Midnight Pursuits (Killer Instincts, #4)

by Elle Kennedy

[EBookObsessed]

Ethan was just starting his mandatory down time, when he intercepted a phone call on Isabel’s phone. Isabel had left it behind as she left for her honeymoon, and even though he saw from the caller I.D. that it was Juliet Mason, he knew he needed to answer. Ethan met Juliet (one of Noelle’s thief/assassins) last year when she helped out Ethan’s team, but he isn’t sure what makes him more angry, her sarcastic tongue and merciless teasing or the fact that he can’t get thoughts of her dark eyes and perfect body out of his head. It is one thing to be teased about his age by his teammates, as they call him the rookie, but having the beautiful and dangerous Juliet mocking him was frustrating.

Ethan can tell when he answers that Juliet is hurt, badly. With Isabel on her honeymoon and the rest of his team on assignment, Ethan knows that even half a world away, he is the only hope that Juliet has and he has to act fast or he may be too late.

After patching up a bullet hole in Juliet’s side and sitting on her until she begins to recover, Ethan finally forces out of her what happened. Juliet’s brother is shot when he returned home early to take care of his sick girlfriend. What Henry manages to tell Juliet confirms that Zoya was killed by a very expensive contract killer, the Siberian Wolf. Henry works for the Red Cross and Zoya is a school teacher. Who would hire a high priced assassin to kill off a school teacher?

Juliet manages to get–or torture–the information out of the Wolf before she kills him and she won’t stop until she kills the man who hired the hit. She also learned that Zoya wasn’t the only target on his list and there are still three living targets. Ethan won’t leave Juliet to face such a dangerous man by herself, especially wounded, but he wants to bring in some of his team to protect the other targets.

Juliet likes to work alone, but if she is going to be followed around by Morgan’s rookie and give in to his boy scout good deeds, she will only agree to protect the others as long as Ethan doesn’t get in her way of extracting her revenge.

THOUGHTS:
If you like Maya Bank’s KGI series like I do, you will really enjoy this story. This is my first of the series (I didn’t realize it was the 4th book) and when I mentioned how much I was enjoying Ethan and Juliet, I was gifted with copies of the first three books in the series. (Thank you, Penguin!)

I don’t know about the other books yet, but if you were going to start a book in the middle of the series, you can’t help but love Juliet and Ethan. You do meet some others in the series, but I didn’t feel lost for not knowing everyone’s deep background. They worked together when it was needed even though this series includes the two separate teams belonging to Morgan and Noelle, who both have different purposes and styles.

Juliet is a tough-as-nails heroine. Juliet is dangerous and she knows it. Her one weakness is her feeling for Henry. She was a orphan who went from one bad foster family to another and her “brother” Henry was another foster kid and they took care of each other. When she loses Henry, she loses the only person who truly loves her and who would cared if she died. Herein we see the soft heart of the dangerous assassin that she tries to keep hidden from the others.

Although Juliet considers herself a bad person since she does kill people for a living, you see her giving in to not only her attraction to the younger Ethan, but also softening up to his Captain America view of the world. He wants to protect the other people because that’s how he is wired, and you see how the jaded Juliet wants to be better and worthy in his eyes.

This was a thrilling action story and a moving love story as well. I am going to see what I can do to squeeze in the first three. There is some deep history between Morgan and Noelle (the leaders of the two separate teams) and you get a tiny glimpse through their arguing that once they were deeply in love but they both appear to feel betrayed by the other. So there is going to be one explosive book when those two get thrown back together.

This will definitely make my ‘I’m gonna follow the series’ list. But if you just want to give this a try, it can work as a stand alone as well.

Bonus – Elle Kennedy has a breakdown of the characters of the Killer Instinct Series on her website

Received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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