I wavered on the edge of just not finishing this book so many times. The hero is a misogynistic creep. Both characters are honestly pretty bland. And for a book about assassination, there's very little actual assassinations, or really any action at all, occurring.

Misha seeks out Rikki 18 years after saving her from the burning wreckage of her home after his mother assassinates her father. Since then, Misha's basically been in love with Rikki. I'm not sure exactly how old Rikki is, but after her father died, she was placed in government child care. Misha was in his twenties when he saved her. That's pedophilia right there. He goes out of his way to say that he wasn't interested in her during that time, but that she changed his life and he never went a day without thinking of her since... At one point in his internal monologue he asks:

What would their lives have been like if he had stayed with her in the hospital and refused to go with his mother, refused to go back to the Guild? Who would have been then?

I think it's pretty clear that makes you a sexual predator, Misha.

The romance between the 2 characters is insta-lust turned to insta-love pretty quickly. They go through a couple rounds of sex -> finding a reason to distrust the other -> sex -> more reasons to distrust, etc. Eventually, they foil a plot to kill the guild's director :shrug: Not really sure what Rikki got out of that, but okay.

The plot is pretty boring, not much to say about it. There are some pretty massive holes that were really hard to ignore. For instance, after Rikki escapes from the (space) cruiseship where she first encounters Misha, he needs to track her down because reasons. He monitors security footage to figure out what ship she gets onto at each port (since she's trying to shake him, she uses multiple routes to get to her final destination). So essentially, he's behind her the whole time and tracking her with video footage. Then, somehow manages to get to her final destination an ENTIRE WEEK ahead of her. That is some epic space-assassin magic.

Worse than the plot holes -- Misha is a complete asshole to Rikki the entire time. His initial reason for seeking her out is to convince her that she needs more assassin training; when she angrily tells him to fuck off, he's shocked that she's not grateful to him for the opportunity. He's condescending to every woman he encounters (calls his bff a trainwreck; tells his ex that he lost all passion for her 6-months into their 5-year relationship).

When he confronts Rikki about her missing memories (about how he saved her) and her memories start coming back, she's very naturally re-living her past trauma. And while she's doing that, he's downgrading his opinion of her to victim instead of competent assassin (even though he never thought she was competent...). I'm sitting here reading this like, I'm sorry, she can't be both things? Being a victim and having a natural emotional response to trauma means she can't be a competent badass assassin??

I could go on, but honestly, this book is not worth it.