ARC Review: Honor Avenged (HORNET 6) by Tonya Burrows

Title: Honor Avenged

Series: HORNET Book 6

Author: Tonya Burrows

Release Date: May 18^th, 2020

Published By: Entangled Amara

Category: Contemporary – Romance – Suspense – Military

Type: Digital – Paperback

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Tonya Burrows Website

Rating:

Heat: 

Blurb: 

Leah Giancarelli makes balancing her new role as a single mom look easy, but she’d have crumbled if not for her late husband’s best friend, Marcus. She has her issues with HORNET, an elite hostage rescue team—after all, Danny would still be alive if he’d never accompanied them on their last mission—but Marcus has always been by her side, a strong shoulder to lean on…

Until, after one impulsive kiss, he’s so much more.

Eaten alive by guilt, Marcus takes off, leaving both HORNET and Leah behind. Alone is easier. Safer. Because his feelings for Leah are all kinds of wrong, the worst kind of betrayal, and he can’t trust himself not to act on them.

But Danny’s death was only the beginning. Whoever hired the hitman is looking for something, and they think Leah knows where it is...

Each book in the HORNET series is STANDALONE.

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

If you are under the age of 18, please exit this site.

Favorite Lines:

He kept his face completely neutral. "I find your lack of faith disturbing." 

"Star Wars: A New Hope. Darth Vader." Harvard slapped him a high five. "Nice." 

It struck him just then how much he had missed this - trying to stump his teammates with his encyclopedic knowledge of movie quotes to lighten the mood right before they walked into a pucker factor situation.

~  Marcus and Harvard

"Grief and love can coexist."  ~  Regina

Shit, the Cajun was right. He wasn't breathing. His lungs were too tight, and his throat burned. What the fuck was this? Emotion? He didn't do emotion.  ~  Ian

Just remember there's no cosmic scale of justice you can balance with death. You can't avenge Danny by killing everyone involved in his murder. It won't change anything."  ~  Leah

Excerpt:

          Who killed Danny Giancarelli? 

          That’s all Marcus Deangelo wanted to know—the name of the sniper who murdered his best friend two months ago. Two simple words. A location, if he could get it, but he’d be happy with just a name. 

          But the woman wasn’t talking. And he was running out of time. And patience. 

          He tipped her chair back to all four legs and yanked the wet cloth away from her face. She coughed and sputtered and glared at him with murder in her dark eyes. Mercedes Raya was a tough nut to crack, had to give her that. He’d admire her if she wasn’t the enemy and literally in bed with his own personal devil. 

          The sniper had to be her lover. According to recent intel, her only family—a brother—went missing over a year ago. So, lover. It was the only reason Marcus could figure a mercenary bitch like her would be so protective of the man. 

          He slammed the jug of water down on a table and turned away from her. For a heartbeat, he thought What the fuck am I doing? He was supposed to be one of the good guys. He’d joined the FBI because he wanted to help people. When he left to join HORNET, a privately owned hostage rescue team, it was with the same goal in mind. To help. To save. He’d been a negotiator, one of the best the FBI had, able to talk down the worst of the bad guys. 

          Now look at him. 

          Waterboarding a woman. 

          He was the bad guy now. 

          But whatever. Despite his best intentions, he was never going to qualify for sainthood, even before Danny died on that beach in Martinique. After…Well, any shred of decency left in him had been eaten up by rage and booze. 

          If it was the last thing he did—if it cost him his tarnished soul—he would find Danny’s killer and make the man pay for taking a real-deal, decent man from this earth. For widowing a sweet woman. For orphaning three beautiful, innocent children. 

          Mercedes finally stopped coughing. “Call that torture? My father called it Monday night.”

          He ground his teeth until his jaw ached and turned to face her. Even though he hadn’t put a physical mark on her, she looked like hell. Her long dark hair had knotted into dreadlocks in the weeks they’d held her captive. Her eyes were red and puffy, tears streaming from the corners despite her tough words. Due to her refusal of food, she’d lost weight she couldn’t afford to lose. Mercedes was bony, haggard, and mean, like a stray street dog that had never known kindness. 

