Midnight Target (Killer Instincts, #8)

by Elle Kennedy

[EBookObsessed]

Make sure you will be able to finish this in a day. There is so much action and danger you are not going to be able to put this down and actually go to sleep.

This is it, the final Killer Instinct story and Elle Kennedy certainly takes us out with a bang. Cate Morgan is now grown up and working as a photo journalist. She accidentally takes a photo of a drug king pin who is supposed to be dead. She gives in and contacts her father, who she isn’t getting along with, to verify the man in the photo. It is when Morgan reaches out to his contacts that all hell breaks loose. Men like Rivera have moles everywhere and it gets back to him that Cate has this photographic proof. Like any good drug lord, instead of being smart about it, locating Cate and stealing her camera and computer equipment, they burst in with guns blazing leaving a trail of bodies. But Cate has learned enough living on campus with mercs and manages to get away.

While this set up is important to the story, it really doesn’t make sense. If they could have gotten to Cate and her equipment before anyone found out she had that picture, okay, then killing her makes sense. But she has already sent the picture to Morgan, and he already sent it to his DEA contacts. Killing Cate really doesn’t accomplish anything but a drug lord having a very bloody, hissy fit. Damage is done, and his faked death is blown. If it was just Morgan with the picture, they could have kidnapped Cate to get the copies destroyed, but since the government already had proof that he faked his death, killing Cate accomplishes nothing except giving us a thrilling story plot.

Putting aside from that small flaw, Cate contacts Jim, because she might be pissed at her Dad but she’s not stupid, and Jim, Noelle and his team arrive to get Cate out. The team arrives at Cate’s location at the same time as the drug lord and several members of the cartel are killed in the cross fire, and Jim is critically injured. The drug lord is pissed off and wants to destroy Morgan’s team and Noelle is looking to destroy the cartel in retribution for Jim’s injury. When the cartel starts going after family members in order to flush out the team, the war turns into a blood bath.

Romancewise, we have not just one couple to get together but two: Cate and the rookie, Ash; and Liam and Sully.
For anyone still squeamish about a male/male romance, I have to tell you, the interactions and chemistry between Liam and Sully was much more fulfilling than that of Cate and Ash.

Cate was happy see to Jim arrive, but not Ash. Jim didn’t want his daughter hooking up with a merc and knew that Cate gravitated to Ash whenever they were both at the compound. Not wanting the disappoint Jim, Ash pushes away Cate hard, sometimes being very nasty and hurtful to her. While he regrets hurting her, he chooses Jim’s approval over Cate.

We have watched Liam and Sully doing the dance for the last few books. Their friendship abruptly changed after an impromptu passionate kiss which threw Liam into confusion over his feelings towards his friend. Liam grew up in a conservative Irish Catholic family and feared his parents’ and siblings’ reactions if he decided to be with a man. I was always sad for Sullivan Port, who grew up an orphan, and while he was always the life of the party, the only real friend he had was Liam. This kiss took away the only person who cared about Sully and it was heartbreaking. So for the last few books Liam and Sully danced around where they stood–do they stay friends? do they become lovers?

Sully was also shocked and disappointed that, after rejecting Liam in one of the prior stories and telling Liam that he wasn’t interested in helping Liam experiment with a man, Liam apparently found a lover to experiment with and Sully realizes he screwed up royally. This parallels Cate and Ash’s story where Cate wanted Ash to be her first but he tosses a naked Cate out of his room, she eventually loses her virginity to some random hook up and was quite disappointed by the whole experience.

Why I say there was more to Liam and Sully’s relationship than Cate and Ash is simply there was more passion and more play between them both in and out of bed while Ash was more of a “plow ’em as fast and hard as possible” kind of guy. There was little build up between them, while Liam and Sully built up the pressure until they could get the other begging for release.

Liam and Sully was the relationship I was looking to finally get a resolution on and I am happy the way it all worked out.

As far as a final story, Elle Kennedy didn’t disappoint. It was all action and excitement and certainly worth the read.