of hookups. He starts to become cold and shows her no attention or affection, she finds out she’s pregnant and very understandably tries to escape after his prior threats to her. She has a traumatic past and is afraid of no longer being of use to Dante.
Now here’s the biggest issue for me. He obviously finds out and completely takes it out on her, locking her in a bedroom for a week knowing she’s pregnant and not once going to check on her even when hearing she’s sick. THEN he does absolutely 0 groveling after almost harming her and their baby when she becomes severely dehydrated. The whole week in the bedroom thing was really pushing it for me to begin with, but then to continue to ignore her for weeks and flaunt another woman in front of her face while she’s preggo? Nope. Did you say obsessive MMC? Where? Certainly not in this book 😅.
She completely 1000% lost her backbone with him, she wasn’t strong AT ALL, and it was infuriating to watch how she was treated and what she let slide. There is no part of me that believed he was interested in her for anything other than hook ups and the worst part is she felt the same way, just DIDNT CARE! You had his second who was justifying his actions and him still acting like he couldn’t trust her despite knowing why she tried to leave. His personality was seriously terrible. He tries to “fix” her trauma by forcing her to go through the same scenario, which again maybe I would’ve been a little more ok with if she wasn’t *pregnant*. Honestly it was just a huge disappointment and I really couldn’t stand either of them. Very bummed.
This book reminded me of haunting/hunting adeline the whole time and not in a good way 😂 but in a mediocre copy way. The god complex he had, the "kitten" nickname, the rape trope and then the "you'll only remember me, not those who raped you after I'm done with you" as if that's how it works...I mean really, it could've been so much more creative. This book would've been about 100 pages long without all the unnecessary underwhelming corny and cringy sex scenes. Can we talk about wtf was that with the tampon ☠️☠️ Um can we also talk about how UNNECESSARY the baby thing was too? Like, why? ☠️☠️ Also they literally had 0 connection... If she most definitely needed therapy before getting kidnapped, she needed it 100% after, cause babygirl had some serious Stockholm syndrome. They barely talked about stuff that matters other than sex, literally nothing binding them together but the fact he was hot and had tattoos like...what? 😂. Again, as if I haven't stressed this enough, could've done without the 500 sex scenes and that would still leave us with about 20 sex scenes. Also can someone explain to me why he literally did 0 grovelling after literally torturing her, keeping her locked while she's PREGNANT WITH HIS BABY and she was still dumb af like a puppy running behind him. Thought about DNFing but I'm nosey so I was already too late, but y'all still got time 🫶🏽.
Safety warnings: - No cheating - No OM drama - Meaningless OW drama - R*pe - S*xual assault - Physical assault - Violence/d*ath - Mention of human trafficking - Mention of drug abuse - Mention of terminal illness - HEA
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This book has dark heavy topics so be mindful when reading.
We meet Kat who is not in the best place in her life after what we can assume is a dark period. Her brother seems to be coming in and out of her life and only around when he needs help financially then dips out on her.
This time though it seems like he has messed with the wrong people, and they want their money back, enter Dante who is the Mafia boss of Chicago and who is demanding Kat to give him any information about Leo's whereabouts but she is clueless and he makes a decision that changes them. He takes her instead but despite her fears and her assumptions about him it turns out he has no intentions of harming her.
Once these two get together we get a lot of sex scenes, and I would not normally say it's too much but after a while it felt like that is all they were doing?
It's revealed that years ago Kat was kidnapped and raped for 2 days by 2 men. The next reveal is that the two men worked for Dante and his father, and they did it because her brother was in debt and basically sold her off.
We meet other people in their world, Lorenzo who is Dante's older brother who married outside of tradition and lost his spot at the seat along with their younger sister Joey who is a wildcard. Lorenzo's story seems to be a sad one as the woman he married and loves Anya has been dealing with cancer on and off for years and it has once again taken over her body. They also have a master/submissive relationship which was so out of the blue for me but *shrug*.
