Justice for Milena: Badge of Honor, Texas Heroes Book 10, Susan Stoker

When the love of your life walks out it's hard to know where to go from there.  With a shattered heart but so full of love for an unexpected gift left behind, Milena makes a success of her life with the support of friends and family.  But when she's in danger it's the man she thought she could move on without that comes to her aid.  TJ regrets every day that he left the woman that had a home in his soul.  Yet his demons wouldn't let him stay and be happy.  Though he's tried to make a life without her there's not one part of him -- mind, body, heart, or soul -- that can move on without her.  And when he gets a chance to be a part of her forever he's going to use every method, connection, and honest confession he can to make his part permanent.  Nothing and no one will get in his way, not even a sadistic pair of men bent on eliminating Milena.

LOVE the celibate hero.  FINALLY!  I've honestly been hoping there was a sexy hero out there that doesn't become a manwhore after a breakup.  So Alpha -- at every turn.  But, and this is the best, he didn't "imprison" Milena because of his fierce need to protect.  His interactions with JT were so very sweet.  To see his heart find completeness, all the love he could ever want, deserve, hope for, dream of...I'm not sure it's possible not to love this man.

And for his partner I couldn't wish for a better woman in Milena.  Now, when they meet again after years, Milena's gut reaction was not awesome.  Yes, it was understandable, but it wasn't very nice.  I mean, we get a lot of pain, a sense of abandonment, some resentment, but a lot of what we read before their meeting was more of her love and tenderness toward the broken man that left her.  And then, after all the expressions of love and keeping his memory present, for her to explode with vitriol at their first interaction I was completely floored.  I could guess that there would be a bunch of banked anger in and amongst all her feelings for the man but for that one to take center stage was shocking and slightly disappointing.  That being said, she's strong, independent, but not mule-headed.  Her trust in the man who shattered his heart is staggering and as she allows him to put those pieces back together more securely than if it had never broken in the first place, she finds her own happiness, one that she could never have imagined before.

The antagonists were truly sick and I now this is completely un-PC to even think this, but I was glad for TJ's brand of justice.  I'm not going to get into politics here in a book review, but with a rotten, festering soul that does what these men did and have all the money and political connections they had, knowing that the legal process wouldn't bring justice on them, a different kind of justice needed to be carried out.  So in this fictional story with fictional men doing drastic things to bring about justice for the innocents in the fictional story, I'm 100% behind TJ's actions.  In real life situations like this may occur and my feelings might be more complicated regarding the resolution, but for the purposes of this particular story, I agreed with how the conflict was settled.

Drama, incredible feels, intense passion, regret, forgiveness...there is so much to love about this story.  I've wanted to get TJ's story for so long and he has lived up to every one of my heart's hopes for him and his own happily ever after.  And now for Sadie's story...without Sadie at Milena's side over the years things might have gone very differently.  But that teaser at the end with Sadie getting an earful of Chase's intentions?!?!?!?!  Holy Eff.  I'm tingling right now.  Must. Read. Soon!

*$4.99 on Amazon!