Audiobook Review: Beautifully Savage Butterfly (Mafia Bound #2) by KM Neuhold (Author) & Nick J. Russo and Declan Winters

Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE: Beautiful wild butterfly

SERIES: Mafia bound

AUTHOR: KM Neuhold

NARRATOR: Nick J. Russo and Declan Winters

PUBLISHER: KM Neuhold Publishing LLC

LENGTH: xx hours and x minutes

PUBLICATION DATE: xx september 2024

SUMMARY:

Being wild in the ring is one thing. The way Elio Moretti demands my violence outside the ring is another.

I feel like I’ve been fighting my whole life and giving up has never been an option.

I can live with the fact that I owe money to the Morettis. I can even live with the constant guilt that my brother is the one lying paralyzed in a hospital bed while I live his dream. What I can’t live with is Elio Moretti, the second in command of the infamous crime family, showing up at all my fights, sitting in the front row, watching me like he can’t look away, and bursting into the locker room to tend to my wounds and invade my space.

The Morettis are monsters. Vicious, brutal sociopaths. So why is Elio so eager to get on his knees for me?

He wants to give up control just as much as I want to take it back. But is giving in to these primal urges reason enough to sell my soul?

He claims that there are worse people in this town than his family, and the deeper I get into his world, the more that seems to ring true. Can I really fall in love with a mafia underboss? Is it even possible to walk away?

JUDGEMENT:

Warning: This is the second book in a series and contains spoilers for the first book. Also, this story mentions underage sex trafficking.

Whoa! This is one crazy rollercoaster ride. In this story, Elio, the brother of the head of the Moretti crime family, falls head over heels in love with MMA fighter Orion. Well, at first he’s obsessed 😉 But then he falls in love.

Orion earns his living as an MMA fighter – an income that allows him to take care of his quadriplegic brother, about whom he feels guilty. He is living Jack’s dream, but it is more of a nightmare. He has taken out a loan from the Moretti crime family, but even that is not enough and so he also fights in illegal underground fights to keep his head above water.

Elio, the underboss of the family, is obsessed with Orion – he is present at every fight and makes sure Orion is okay after every fight. This despite Orion’s CLEAR desire to be left alone. He hates Moretti and everything the family stands for, but mostly because Elio has the money and the means to get what he wants. But it turns out he really wants Orion. Elio is absolutely a sub and he longs for Orion to take control.

These two are hot and bothered from the start. But Orion soon realizes that Elio, while a stone-cold killer, does have a moral compass. And he wants to help Orion (and Jack), but he has to be careful. It takes a while for Orion to trust Elio and his motives. He doesn’t want to be possessed. There’s a push-pull between them that also escalates to sex (which is smoking, by the way). Eventually, they figure out that they’re better together, and Orion accepts that he might need Elio in ways he didn’t expect.

This audio is red hot! I think the heat in this one is even hotter than the last one. These narrators do an amazing job. Declan Winters growling Orion was perfect! Nick Russo’s Elio is the gangster with a heart of gold. I can’t wait for another book – Enzo is the one I want to see find his love 😉 This series isn’t necessarily “realistic” but I guess that’s okay. It’s interesting and fun and the characters are fascinating 😀

JUDGEMENT:

BUY LINKS:

Amazon

Audible