After all the sexing Kat ends up pregnant which prompts her biggest fear from what she remembers Dante saying before they even started their relationship how once she is useless she will be given to his men (he only said to scare her). She ends up trying to run away but it doesn't work, and this pisses him off so much, he locks her up and ignores her for days while she gets sicker from her extreme morning sickness. It was a SHITTY MOVE from him, and I hated that he reverted to this mindset with her.
After thankfully getting his head out of his ass Dante must marry her but of course they road is not that easy, Dante's father is a real piece of work and another aspect I forgot to mention is that years ago Dante killed his arranged fiancée and her family the day before their wedding but the truth behind that little story is not at all what we assumed.
You see Dante never wanted to marry Nicole, but he suspects something was not right with her and he saves her from her father/brothers who beat her and raped her for years since she was 11. In order to save her and get rid of the filth, he kills her family and allows the world to think she died as well but in reality she was set free to be with her lover Sabine and given new identities etc. Another reason his father is a monster? he raped Nicole 4 weeks prior to their wedding and got her pregnant and now she is raising his half-brother...it's so messed up, but it made me super happy to know despite the life she had before she gets to live it happily now and Dante has taken care of her for years.
Kat and Dante had a tumultuous beginning, and she found comfort through him too. He protects her and does everything he can right for her. He might not be a good man to the world, but he is to the people who matter.
He finally kills his father when it is revealed that he knew about Kat's rape years ago and that he was also a part of the group of men who dealt in human trafficking for years and has been responsible for a lot of hurt. So good riddance!
We get a nice epilogue of them 6 months later and they have a daughter.
The next book is about Joey and her relationship with Maximo who is Dante's best friend and right-hand man!
Fighting against his true nature to give me something of what I need from him. And shouldn’t that count for something? Because the truth is, I feel more cherished in his darkness than I have ever have in anyone else’s light.
Sadie has created her own sub-genre of the mafia romance trope and it has her name inked all over it! Her stories are a delicious combination of possessive heroes, suspense and spice! Dante wasn't an exception to this rule and yet it retained its own uniqueness!
I really liked the plot, the concealed secrets, and the thunderous interactions between the mcs. Dante (mmc) and Kat (fmc) fought each other all the way through. Their interactions dripped with irritation and lust before blooming into the sweetest addiction. I am not a fan of some of the book’s tropes but because they were smoothly introduced I actually enjoyed them.
As an original Sadie Kincaid book, there was so much smut and it was certainly a big part of the dynamic of the mcs. But anyone that goes into Sadie’s books, should be aware that they are heavy on smut.
Dante was a monstrous mafia boss and a hug a*hole. He made so many mistakes with Kat. I wanted to slap him more times than I cared to remember. He is a walking red flag and I wish I hated him but … in the end I loved him. He was possessive, s*xy, and lethal. He ticked all the boxes for a good mafia mc and then he ticked some more.
Kat and her backstory were interesting, but she is also the reason I didn’t give the book a solid 5 stars. She was feisty and sweet. Her backstory was really touching. My issue was her lack of strength when she was supposed to be a strong, resilient character. Dante was a very consuming character and owned most of the book. Kat let him walk all over her and didn’t give him enough h*ll. He should have groveled much more and she should have stood her ground on multiple occasions. I also wished I had seen more of her medical skills!
I loved Joey, Dante’s little sister, and I hope to read more of her. Maybe with the involvement of Max?
ARC Review Did I like it? Yes. Would I reread it? Sure. 4/5⭐ 4/5🌶️
i feel like i just went on one of those old ass wooden roller coasters where you feel like you're going to fall out of your seat and your neck is going to snap at every turn. this was... and adventure. and i mean that in the worst possible way.
i dnf'ed at 51%. needless to say, there will be spoilers here. avoid if you're looking to give this book a fair chance. but read on if you'd like to avoid wasting your time, or if, like me, you're wondering how to get the last few hours of your life back and reeling from this dumpster fire. and most importantly: TRIGGER WARNING. for both the book, and this review because i will be calling this book out for its bullshit.
alright, let me start off with this: this is my first ever goodreads review. that's how terrible this book was.