          She wasn’t going to break. 

          The realization fell on him like a load of wet cement, weighing him down where he stood, making breathing impossible. He shook his head. “Why are you protecting him? He left you to us. He hasn’t come for you. If he was worth protecting, he’d have risked his life to find you.”

          Marcus saw a flicker of emotion behind those devil-dark eyes. 

          Gotcha. 

          He slid his phone from his back pocket and held it out. “Call him. Tell him HORNET is holding you captive near Jackson, Wyoming. Tell him the team is all out of town until Monday. You’re easy pickings right now. Let’s see how much he cares.”

          “He loves me.”

          Uh-huh. That was not the declaration of a woman certain about the status of her relationship. She didn’t believe it any more than he did. 

          Marcus jiggled the phone in front of her face. “Here’s his chance to prove it.”

          Gaze fastened on the phone, she lifted the corner of her mouth in a sneer. “If you think you’ll be able to track him from a phone call—”

          He grunted and took out his pocketknife, then sliced through the tape holding her right hand to the arm of the chair. “You’re not stupid. You know how to get in touch with him without leaving a trail.”He shoved the phone into her free hand, then stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Go on. Call him.”

          She blinked at him. “You’re willing to put your team in danger for answers?”

          “I’m not. Your boyfriend won’t come.”

          She flinched. A small, almost imperceptible movement, but yeah, he’d hit a nerve. “You don’t know that.”

          “Yeah, I do. I saw real love at work in Nigeria. You did, too. Jean-Luc and Claire Oliver. He didn’t rest until he found her and repeatedly put himself at risk to keep her safe. What did your boyfriend do? He took off and left you there in the middle of a biological hot zone. Why is that worth your loyalty?”

          She turned the phone over in her hand. Again and again. But she hadn’t thrown it back at him, which he took as a good sign. 

          “You plan to kill him?”she asked after an endless moment. 

          A thrill raced along Marcus’s spine. He was getting through to her. “I want answers. I know he was a hired gun. If you can tell me who hired him, I won’t need him.”

          Lies. All lies. He sure as fuck planned to kill the man who pulled the trigger, as well as the person who hired him to do it. 

          She shook her head. “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”

          Holy shit. She was talking. After all the torture—the waterboarding, the sensory overload, the sleep deprivation—all it took in the end was to shake her confidence in her man. He should’ve tried that hours ago. 

          “Give me his name,” he said softly. 

          Another shake of her head. 

          “He. Left. You.”

          She remained stubbornly silent, but there was something different about that silence now. She wasn’t as sure of herself. 

          “Why Danny?”The question had haunted him nightly since that bullet tore through his best friend’s chest. Danny didn’t have enemies. Everyone liked him. Christ, he even got thank-you letters from the guys he’d put in prison during his tenure as an FBI negotiator. He wasn’t someone who inspired the kind of deep hatred it took to hire a hitman. 

          “It was supposed to be you,”Mercedes whispered. 

          His entire body froze, his blood icing over in his veins. “What?”

          “All I know is that you were the target. You ducked.”

          He was the target. He was the target. He was the fucking target. 

          His enemies had killed Danny. 

          His fault. 

          Jesus. 

          He moved slowly, like the air had become molasses around him. He squatted down in front of her. “Your lover killed the wrong guy. He took away a good man. A husband and a father.”

          “He knows. He feels horrible—”

          “Fuck that. It’s not enough.”

          When she didn’t respond, he yanked the phone out of her hand and found a picture of Danny with his wife and their three children. “That woman? Her name is Leah. She’s alone because your lover made a mistake. She has to raise those beautiful babies on her own. Those kids are so young they won’t even remember their father. They won’t remember how much he loved them. He won’t be there to walk his baby girl down the aisle someday. He won’t be there to teach his twins all the things boys learn from their father. All because your lover made. A. Fucking. Mistake.”

          She closed her eyes, but the tears slipped out. 

