Title: Broken Trust
Author: Stella Gray
Publisher/Year:  Paige Press 11/09/21
Length:  190 Pages
Series: Broken #3

Overview

You can’t run from the past… or from a Bellanti.

I’ve always been a foolish girl.
I should have learned my lesson the first time a man betrayed me.
It hurt when Rico abandoned me. My father’s deal was agony.

Dante’s betrayal… it might kill me.

And there’s nothing I can do.
He’s not the kind of man who takes orders from his wife.
And he’ll never let me leave.
There’s nowhere I can go that he won’t find me.

My father forced me to marry him.

Dante made me love him.

It’s my turn to show them all what a Bellanti woman is…

My Thoughts

It was so lovely to jump back into this story since it’s been a roller coaster between Frankie and Dante throughout books 1 and 2. Their relationship (as most do in this genre) start off on someone be forced into a relationship that they didn’t want, for reasons they didn’t know, and then there’s an evolution of hate turning into love. and then of course there are lies and withholding of information that causes the fragile foundation to crumble.

What we saw at the end of book 2 is exactly that. They had something great, Dante was able to turn off the harsh cold side of himself for a bit and they went away and had a romantic weekend. All for that to come crashing down when Frankie discovered the terms of the deal that her father made with, and realizes that there was almost no value placed on her worth when she was traded to clear a debt.

So, we watched Frankie leave Dante and walk away from the life that they had, and we learn that she’s gone to Florida, to Miami to stay with her mom for a bit. While she’s there, she also learns that she’s pregnant, meaning that as much as she wants to be done with Dante, she never will be now.

Dante knows where she is, he’s tracked her and assumes that she’ll come back, but when weeks go by and that doesn’t happen, he decides to go after her. What we see from there is expected. Frankie is angry that he won’t leave her alone, yet she’s drawn to him from the chemistry and bond that they’ve developed. She finds that she can’t stay away, her heart won’t let her even though her head is telling her to run. IT’s not until he brings in the big guns, the whole family to bring her back and we see that turn a corner.

That break is short lived of course though because there’s someone gunning for the Bellantis and for the Abbotts and no one is safe. Livvie has to go into hiding. The sisters have to be extra protected by their husbands and there’s no idea yet who’s after them. We know that there’s a blonde man with a tattoo on his neck that paid off a mechanic to tamper with Dante’s father’s car which ended up in his death, and we also learned that a similar fate was planned for Marco which makes Dante even on more edge since Marco is a bit more free wheeling and a race car driver that doesn’t have boundaries.

We watch how the notion of a baby changes the dynamic of the entire cast – there are those that are happy and those that are happy with a twinge of jealousy. But we can only hope that it will firm up the bond in the families. until someone comes and hurts what doesn’t belong to him.

Both Frankie and her sister Charlie are caught in the crossfire, both end up in the ER and only one comes out relatively unscathed. The trajectory of this story changes and we can only hope for a better outcome down the road.

On top of all this nonsense, Jessica is still around and that angers Frankie almost as much as the lies on the circumstances of the marriage. Jessica wants Dante and wants to get everything that Frankie has but quickly learn that perhaps she’s now set her sights on another Bellanti and that cannot be a good thing for anyone.

So, in the epilogue, we see how things resolve, perhaps not to how we hoped, but then we realize that there is far more that hasn’t been tied up than we wanted. The idea that Livvie and her mom are protected, hidden in New Orleans is a reassurance, however when we realize who her bodyguard is, there’s an entire new reason to have anxiety. AND….her story isn’t the next in the series which means that we have to wait so much longer to find out how that works out. UNFAIR yet so smart by our author. We now get a story tied to Marco which I think will be great since he likes to live life far more dangerously than the other brothers. So I shall be patient and wait for that one to come out and I hope you guys read the series until then. Enjoy!