why the one star? because it was the lowest i could go and maybe the smut deserves something.
and there it is: the only redeeming quality of this book. the somewhat decent smut.
for perhaps the first 25%-30%, this book was good. i was genuinely enjoying myself. was i expecting perfection? absolutely not. was i expecting to be blown away? no way in hell. was i taking it at face value: a raunchy good time? most definitely.
annnnd then, things took a turn. maybe it was the tampon? (which we will henceforth be referring to as tampongate 2.0.) at some point, this book took a hard right. in the beginning, i loved dante. he settled so perfectly into this soft daddy dom role with kat, and all was well for what admittedly little legit chemistry they had aside for wanting to shag every waking second. and then, without much warning at all, we get bitch slapped with this unrecognizable a-hole. now don't get me wrong, he was kind of an a-hole from the start. but he was my a-hole and i loved him. when he became a literal fucking monster... not so much.
now here's my thing. i write. a fuck ton. i read. a fuck ton. i have nothing against a monstrous character. but lets just admit what they are: a monster. i take issue when we begin to conjure excuses for said monster, and then romanticize the HORRENDOUS behaviors they commit. dante is no love interest. he is an expert emotional manipulator and exploitative abuser.
and kat is a take no shit badass. right? right? wrong. this is what the book tries to convince us of. but that's all the author does. she tells, not shows. and then she perpetuates this horrible narrative that emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual assault, and sexual coercion are cute and romantic. kat has a bunch of steam, but no actual fire.
i could go on for hours, but i'll leave it here and go off to stew in my own frustrations. to those who took on this book, i hope you're okay. and for those willing to give it a shot: good luck.
Decent sexual chemistry. Good pacing, kind of. Nice plot. Engaging set of characters. Was gonna be a 3 stars, but the chemistry kind of disappeared the farther i got into the audiobook. . .
Also the extreme reaction on Dante's part when she tried to escape... um.
Throwing a woman into solitary confinement. . . And never visiting her when im supposed to believe you couldn't "get enough of her..." and yet she spent weeks there without you seeing her..?
2.5/5 Я стільки обурювалася і злилася, поки читала цю книгу, що на відгук вже навіть немає слів. Чоловіки в цій книзі пробили дно, гірше вже немає куди. Це було жахливо. Єдине, що мені сподобалося в цій книзі - це сюжетні повороти, такої Санта-Барбари я ще не читала. А ні, також сподобався стиль написання, історія прям затягує. Все інше.... Дуже багато сцен 18+, ледве не в кожному розділі, під кінець мене вже від них вивертало. Головна героїня Кет явно зі стокгольмським синдромом, мені було дуже шкода цю дівчину, яка стільки болю пережила в своєму житті, я рада, що вона знайшла безпеку і прихисток у Данте, але це не відміняє мого ставлення до нього.
Данте - до біса владний мафіозі, який любить все тримати під контролем і, якщо моментами мені подобалося його ставлення до Кет, подобалося, що він був терплячим і допомагав їй побороти травму, та один його вчинок все зруйнував і перекреслив все хороше, що було, а ще вибісило, що він ніяк не спокутував свою провину. Спустили все на те, що він мафіозі, погана людина і бла, бла бла, зате в кінці прям білого лицаря з нього зробили. Тьху.
Поговоримо про їхні стосунки. А що тут казати: жити з людиною і весь час боятися, що він може тебе вбити, це звісно "мрія". Хоч вони вкінці все вирішили, але ну таке, я не вважаю нормальним кохати людину і водночас боятися її.
