Mafia Target by Mila Finelli | Book Review
Mafia romance started strong but dragged for me at the end.
I picked up Mafia Target by Mila Finelli on the strength of the BookTok and IG hype. Mafia heir on the run, assassin sent to kill him. Sounded promising. What I didn’t realize until I’d finished the entire book was that I had already shelved it years ago on my Goodreads “Try Again Later” pile. I’d cracked it open once, made it about five pages in, and put it down. Probably wasn’t in my mafia phase at the time.
This time I finished it. Which left me wondering whether past-me had a point, or whether I just owe more books a second chance.
What It’s About:
Giulio Ravazzani used to be heir to one of Italy’s most powerful mafia families. Then his lover died in a car bomb, and he walked away from the family, the title, and the country. Now he lives on the move, hooking up with strangers, never staying long enough to be found.
Alessandro “Alessio” Ricci is an ex-military sniper turned assassin. The best money can buy. He’s been hired to take Giulio out, and he fully intends to see the contract through. Until he gets close enough to want him instead.
Giulio knows someone is hunting him. He doesn’t yet know it’s the man who’s just talked his way into his bed. And Alessio is hiding more than just the contract.
Book Review
What works:
Alessio is the reason this book earns its 3 stars. He’s stoic, complicated, ex-military, and his obsession with Giulio is the kind of dark romance fixation that actually feels earned given who he is on the page. He’s a man who has built his entire identity around being the best at killing people he doesn’t have to think about, and Giulio is the first contract he can’t stop thinking about. He intends to see the job through. He also doesn’t want the contract to ever end. Both things are true at once, and that tension is what makes him compelling.
The investigation arc works too. Once Giulio takes Alessio in, they work together to find the person actually responsible for Paolo’s death (the boyfriend killed in the car bomb). That partnership is where the book gives them real chemistry, real teamwork, and real reason to be in each other’s orbit. It’s the strongest stretch of the book.
The mafia structure is strong in this book. It is clear the author knows her created universe and mafia architecture. I was impressed, if sometimes not interested in all the layers and nuances of mafia machinations.
What didn’t work
After Giulio takes Alessio home to meet his family, you can feel the third act setting up. The reveal is coming, and you can see it from a mile away. That’s fine. What didn’t work for me was Giulio’s reaction when it lands.
The secret: Alessio had previously been hired to kill Giulio’s father, Fausto. He didn’t actually do it. Nobody died from that contract. And by the point Giulio finds out, he and Alessio have already worked together to find Paolo’s actual killer, which was someone else entirely. So when Giulio explodes about a failed contract on his father, it doesn’t track. It’s a contract Alessio took as part of his job, the way he’s taken every other contract. Nothing about it was personal. Compared to everything else swirling in this book (actual deaths, actual betrayals, actual current attempts on Giulio’s life), making this the breaking point is making a mountain out of a molehill.
Alessio is appropriately tortured by his choices and what they cost him. That part lands. It’s Giulio’s response that doesn’t. He came off as a brat. The drawn-out separation that follows is unnecessary pain that I knew would resolve, which made it boring on top of being unearned. It read like a required beat in the romance arc rather than something the characters actually needed.
Who Should Read This
Mafia Target is the only full-length MM book in the otherwise MF Kings of Italy series. There’s also a 4.5 MM novella, Mafia Devil, covering two characters Alessio and Giulio interact with mid-book, before the family meet, but I haven’t read that one yet. Mafia Target itself works as a standalone. I came in cold without reading the first three, and I followed the family dynamics fine. If you’re MM-obsessed like me and BookTok dropped this in your feed, you can pick it up without backtracking through the series.
Readers who love obsessed assassins and the assassin-and-target dynamic will get the most out of it. Same goes for anyone who enjoys a hero who is genuinely dangerous on the page. Alessio is not just labeled as such, he is. If you have low tolerance for third-act misunderstanding angst, brace yourself.
The Verdict
⭐⭐⭐ Mafia Target gets 3 out of 5 stars from me. Alessio carried this book. The third act dragged it back down. If past-me hadn’t been in some other reading phase the first time, I might have finished it sooner. I potentially would have landed in the same place.
Buy Mafia Target on Amazon. Mafia Target by Mila Finelli (and the rest of The Kings of Italy series) is also available on Kindle Unlimited.
Let’s Talk
Are you in or out on the assassin-and-target trope? Drop your favorite (or worst) take on it in the comments. 😉
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