Book Review: First

Title: First
Author: Penelope Sky
Genre: Romance, Dark Romance, Fiction

What It’s About: Damien continues to work at the bank with Hades, though they do not get along. He drops off some documents with Hades despite their split, and is about to leave the job when his assistant catches up with him and tells him that an Anabella De Luca wants to speak with him. She comes into his office right before closing time, and tells him that she wants to buy an apartment, which he finds strange especially when he looks her up and sees that she is on the accounts with her husband, Liam De Luca. He asks her which account she wants him to move the money out of and she tells him that those are the accounts belonging to her husband, whom she had divorced. She asks him to remove her from those accounts, and then has him transfer 50K from her own account under her maiden name to the account of the apartment for purchase. He tries to advise her to take her ex-husband’s money in the divorce because she is entitled to it, as he sees that the 50K that she had is all she had, but Annabella says that she was never with her husband because of his money, and though she knows that she is entitled to it, she doesn’t want it.

A couple of days go by and Damien cannot get her out of his mind, so he checks her account and sees that she is getting paid from a bistro. He goes to see her at her workplace where she is a waitress, and they get into a bit of a spat, with Annabella being sassy with him. She ignores him, and tells him off as she leaves the bistro for the night, but he chases her. He asks her to go out with him, and explains that she won’t find anyone else good enough for her, though she is hesitant to go out with him. That said, the next time they meet up, he tells her that he is a pretty good kisser, and then walks her to her door, where he proceeds to make out with her. She basically rubs herself against him, and when he finishes kissing her, she realizes that he had kept his promise—to only kiss her well, which he did, and nothing more. He promises to get in touch with her to meet up again.

Unfortunately, Damien runs into an issue with Heath, the leader of the Skull Kings, as Heath is specifically now coming around to get his money back—basically a tax that the Skull Kings have on anyone who is in the underground world of drugs, trafficking and whatever else. Damien doesn’t want to pay him because the Skull Kings haven’t been anywhere near enough to help them—in fact they didn’t help Hades and him when they were dealing with Maddox. Eventually, Damien remembers that he promised to be in touch with Annabella, and calls her to meet up. He admits to her that beside working his job at the bank, he is also a drug dealer, and as they get closer he also admits that the relationship that broke him a bit was his friendship with Hades. The second time Damien forgets about meeting up with her is because he gets attacked by Heath at his sister’s ballet performance. He had gone with his dad to see his sister, a ballerina with a prime role in the show, and he got attacked by Heath while his dad was in the bathroom. This causes Damien to forget everything and to reach out to Balto at Balto’s place. Balto, who is Heath’s twin, tells him that he will pay him the debt he owes Damien for saving Balto’s life when Damien calls for actual help. But he will not get involved between Damien and Heath at this time, because it’s not a life or death matter, and advises Damien to pay up what he owes. He explains that situation to an upset Annabella when he sees her after she ignores him for a couple of days, and yells at him for not responding, thinking that he is jerking her around.

Damien makes up with Sofia by going out to lunch, after he had lost his cool with her at the bank when she visited him. He had gotten reprimanded by Hades for speaking to Sofia the way that he did, treating her like she is not his friend. During the lunch, he tells Sofia about Annabella, and she offers to interview her for a role at the Tuscan Rose. Damien tells Annabella about the interview and that it will be a better role than the waitressing role with more money, and Annabella is excited because she has loved the Tuscan Rose. She goes to the interview, and it goes well. Sofia tells Damien, and then Damien tells Annabella, who gets excited. The next day after Damien tells her the news, Sofia calls Annabella and tells her that she is hired. She quits her waitressing job and starts the following Monday, shadowing Sofia and learning all of the ropes of the hotel. At one point during her days and weeks there, Annabella meets Hades and while they are alone in the room, she tells him that Damien misses him, cares about him, looks up to him, and feels extremely sorry for how he fucked up. Hades only looks at her strangely but says nothing. During this time, Annabella also talks to Liam, her ex-husband, who comes by to her apartment when Damien had stayed the night over. Liam gets mad when he learns that someone is in her bedroom, but she manages to get him away from there without any harm to Damien. Of course, Damien knows who Liam is because Liam had been brought into his office by Hades to fix the issue of him removing Liam’s wife from the account. Damien had stood up to him and told him off that he will not be adding her because she wants to be free of him. This causes Liam to claim that he will leave the bank as a client.

Annabella also has dinner with Liam because he wanted to meet with her, where he tells her that he will be going back to Death Fighting—an illegal, underground fight where men fight to the death, that makes a lot of money for him. It was something that he stopped at her behest, having been undefeated, but now he wants to go back, unless she gets back with him. She refuses to get back with Liam, and tells him that he should not do it just to value his life but she is not getting back to him. What she doesn’t tell him is that she really cares for Damien. Damien, on the other hand, was forced by Hades to get Liam back as a client, and he does without compromising on adding Annabella back into the accounts, but rather focusing on the fact that Liam makes so much money that it would not be easy to launder it without them at the volume that they can do it. Liam agrees to stick with them as a client.