Якщо коротко описати цю книгу, то це якась порнушка, в перервах між якою відбувається лютий треш
А тепер невеликий СПОЙЛЕР
Мені, напевно, варто було закінчити цю книгу після того моменту як Данте закрив вагітну Кет в кімнаті з гратами, ізолював від людей і впускав до неї тільки економку, яка приносила їжу, в результаті чого дівчина отримала зневоднення, бо не могла утримати в собі жодної їжі і напоїв через нудоту. А Данте вважав, що вона притворяється і маніпулює, щоб отримати увагу і ніяк не реагував, коли його переконували, що Кет хвора. А все через те, що вона намагалася втекти, бо злякалася за життя своєї дитини. А нічого, що ти сам в цьому винен, що вона втекла, що ти не показав їй наскільки вона важлива для тебе, ставився до неї як до іграшки, так з якого переляку вона повинна довіряти тобі. А потім, замість того, щоб поговорити і заспокоїти всі страхи ВАГІТНОЇ жінки потрібно було творити таку діч🤦🤦🤦 Це вище мого розуміння. Мені хотілося задушити його в той момент. Можливо, якби не ця ситуація, оцінка була б вищою, але ні.
But … Kat, the female mc not so much. Despite having a horrible back story she pretty much falls into instalove/lust with Dante her captor. There’s this huge ridiculous conversation with Dante about whether he’s a good man 🙄 … honey he’s the head of the mob … he’s not 🙄. Then she’s upset about what he did to her brother after what he did to her. Realistically she would have done him in herself.
»Every single part of you already belongs to me. So you can let go my little wildcat, because l've already got you.«
★
❥ 𝑲𝒂𝒕 I feel nothing else than pity for this woman. She deserves so much better.
❥ 𝑫𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆 Didn‘t like him at all. He‘s bossy and his only goal is sex with Kat.
✥ 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒐𝒐𝒌 Poor girl Kat deserves a therapy. This book was strange and not realistic at all. Kat has multiple trauma and a bad past and Dante thinks he can fix her with sex. That‘s not how it works boy… Kat definitely got the Stockholm Syndrom and this was not nice read. I think the author should have dealt better with her trauma and the whole rape thing. Dante is an arrogant prick with a god complex and he completely overlooked Kat‘s trauma. The spicy scenes are bad written and sometimes unnecessary. This book has no real plot.
I give up with this author. Just not for me. One dimensional, tell-not-show, spineless FMC who the author has simply chosen to demoralise with Stockholm Syndrome. Honestly Booktok, are we even reading the same things? It’s embarrassing and so badly written. I’m starting to question - if this is the author’s idea of romance, perhaps she is the one that needs an intervention
Predictable and lacks focus - also slow, a little boring, and way too long.
Dante (head of Cosa Nostra) is looking for a loser who stole money from him. He goes to the guys sister's house and tells her that since she doesn't know where he is, he'll just take her as payment. Kat (former nurse) isn't thrilled about being a prisoner, but eventually gives into the lust she feels for Dante anyway. He spends a lot of time trying to avoid his feelings, she gets pregnant, she tries to run away without telling him, he recaptures her, yada yada, a bunch of other shit, HEA.
I didn't find anything really enjoyable about this and I won't continue the series. It's so cookie cutter that it's ridiculous. Oh - it's also a rape trope. You know where the FMC was raped by someone in the past and now she's trying to get over the trauma and then the MMC has to avenge her.
honestly this book sounded really intriguing to me and i was definitely in the mood for a mafia read when i started it, but it’s started to become a bit boring for me. i already have a pretty good idea of where the story is going and i’m not very interested in seeing that particular trope play out in this book. i also promised myself that i would dnf more books this year instead of just trying to tough it out and finish the book, especially if they are starting to get boring like this one is. i didn’t really enjoy the characters in this book and i was really hoping for more of a strong fmc in kat, but she just sort of disappointed me. the spice was pretty decent, but wasn’t enough to encourage me to finish this whole book.
