Here's "Hero Worship" by L Eveland. It's the fifth novel in the Wayward Sons series.
["They say beauty is a weapon. I've perfected it as an art form.
I'm Xander Laskin—vigilante, lethal seducer, and absolutely obsessed with my new handler. Ash Valentine is everything I never knew I ex-FBI legend, iron-willed disciplinarian, and a man who's about to discover he isn't as straight as he thought.
Our mission is infiltrate fashion icon Avery Roche's inner circle and expose a killer who turns beautiful boys into preserved art. Playing newlyweds should be easy—I'm excellent at seduction, and Ash... Well, let's just say his possessive streak isn't entirely for show. But when we discover Roche is keeping the child of a Russian crime boss as their latest muse, the stakes become deadly personal.
I've spent my life using beauty as armor, turning heads while hiding knives. But Ash sees past my careful masks, past the dresses and deadly grace, to the broken parts I thought no one could want. As our fake marriage ignites very real passion, we're both discovering that some boundaries are meant to be crossed.
One thing is by the end of this mission, he'll be mine completely. He just doesn't know it yet."]
Well, I remember why I took a break from this series. No matter the brother, no matter the mental health spice level, it hits you right in the chest with a fuck-I-feel-that-way-too. It's very strong, and it's incredibly relatable, and it causes soooo many feels--so many tears for me and so much angst for the couple/family.
It's always the ones with the best poker faces and the strongest I'm-tough-shit personas that are always the most broken. And these two were sooo broken, hiding so many traumas and skeletons and insecurities (soo many insecurities). But they held each other up, they helped each other grow. They helped each other heal, and they gave each other a home.
I almost need another break…then again it would be another dark romance so…we’ll see what happens tomorrow.
Trigger Warnings: graphic violence and gore, murder, blood, death, sexual assault, drug-use and addiction references, self-destructive behavior, mental health issues, BPD, PTSD, schizophrenia, child abuse and neglect, family, trauma, mild body horror, medical procedures and body modification, torture, gender dysphoria, transphobia/misgendering, non-con drug use, kidnapping and human trafficking, parental abandonment, suicidal ideation, preservation/taxidermy of human bodies, and more.
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