ARC Review: Dark Justice: Morgan by Jenna Ryan (Dark Justice)

Title: Dark Justice: Morgan

          (Dark Justice)

Author: Jenna Ryan

Release Date: October 23, 2017

Publisher: Entangled ~ Amara

Category: Contemporary Romance

Type: Digital/Paperback

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Jenna Ryan Website

Blurb:

After attempting to help the FBI expose a ruthless weapons and drug dealer, Owen Fixx, Amber Kelly enters the Witness Protection Program. Unfortunately, her sister, who was once married to said drug dealer, is forced to join her—key word, forced. When Rachel grows tired of their new life and runs off with a local man, a nightmare ensues for Amber.

The only person who can help her is Gage Morgan, an edgy former police officer. The mysterious and compelling Gage must convince Amber that he is not only on her side, but he is also her best bet to stay alive.

Amber wants her sister back. What she doesn’t want is to be attracted to her sexy new protector. But in the haunted Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, desire trumps logic. And it leaves a smoldering trail for Fixx’s gunmen to follow.

By reading any further, you are stating that you are at least 18 years of age.

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Favorite Line(s):

“Don’t think ,” she told him. “Just feel. Enjoy. I want to soar, Gage. Let myself go, fly, and not worry about where I land. Where we land. I think you’re bigger on regrets than I am.”  ~ Alexa (Amber)

Dialogue Highlight:

“Who’s Lydia?” The shock and trailing suspicion in his expression had amusement breaking through her annoyance. “You didn’t like that question, did you?” She drank more. “Why not? Did she dump you?”

The look he gave her was nanodegrees short of lethal. “What Lydia did or didn’t do is none of your business.” A scowl invaded his features and made her want to take a bite of him. “How do you even know about her?”

She glanced into her cup, swirled the whiskey. “You talk in your sleep. My name came up. Well, my code name, anyway. Then you said Lydia. I think you threw a punch, but it was too dark for me to be sure. Did you hit her?”

His eyes narrowed dangerously. “No.”

“Did she hit you?”

“Are you drunk?”

“Working on it. I told you, I’m not much of a drinker. Can’t overindulge and effectively climb the career ladder. That’s where Rachel and I differed. A lot. I wanted to make money. She preferred to marry it.” Frowning slightly, Amber thought back. “She said something to me when we talked. It didn’t make sense.”

“Something about Fixx?”

“I don’t think so. Like that, but no. Are you going to answer my question from before?”

“Change the subject, Amber.”

Her lips curved into a teasing smile. “What was your rank in the LAPD? I’m guessing Lieutenant.”

“Good guess.”

“Plain clothes? Homicide?”

“You have moments of serious spookiness, Snowbird.”

“I’m good at reading people.” She checked the bottle, poured more. “Your cop facade’s not all that deeply buried. Except I think you’re more reckless now that you’re not one. Abel definitely is.”

“And now we’re back to him, are we? This is one wide-ranging conversation. Do you think Abel turned you in?”

“I don’t know. I’m worth a fortune, apparently. Bear followed us. Maybe he turned me in.”

“Bear followed us because he owed me more than one favor from our Army days.”

“You recognized his truck’s engine, didn’t you? I thought it sounded familiar, but I never made the connection between the engine we kept hearing and Bear’s Ram-erado.”She studied Gage from the side. He really was so damn gorgeous. And hot. “Were you engaged?”

“Nope. We just served together in the Army.”

Amber calmly finished her second cup of whiskey. “You’re being ridiculously perverse.”

He took the bottle from her before she could pour another drink. “You’ve had enough for one night. You’re not watching for headlights.”

“Yes, I am. I’m an excellent multitasker. I’m also stubborn, sometimes contrary, and I have a tendency to let things I don’t like fester and grow. That comes from my Irish side. Grudges are sacrosanct and temper’s a given. Like elephants, we never forget what we don’t like.”

“Does that mean I should worry about you shooting me in my sleep?”

“I don’t know.” She took the bottle back. “I haven’t gotten to the festering stage yet. That’s why I’m drinking. I’m hoping to bypass it. Tomorrow’s another day, right?” When Gage veered off the lumpy road and pointed the truck down a treacherous incline, Amber felt her stomach bounce briefly into her throat. “Uh, do you have any idea what’s at the bottom of this roller coaster dip?”

“Hopefully a dry creek bed. Or it could be a rushing river. You might want to cross your fingers.”

“I did that with Rachel. Didn’t work. She’s so dumb, Gage.” Amber rescued the bottle before it spilled. “But that’s no reason for you not to tell me about your guy-plan with Bear. Guy-plans gone wrong are fodder for a good fester and subsequent Irish grudge. If you’d told me about it at the time, then asked me not to tell Rachel, I wouldn’t have.”

“And I’m supposed to know that?” She stabbed the air between them. “Lydia let you down, didn’t she? Betrayed and/ or disappointed you in some unforgiveable way.”

Grabbing the whiskey, he tipped it up and drank a mouthful. “Let it go, Amber, before my Irish roots start showing.”

Excerpt:

“Tell me who sent you,” she said. “And don’t lower your hands until I’m satisfied.”

He let his gaze slide over her body, then slowly back to her face. “I work for a man named McCabe. Tom Vigor contacted him when he got the message about your sister.” Since her mistrustful expression showed no sign of changing, he advanced, slowly and with his eyes locked on hers. “It’s dark, Amber. Whoever I am, you can count on the fact that I’m trained. If I move and you shoot, you’ll be shooting at air.”