DNF’d 48% through, this book sucks like SUCKS 😭 the plot is all over the place, the mafia guy is sold as morally grey with a soft spot for her but he’s an abusive prick actually? there was no actual mafia things happening in this book outside of a random person needing to be stitched up and the author doesn’t even tell you why? she also dealt with something traumatic and the mmc literally still tried to force himself on her? she was also dumb as a doorknob like i know stockholm syndrome is a thing and typically i can get into a prisoner/captive type beat but girly didn’t stand on business for a full chapter like just folded immediately STAND UPPPP!! they keep talking about all these side characters and i just am so confused as to what the actual plot of the book is? also realizing i couldn’t remember this mans name so i keep calling him mafia guy….his name is literally the title of the book and i couldn’t remember that’s how damn unforgettable he was do with that what you will 😭
i don’t believe mafia books need to be literary masterpieces but i have read wattpad books that made more sense and had better writing? i can pull up a AO3 fanfic rn with 2 chapters that’s better than this book like i am just flabbergasted that people enjoyed this
Не шукайте тут сюжету чи якоїсь логіки у поведінці героїв. Мені було слабко в плані взаємодії між героями. Але ця книга точно гаряча і збуджуюча. 🌶️🌶️🌶️ спайсі сцени
I am in between giving this 3-4 ⭐️’s solely because at some points I’m like “Aww, I love this.” And “I want this book to be over already.” Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed reading about Kat and Dante, but I also didn’t like how their story played out if I’m honest. Between the “oh I hate you.” To “I think I love him.” Over and over just got old. Like obviously you were in lust with him. You guys were at like bunnies from the get go. The beginning of their love story is mostly smut. Now, this girl loves her smut. However, it was just that In the beginning with just the tiniest sprinkle of plot. I still don’t think the plot developed enough for me even as the story ended. It was such an anticlimactic ending. I was left feeling nothing if I’m honest. Which is why I am at war with the rating, but the more I think about it, I think I am leaning closer to 3⭐️. Would I give this author another chance? Maybe if I wanted a lot of smut and little plot. I guess it just depends on my mood.
This book is basically one long sex scene interspersed with some vignettes of Dante acting like a caricature of a Mafia dude and the FMC (can't even remember her name she was so incredibly boring) being horny and calling him an a**hole. I love spice. Love it! But if I'm reading a romance then genre conventions dictate that the book be, I dunno, ROMANTIC 🙄 Picky of me, I know. But I don't want to just read about MC's boinking for pages on end and the sex replacing meaningful relationship and character development smh. When I want pure smut, I read erotica or smutty novellas ffs. Also, Dante is an asshole with zero redeeming qualities. He locks her in a room after she tells him she's pregnant. She becomes dehydrated and has to be hospitalized and even when she's passed out from being so ill he thinks she's faking. He also parades other women in front of her. By that time I was skimming, looking for a grovel that never materialized. I liked the author's clean prose, I've found Mafia romance to be afflicted with purple prose and flowery writing. Not the case here, this is the only positive thing about this book. Not recommended.
Le sigh. The writing is... not great, but the characters are what really pushed me over the edge. Kat has legitimate concerns; Dante does nothing to either prove her wrong or prove himself worth the risk of being hurt. They have nothing to bind them together beyond sex and then a baby. She is constantly angry or hurt by him, he punishes her for nothing, and it's just a vicious cycle of toxicity. I guess I shouldn't be surprised- he says constantly how bad of a person he is and all of his actions prove that- but I was hoping for some redemption, something to make her "love" of him make sense. Nothing; she just finds increasingly flimsy ways to justify his actions to herself.
Words I said to Sadie Kincaid..... love me a Spicy Demon. We all know how story unfolded... we know what's ingrained in us. To not like the Baddie. It took a little time, But oh wow did Dante grow on us!! Sadie just keeps getting better and better. Dante Dante Dante, Spicy Sexy Alpha. Cannot wait for more Chicago Ruthless.
Chicago Ruthless book one. This author always has a way of leaving you falling in love with her characters in her book and once again I wasn't disappointed.
We meet Dante Moretti, the second son of the head of Cosa Nostra, power of Chicago, Salvatore Moretti, powerful and formidable, a evil father.
Katerina Evanson Dante head of the mafia wants her, her brother Leo owes big money and she is his payment Dante slaughters and kills, and he is going to make this live wire work hard, she is a former nurse and will be useful for him around his home she is a feisty one making him hard.
This story hits all your soft spots in everyway imaginable, leaving me crying for more, the action so fast pace, the sex breath taking will take you on a ride of your life.