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Let me be clear, I enjoy Roxie Ray as an author collective writing group and at its core this felt very much like their other work. However, at times, it felt like the authors took their favorite parts of other books and shoved them all together into one book. I almost stopped at 100 pages because I was getting so much deja vu with plot and characters. Which, I do expect similarities between authors work but not to the point that I recheck other books worried that I am reading the same book twice. There are some editing errors (characters with the wrong name) but nothing serious. The cover bothers me because the MMC is blonde but the cover isn’t. But at the end of the day what got this book the rating it has is that it felt needlessly overcomplicated. The FMC was right, the MMC did keep saying he would handle things and didn't which didn't make sense for his character being an alpha with a criminal organization and who spent years in jail. An entire subplot and villian line could have been removed at it wouldn't have made any difference in the storyline and the big reveal from that line could have been done in a different way. Really three could have and it would have saved the readers easily 100-200 pages without taking anythin from the story. To me, overcomplicating the plot this much with recycled storyline from other books just felt unnecessary and added bulk to a story that could have been kept a little shorter and made sweeter for it. As it stands, there is so much going on and so many whiplash personality aspects that we don't really connect with the main characters. Serious question, did each of the authors take a different aspect and write it then an editor merged them into one? Because it felt disjointed enough that I could believe it was a sloppy group project at points. At the end of the day, the whole book needs a hard edit to remove some fluff and bring it down to the 400-500 range including removing some of the junk storyline and focusing more on the main characters. If the split between the characters was because he got arrested and she left to protect her child and then the rest focused on him getting clean with her learning to love him again? Add in the complication with his brother, but take out some of the pussy footing about how to handle his brother after multiple attempts on their lives, it would be a solid story and could focus on characters a little more.