The King (Masterpiece Duet #1) by Skye Warren

The King (Skye Warren)

SUMMARY

The highest stakes...

My father gambles every night, falling deeper and deeper into debt. When he hits the bottom, he places a new bet: his daughter. I'm his entry bet to the biggest underground poker game.

Every kind of danger circles the velvet-covered table, but only one man makes me tremble.

A trailer park princess.

The son of a criminal king.

We don't belong together, but I'm caught in a twisted game.

His eyes meet mine with dark promise. And when he puts down his cards, I know I'm going to lose more than my body. I'm going to lose everything.

MY REVIEW

"I want to break you down into parts -into hope and despair. Into love and fear. I want to consume your humanity, feast on you, until there's nothing left but a small, jagged core at the centre."

If you have read "Endgame", you surely remember psycho, paedophile, disguising, pathetic excuse for a human being: Jonathan Scott.
If you haven't read Endgame, you will learn very soon in "The King" all the things he is capable of doing.
When his young son, Damon, shows his interested in Penny; Jonathan Scott knows once more how to play people and how to make them miserable.

Damon and Penny met when they were children.
Damon will grow up as the Prince of crime and he will be much older than 15 years old poor Penny with the gamble addict father. His father (and his worst enemy at the same time) will try to hurt him through Penny.
Still Damon will try to help her, to save her and to send her back to her mediocre life.

The book is - of course- dark and it focuses mainly on characters and less on the characters' surroundings.
The events take place nowadays, but I think they could have taken place in Victorian England without any problem.

A Spinoff from the Endgame series.