          “Let me face him, Mercedes. At the very least, you’re giving him a chance to right his wrong. I’m sure his employer is pissed.”

          She opened her eyes but didn’t look at him. She focused on the photo. “His name…”She trailed off, drew a breath, and let it out on a shaky exhale. “Fuck. His name is Sebastian Haly. He has a cabin in the Swiss Alps.”

Highlight:

          Leah wasn’t like Danny. She was fire and temper and wasn’t going to let him slink away to lick his wounds this time. In that moment, he hated her for it. 

          She dogged his heels. “You told me that Danny, with his dying breath, made you promise to take care of me and the kids.”

          “By staying away, I am. You ever need anything all you have to do is call, but you don’t want me hanging around fucking things up for you.”

          “Is that what you think Danny meant?”

          “No, but it’s the best I can do.”He shoved his board into the sand by his front porch and spun to face her. “Because I know he sure as hell didn’t mean I should fuck you, and that was exactly where things were headed when I left.”

          She flinched and took a step backward. Her arms folded tightly around her middle, pushing her breasts up under her flowing tank top. And he hated himself for noticing. What kind of man looked at his best friend’s widow like that? 

          After a moment, she released a long, slow breath. “That night, we were both drunk and crazy with grief. I was drowning and needed someone to hold on to. You were there. Convenient. We came to our senses before…”

          “Doesn’t matter. We went too far, and I refuse to dishonor Danny like that. I won’t hurt him like that.”

          Tears filled her eyes and spilled over. “Oh, Marcus. You can’t do anything to hurt him,” she said softly. “He’s dead.”

          “You think I fucking forgot?”He held up his hands like they were still covered in blood. Sometimes, he swore he still saw it there. “I held him while he bled out on a beach very much like this one. Fuck.”His hands had started shaking. Wishing like hell he had a drink, he dropped them to his sides and stomped up the steps to his bungalow. 

           The advertisement had called the bungalow “charmingly rustic,” but that was putting it nicely. It was a shipping container the local eco resort had recycled into living space and plunked down on an empty stretch of beach. He hadn’t cared. It had a bed, a refrigerator, a hotplate, and a bathroom. He hadn’t needed anything more than that. 

          He crossed to the fridge. He hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since November but needed some now before his last fragile nerve shredded and he went postal. Unfortunately, everything in the fridge looked more like a petri dish than food. 

          Leah hovered in the doorway. “I miss him, too, Marcus. It’s like a part of my soul has been ripped out of me, but I’ve accepted that he’s gone. I had to, for my sanity, because the tighter I held on to his memory, the more it hurt. It’s time you let go, too. He wouldn’t want you to isolate yourself like this.”She waved a hand at the space he’d called home for the better part of a year. “He’d hate that you’ve shut yourself away from your family, all your friends, everyone who cares about you.”

          Marcus let the fridge fall shut and leaned his forehead against the cool steel. He couldn’t speak. Partly because of the lump of granite in his throat, but mostly because of the shame burning up the back of his neck. She was right. Danny had always disapproved of his isolationist tactic of dealing with shit. He had said as much three years ago, after Marcus joined HORNET and they reconnected. 

          “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

          He heard Danny’s voice so clearly, he had to open his eyes and make sure the guy wasn’t actually standing next to him. 

          Nope, not Danny. 

          Leah. 

          He hadn’t heard her move, but now was very aware of her body so close to his in the small space of his bungalow. She trailed her fingers lightly over his shoulder, careful of his still-bleeding wound. Her touch sent a taboo thrill through him, bringing goose bumps to his skin. 

          Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

          He shouldn’t react to her like this. 

          “Will you let me take a look at that shoulder?” she asked. 

          He was helpless against her pleading blue eyes. He’d known he would be, which was why he’d run away from her as fast as he could. The more time they had spent together in those months after Danny’s death, the more he’d wanted her. It disgusted him. He’d never, ever seen Leah as anything other than a friend. From the time they were in high school, she’d always been Danny’s girl, but now…

          Yeah, Dan. I know I’m an asshole. I’m sorry. 