She didn’t alter her stance or look away. “How well do you know Tom?”

“We met a few times, back when I was part of the LAPD.”

She lowered her gun a fraction. “You worked for the LAPD? Tom’s a very talkative man. He told me a lot about his family. Do you know his son, Tommy Jr.?”

Gage nodded, continued his steady advance. “Thomas Vigor Jr., homicide detective. Loves playing the ponies. Like father, like son. Two kids. Wife’s name is Clare. I’ve been to four barbeques at their place. Their oldest graduated three years ago.”

“Two years ago,” she corrected.

He shrugged. “I’ve been out of the loop for five.”

“And now you work for a man named McCabe.”

“From time to time. I also test security systems for major U.S. corporations. When the mood strikes,” he added, because it wasn’t a job he particularly liked.

She adjusted her grip on the gun. “Tell me about McCabe.”

“His enemies call him the Reaper. The rest of us wait for him to call us. It’s complicated,” he said before she could press the point. “Look, we can toss this ball of suspicion around all night and hope Fixx’s people don’t show up, or you can decide to trust me and we’ll go from there. If it helps, I didn’t jump at the chance to take this job.”

The gun dropped another notch. Her mistrust level didn’t budge. “Then why did you?”

“Rent’s due, car needs work, and I don’t like infiltrating the corporate headquarters of a national toy maker to look for security glitches. Put the gun away, Amber, and we’ll find someplace safe to talk.”

Her gaze slid sideways as an owl swooped down, probably to grab a mouse. “I thought I’d gotten it wrong—the location Tom was trying to tell me about in code.” Her eyes met his, and yes, they were amazing. “I’m not an agent or anything close to one. I managed a hotel in Las Vegas before this nightmare started. I can read faces and body language, pick up on subtle vocal changes. I considered psychiatry as a career, but I didn’t have the patience to go through the years of training.”

He grinned. “We’re two of a kind in that regard.”

“I despise men like Owen Fixx, more in some ways than I do the James Mockeries of the world, because the Fixxes settle for adopting other people’s nasty habits instead of delving into their own psyches to see what they can dig out.”

Okay, that almost made sense, even if he wasn’t sure why she was telling him any of it. “You’re scared,” he said when she stopped talking.

Her eyes closed briefly. “Yes. My world—the one I created for myself—is a lot more glamorous than this one. To say nothing of a lot less dangerous.”

Gage half smiled. “Welcome to the realm of the undead. Think Limbo,” he said when her brow knit. “McCabe believes in the people he sends to deal with impossible situations. Not many others do. Not anymore. Am I shaking your faith?”

Review:

Alexa Chase (Amber Kelly) is on the run with her sister. She is now Amber and a part of the Witness Protection Program. Her sister married an extremely bad guy, which she refuses to see, but Alexa knows the truth. Uncovered evidence and turned it in to the FBI, in fact. Problem is, some of the guys are on the take and even a new location and a new identity can’t keep them from being found. She’s just been discovered again and her handler calls in a favor this time – Gage Morgan. He’s gorgeous and he’s come to protect her, but he’s going to have to get her to trust him first – easier said than done when you’ve been hunted the last year.

Gage Morgan is not wanting anything to do with this job, but he ends up taking it anyway. Glutton for punishment and all that. His gorgeous target isn’t going to make things easy on him either. Hell bent on rescuing her frivolous, unappreciative sister, they end up finding trouble at every turn. Luckily Alexa is pretty smart and self-sufficient; allowing them to help each other at times. Not to mention the steamy attraction between them that they’ll have to address at some point … if people would stop trying to kill them each time they get close.

This book is the first in the Dark justice series – fast moving and entertaining, you won’t want to stop reading. Packed full of suspense and a lot of quirky characters with their own stories waiting to break out, you’ll be kept on an engaging ride from start to finish. If you are looking for an HEA, you won’t find it here. Well, maybe a bit of one, but the book ends on a slight cliffhanger. While some things are explained and wrapped up, others are left wide open. I’m particularly interested in Bear’s story. And even more of Gage and Alexa. The had some pretty interesting lives and I can’t say much of it was explained. Partially, but I feel like there is more there than what we were given. As far as Rachel (her sister), I didn’t connect with her much. She’s expendable unless she makes a complete 180 and begins to contribute something other than trouble in the future. But I have no idea, I’m just making assumptions on what may or may not be a part of the next story. The only thing I struggled with were the switch in names from Amber to Alexa and back again, for example.

Generally speaking, I don’t care for cliffhangers. They twist me up – and when I have to wait for the next installment, I get annoyed. However, Ms. Ryan did a good job with this one in that it wasn’t a huge cliffhanger that left me wanting, but it did leave enough open that I want to come back for more. Satisfied enough to return, I guess you could say. Several of the characters introduced through Gage had their own stories to tell and I wondered why more of it wasn’t told, so maybe we will see them more in the future. I would describe them as characters with depth, but a depth we were denied – if that makes any sense. I feel like I might be talking this book down, when I really enjoyed it, so I’ll end it now. Overall, this book was quite enjoyable. You can read it quickly and will more than likely find yourself wishing the next book in the series was already out. At the very least, I want to see where Ms. Ryan takes the series and what she plans to do with these characters. Somehow I think they all might end up intertwined even more so when it is all said and done. But we’ll have to see …

Kindle version provided by NetGalley/Entangled in exchange for an honest review.