Damien gets called into a meetup with one of his clients, but when he enters the space that he has the meet up, it turns out to be an ambush by Heath and his men. Damien uses the Apple Watch to call Balto for help, but as he keeps talking to Heath, he realizes too late that Heath had grabbed his father, and is holding him at a different location, where he will proceed to shoot his father. Damien tells him to not kill his father, and that he will pay him what he owes plus the back taxes, when Balto and his men arrive to help Damien out. It seems like it will be too late to save his dad, when he hears Heath give the order and a gunshot rings out over the phone. Heath is mad at him for bringing in Balto, but after Balto speaks with Heath, he also speaks with Damien, and tells him that his father isn’t dead, because Hades had made it to him in time and is waiting for Damien to come pick him up. Damien makes his way to his father’s location, and checks on his dad first, who needs to go to the restroom. He’s shocked that Hades would do this for him, considering the gap of the rift between them, but they talk while Damien’s father is in the restroom. During the talk, they both admit to each other that they miss each other, and work the differences out between them, which makes Damien extremely happy to have his best friend back. When his father comes out and is ready to go, Damien takes him to his father’s home as he doesn’t want to be a burden on his son, despite Damien asking his father to move in with him because he has the space and knows that his father needs the help.

This whole situation makes Damien realize just how easily the people he cares about can be a target to his enemies, but he also realizes that he doesn’t want to leave his job like Hades had, so when he visits Annabella again, he tells her that they are done. He leaves her alone in her apartment without looking back, and he doesn’t return to see her again. Liam does come by to visit and when he sees that she’s depressed about it, he tells her that the other guy wasn’t good enough for her and wouldn’t love her the way that Liam has loved her. Annabella doesn’t believe that it’s over, and she first texts Damien that she misses him but he doesn’t respond to her. He only stiffens when he sees that message while in a meeting with Hades and his clients, and later tells Hades that she texted him. Then Annabella heads over to Damien’s place, and when she enters his apartment, she kisses him, but he steps back after the initial kiss and tells her to get out and that they are done. When she asks why they are done, he lies to her by telling her that he cannot be monogamous and it’s time to move on.

This breaks her heart thoroughly, and she goes over to Liam’s house, where she makes up with him. They begin to spend more time together, with her staying over occasionally, until she stays more often. Then, Liam asks her to move back in with him permanently and asks her to marry him. She agrees to do both, though she has been honest with Liam from the start that her heart is still taken by another, but she just doesn’t want to be out there looking for a partner since Damien is the only man she truly wants. She just now knows that he doesn’t want her back, and she doesn’t want to do more work, figuring that settling for someone who clearly loves and cares for her enough to want to try to get her back is better than being alone.

Damien gives Heath the money, and Heath makes fun of him, pushing his buttons here and there, but Damien doesn’t rise to the insults. He knows that he will have to continue paying Heath for the foreseeable future, though he is not happy about it and he wants to kill him. He just needs to take his time to figure out a way to kill Heath.

Liam visits Damien at the bank with Annabella in tow. He tells Damien that Damien should Annabella back to his account under her married name, Annabella De Luca, as they will be getting married soon enough anyway that it won’t matter if they put her under that name right now. Annabella refuses to look at Damien, but does agree that she wants to be added to the books. Damien does that, but later despite Hades telling him not to get involved because the marriage is not Hades’s and Damien’s problem, Damien goes over to the Tuscan Rose, where Annabella still works, to talk to her. He tells her that she can do better, and that she deserves a man who will be a man and not look at other women no matter how bad it gets. He waxes poetically to her, but she admits to him that she loves him and that if he wants to be with her, she will not marry Liam. But Damien tells her that he doesn’t feel the same way about her, and she responds to him by saying that they need to go their separate ways because Liam is the best out there when Damien isn’t even a choice she can choose. He walks out when he realizes that he cannot change her mind.

Hades comes to Damien and forces him to go to the wedding, because Liam is a client. Damien doesn’t want to go because he doesn’t believe Annabella should be getting married to Liam, but Hades doesn’t let him get out of it. At church, they sit on Liam’s side of the church, and Damien is surprised by the fact that there is such a huge turnout for Liam and Annabella considering that this is their second marriage. Damien watches as Liam makes his way up the aisle, but when Annabella comes up, he cannot do it, and he leaves the pews and then the church. Hades follows him, and they smoke a cigarette while they talk, with Hades telling Damien to leave and that he will cover for him by telling the happy couple that Damien is sick. Damien exits, gets into the cab, and watches as Annabella and Liam come out of the wedding. He is sick to his stomach at the sight, and when the cab driver asks him where to for the second time, he just tells the man to take him away from the church.

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this story about Damien and Annabella. He seems a lot softer than Hades, a bit more of an individual who wears his feelings on his sleeve compared to Hades, and that just makes me have a soft spot for Damien. I really enjoyed reading Damien and Annabella’s conversations because she had made me laugh so many times, and I could see how Damien was falling in love with her just a bit each time her messages came through. I have to say that Penelope Sky has a wonderful way of just coming up with conversations between two characters that is just unexpected, and leaves me both surprised and laughing. It’s never stale, and I appreciate those conversations. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the next book of Damien’s and Annabella’s story in order to learn how he will get her back, and what it will take for him to realize how he’s in love with her.