          And, still, he allowed her to take his hand and lead him over to his bed—the only place in the bungalow to sit. She left him long enough to search his bathroom for the first aid kit he’d brought with him. It had gotten a lot of use over the months and was running low on supplies, but there was still a bit of gauze left on the roll, two antiseptic wipes, and an unopened tube of antibiotic ointment. 

          She tore open a wipe and sat down next to him. The sweet tang of raspberries washed over him. Not perfume, he knew. She didn’t wear it, but she’d used the same raspberry body wash and lotion combination for years. 

          She was too close. 

          He reached to take the wipe from her. “I can handle this.”

          She waved him off. “You sound like the twins, especially Cooper. He thinks he’s a big, tough boy and doesn’t need his mother anymore.”

          “You’re not my mother.”His life would be so much easier if he thought of her that way. Or a sister. But, no. Of the three billion women in the world he could want to take for a lover, she was the only one who appealed to him. 

          She eyed the piles of dirty clothes and empty takeout containers littering his space. “No, I’m not, but it looks like you need someone to take care of you.”

          He clenched his teeth against the sting of the antiseptic wipe. “I’m fine.”

          “So you keep saying.”She studied his wound, then slathered it with antibiotic ointment and taped a square of gauze over it. “It’s a bit ragged, but I don’t think it needs stitches.”

          “Thanks, nurse Leah.”

          She gave a short laugh. “Not a nurse. A mother of two very rambunctious boys who have seen more than their fair share of stitches in their short lives.”

          Suddenly, he was very aware that he wore only swim trunks and the two of them were sitting on his bed. He leaped up and found a shirt among his pile of clothes. 

          Distance. He needed distance. 

          “Uh…how are the kids?”

          She froze, but only for a heartbeat. She covered her moment of surprise masterfully, but he was a trained observer. Jesus. Did she really think he was such a heartless jerk that he didn’t care about the kids? 

          Those three little humans meant the world to him. 

          “The boys are…”She seemed to search for the right word. “Resilient. They’re coping better than the rest of us. Sometimes I worry they don’t remember him. They were only six when…”She didn’t finish. No need. “I mean, do you remember anything from when you were six?”

          “I remember driving across the country with Mom. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was escaping the long reach of her family.”Despite the pain and grief that had been his constant companions, the memory brought a smile to his lips. “We stopped at one of those stupid roadside attractions in some middle-of-nowhere place because I had seen a giant dinosaur from the road. She put me up on the back of that dinosaur and climbed up there with me. I think she still has the picture someone took of us.”

          A small smile played across Leah’s lips. “She does. I’ve seen it.”

          He nodded, not the least bit surprised. His mother kept everything. “While we were up there, she told me my name wasn’t Marco Bellisario anymore. From then on, I was Marcus Deangelo, and we wouldn’t see my uncles or grandfather ever again.”

          Leah started repacking the first aid kit, all casual, like he hadn’t just admitted his connection to the infamous Bellisario crime family. Of course she wouldn’t flinch at hearing his birth name. She was one of the few people in the world who knew it. But even though most of his family members were now in prison, it still wasn’t something he liked to broadcast. People always looked at him differently when they found out he was related to the infamous Bellisario crime family. 

          But not Leah. She’d never judged him for the sins of his family. 

          “How did you react?”Leah asked. “When your mom told you everything was changing so drastically, did it bother you?”

          He lifted his unwounded shoulder, let it drop. “I don’t know. I was so young I only remember the dinosaur and Mom telling me my new name.”

          “Your grandfather was like a father figure to you, wasn’t he?”

          If you could call it that. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

          “Did you miss him?”

          “No.”

          Leah leaned forward and pressed her fists to her eyes. Only then did Marcus realize his mistake. He hadn’t seen the connection she was trying to draw until it was too late. 

