Fallen Rook (The Society of Villains 3), by L. J. Shen | Free Audiobook
Fallen Rook (The Society of Villains 3)Audiobook
The agent, the enforcer, and the secret nobody can afford
Tom has spent years trying to put Enzo Ferrante behind bars, and he has the file to prove it. The problem is that the file keeps not being enough: Enzo moves through New York with a beautiful face, an old family name and an instinct for being somewhere else when the handcuffs arrive.
Then Enzo makes a careless mistake, and the two men end up bound to each other in a way neither of them planned. The agent who wanted him locked up becomes the one person keeping him safe, and Enzo, who grew up in a world where everyone wants something from him, finds the one man who claims not to. What neither of them admits out loud is that the arrangement has already gone somewhere else entirely, and that Enzo goes home at night to a fiancee who has no idea.
It is the third book in the Society of Villains series, a forbidden age-gap romance between two men who should be enemies, and it can be read on its own. The earlier books follow Enzo's brothers, so readers of the series will recognise the family, and newcomers will not be lost.
I came to this one expecting the usual mafia romance and got something with more patience than that. Tom is a federal agent who has devoted years to one man, and the book is smart enough to notice that obsession and love can look identical from the outside. Enzo is the one everybody underestimates because he is charming and pretty and always seems to be enjoying himself, and the novel lets you see the machinery underneath that performance.
The reason this works is the balance. Plenty of dark romance gives you a powerful man and a partner who exists to be claimed, and L.J. Shen keeps refusing that shortcut: both of them have work that matters, both of them are dangerous, and both of them are lying to somebody they love. The book is explicit and it is angsty, and it also takes the emotional consequence of what they are doing seriously, which is what separates this series from the pile. A reader on Goodreads put it better than I could: "I had no idea how they could possibly get their HEA given their occupations and enemy status... it was a painful journey at times but it was absolutely worth every heartbreaking turn it took."
The audio is the reason I would push this one to anyone who is on the fence about audiobooks. Nine narrators is not a gimmick here: Corvin King, Anthony Palmini, Lucy Rivers, Lila Winters, Stella Bloom, Stephen Dexter, Teddy Hamilton, Jason Clarke and Aiden Snow split the cast, and the result is a book that plays like a production rather than a reading. Corvin King and Anthony Palmini carry Tom and Enzo, and the handoffs never feel like a scene change, which is harder than it sounds when two people share one narrator's chapter.
It runs twelve hours and fifty minutes, it is the third in the series and easy to start here, and the first two are already on the site if you want the whole family: Bad Bishop and Twisted Pawn. I went in cold, having read none of the earlier books, and finished it wanting the other two.
Fallen Rook is the third book in L.J. Shen's Society of Villains series, and it puts a federal agent and a Camorra enforcer in the same room and then refuses to let either of them leave. Tom has been chasing Enzo for years; Enzo makes one careless mistake and suddenly the man who wanted him arrested is the man keeping him alive. Neither of them says out loud where it has gone since.
The audiobook runs 12 hrs and 50 mins and it is a full cast production with nine narrators, which is unusual enough that it changes how the book plays: instead of one voice doing an impression of everybody, you get separate performers for Tom, Enzo and the surrounding cast.
You can start with a free trial, cancel whenever you like, and you spend the trial on whichever title you want, this one included. Once the book is in your library it stays there even after you cancel, so the twelve hours and fifty minutes are yours to keep. It is the third in the series but it stands alone, so you can begin here and go back for the brothers afterwards.
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