          “Leah.”He crouched down in front of her and pulled her hands away from her eyes. “My relationship with my grandfather was very different than Danny’s with the twins. My grandfather was a bully. He terrorized us. I was relieved when Mom told me I never had to see him again. But Danny? He loved the twins and they loved him. They will remember him. Bits and pieces, but it will be all the good stuff.”

          “You’re right.”After a moment, she sniffled and straightened her shoulders. “And I should be happy they’re handling it so well because…Maya is struggling. She’s angry, acting out. She always used to be such a happy girl. I don’t know what to do to help her.”

          “Hey. Listen to me. You’ll figure it out. You always do.”

          She shook her head. “I’m tired of always having to figure it out alone.”

          He had to touch her. It was a bad idea, but he couldn’t stand to see her suffering alone when he could offer the comfort of a shoulder to cry on. He pulled her into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on, much like she had that night he didn’t like to think about. The night they’d almost done something in a haze of grief that they both would have regretted. He shouldn’t be touching her like this. And he sure as fuck shouldn’t want to touch her in other ways. 

          He breathed in her scent and the answering tug deep in his stomach told him to back off before his body betrayed him. 

          God. How was it possible for something so wrong to feel so good?

Review: 

Leah is in very real danger – except she has no idea just how much or just how close it is. Reeling from the death of her husband and a newfound attraction to their best friend, she is just trying to take things a day at a time as a single mom to three. When she ends up abducted and sucked into the life the HORNETs live and breathe daily – a life her husband was going to turn to – a life that got him killed, she is thrust into a world she had no understanding or appreciation for. When the only two choices are live or die, there really isn't any decision to be debated against. With the HORNETs as her incoming rescue, she is less than thrilled. They are who she blames for everything her life has become. In fact, the only thing they have in common from her perspective is their love for Marcus – and now the fact that she is in peril, abducted and whisked away to a strange land, with only Marcus and the HORNETs to save her leaves her begrudgingly accepting their help. But through all of the craziness and scheming is something much deeper than anyone could have ever anticipated and Leah might be the key to unraveling it all and taking down some seriously devious crime bosses in the process. All she has to do is stay alive, figure out a way to trust the HORNETs, and convince Marcus that their attraction is so much more than the betrayal to her husband and his best friend that he stubbornly insists it is. No big deal.

Marcus is hopelessly in love with Leah. He probably has been for as long as he can remember, but since Danny got her, he never allowed those feelings to manifest. With Danny gone and his connection to Leah growing stronger, it’s getting hard to resist her. But each break feels like disloyalty toward his best friend and he doesn’t want to suck Leah into the deception with him. She’s just grieving, not really feeling anything for him anyway. So he does what he does best and runs – far away – even from his team. But he eventually returns at Leah’s request and immediately turns personal protection detail out of necessity. Except this threat ends up being so much bigger than anyone thought and he needs his team desperately if they are to have a chance of survival. It looks like he’s got a lot of decisions to make. Leah’s safety is the priority, but then he’s got to figure out what to do about his position within the team, and then his future with Leah. That is, if she’ll even speak to him again after they make it out of this harrowing experience she’s been an unwilling participant in.

I feel the need to preface this review by saying that I have not read any of the books in the HORNET series. There is very clearly a lot of carryover from the previous books and I feel it would be in the best interest of any reader to enjoy this series in order. Not to say that I did not enjoy this book. I most certainly did. However, I also know that when I eventually get around to reading this series from the beginning, I will definitely have to read this book again just to keep up on where everyone was and what was occurring. The book works as a stand-alone, yes. But after reading it, I can say with certainty that I know it would have been even better having come into the story with all of the back knowledge in place. As it is, I am left with a lot of questions. Intrigued as well.

While this book is about an elite security team that puts their lives on the line to do the ugly jobs no one wants to think about, it is also a story about overcoming loss and learning to move on. Leah goes through several emotions during this nerve-wracking experience, but when she finally emerges on the other side of all the bad, she has a newfound understanding of life. Not only to appreciate everything you have and not take anything for granted but also new respect for the things the HORNET team does and the people they come into contact with. This enlightenment even transfers into a new direction for Leah’s life that goes beyond just her and Marcus – a direction that could very well place her on HORNETs radar again in the future. I’m just saying. For Marcus things are quite a lot different. He already knows what he wants and is fulfilled with his chosen career path. What he has to realize and learn to embrace is that he is not stealing Danny’s life away from him. He is stepping into a place where there is an absence felt on a molecular level that only he can fulfill. And there couldn’t be a better person for that role. At one point I wanted to knock him upside his head, but the depth of emotions that he went through was gut-wrenching. While I experienced aggravation at the guilt and alienation Marcus wallows in and thrusts at Leah, it was also relevant and appropriate to the situation. Ultimately, I actually ended up enjoying the strife. They didn’t just fall into bed and try to play house, which made me connect to both of them on a deeper level. I also adored Marcus’s freaky great encyclopedia in his head of movie quotes. What a fun and unexpected quirk of this rough and fearsome special ops soldier.

As far as the characters…dang, there were a lot of them! Marcus’s mother stole the show for sure. She is a bad-ass in her own right and has some crazy capable skill. If ever I was in trouble, I’d for sure want that woman at my back. Alexander Cabot – let’s just say he’s been through some shit and what’s coming next is going to have one hell of an effect on HORNET. Then there is Mercedes who we have ascertained is Alexander’s sister. Also that she has some crazy sparks with Ian. She’s the enemy but seems to have turned informant when it suits her. Even begrudging teammate at times. But make no mistake – she is still on the wrong side. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a book in the future for Mercedes and Ian with Mercedes defecting to the HORNET team. She reminds me of Navabi from The Blacklist. When I picture her, that is who I see – so much about those two characters are eerily similar. Then there is Ian. Good grief that guy! He will probably end up with the best book of them all. He’s a puzzle – he’s definitely a mystery and has secrets he’s guarding. Those secrets seem to have something to do with Defion. Since this is my first book, I did not get a clear picture of Defion or how they impacted the team members, but it is definitely some shady, nasty company that no one walks away from. Ian, Alexander, and Mercedes have ties to them and there doesn’t seem to be any love lost between any of them and the evil business. But back to Ian … while there are parts of him difficult to assimilate, he isn’t all that difficult when you break it down. He prefers to be alone and refuses to acknowledge that he needs this team just as much as they need him. He doesn’t do friends, or feelings. He acts like it’s some big inconvenience to be a part of the team. But he is quick to react whenever necessary and despite his tendencies toward violence, his teammates are always at his sixes, keeping him in check. It frustrates the hell out of him, but I believe he secretly craves the connection. For all outward appearances, the guy is only comfortable with his four-legged partner, Tank. And that may be true on some level, but he also needs the link to humanity his team provides. His attraction to Mercedes is going to be a sticky situation and I look forward to reading how it all eventually plays out. I’m clearly just a bit enamored of this fascinating character. Believe me when I say these are just a few of the massive cast of characters assembling to create this fantastic world.

If I had a regret, it is whole-heartedly that I did not start this series at the beginning. With so much obviously carrying over from one book to the next, I strongly recommend reading in order. Now, I did make my way through this book with little difficulty, but assimilating so much information with no back knowledge from the previous books was daunting at times. I did make my way through everything, but there were a few areas I re-read just to try to keep the people and events straight. So please heed my advice … READ IN ORDER … if the other books are half as good as this book, then it will be time well invested. Ms. Burrows has created a fantastic group of men and women within this amazing operative team that each have their own strengths and weaknesses. When melded together as a cohesive unit, they are pretty much unstoppable. I loved that each member was so unique, yet vital to the success of the missions. The depth of emotion experienced throughout this book was unexpected but welcomed. I can tell there is a ton gearing up for the subsequent books in the series and I am excited to see where Ms. Burrows takes these talented, feisty members. Ms. Burrows and the HORNET team series is firmly in my top 5 special ops book series as of, well, immediately. Now to find the time to read the whole series … I will endeavor to make it happen.

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