Saving Mr. Norcross (Norcross Security) by Anna Hackett Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Norcross Security #11
Pages: 130
Published by Anna Hackett on October 16, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads
She’ll stop at nothing to save him.
She didn’t think anything could scare her husband, the most dangerous man in San Francisco, but she’s found the one thing that terrifies him.
Fatherhood.
When Detective Brynn Norcross discovers she’s pregnant, she knows her overprotective husband needs time to adjust. When she’s injured on the job, Vander is tense, on edge, and distant.
She decides they both need a vacation. They head to Italy for some rest and relaxation.
But their vacation doesn’t quite go according to plan…
When Vander and his brother Rhys are abducted by the local mafia, all hell breaks loose.
There is no way Brynn can do nothing when the life of the man she loves is on the line. She’ll do whatever it takes to rescue him.
There is no way Vander wants his wife in danger, and he knows she’ll come for him. He’ll do whatever it takes to escape.
Oh, and he also plans to make the people responsible pay.
My Review:
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” And neither is Brynn Norcross.
Considering that Vander Norcross first met his future wife, then-SFPD Detective Brynn Sullivan, when she was undercover in a motorcycle gang (their story is The Powerbroker), it’s not as if he doesn’t know that. Her innate badassness is one of the things he loves about her. That she can go toe-to-toe with him and/or against the bad guys every bit as well as he can.
He KNOWS that. And whether he likes or not, because the answer to that is a bit of an emotional muddle for a man who tried – and failed – to wall off his emotions. He knows that he can’t wrap her up and keep her safe at home, off the streets and away from her job, because it would break them. Even if worrying about her safety 24/7 is breaking him.
But the only way he knows not to spill all his caveman instincts all over her is to keep his mouth shut. Which means he’s shutting her out and that’s doing much too much damage all by itself.
Their vacation in Italy is supposed to be giving them time to relax and reconnect – but it’s not exactly working.
At least not until Vander takes on a bit of ‘work’ helping out a former Ghost Ops teammate who needs a couple of extra hands to put the fear of, if not exactly God at least the fear of retribution, into a man who thinks he doesn’t have to take ‘no’ for an answer from any woman he wants.
Vander, his brother Rhys and their buddy Jasper can certainly fix THAT.
But when someone takes the opportunity to fix Vander, and grabs his brother Rhys along for the ride, it gives Brynn an opportunity she really didn’t need right now. Just as Vander rescued her in the previous Norcross Security short story, Mr. & Mrs. Norcross, this time it’s her turn to rescue him from kidnappers who clearly had no idea who they’d taken or just how much retribution is about to rain down on their heads – along with bits of the building they only THINK they’re keeping her husband away from her in.
In spite of, or really, truly, because of, the danger they’re in and the bullets literally flying all around them, when Brynn breaking into the Mafia Don’s compound meets up with Vander breaking out, he finally figures out what he’s subconsciously known all along. That they not only belong together, they are stronger together, and that they are each just as much of a badass as each other – and that that is EXACTLY what they need each other to be.
They’ll need to be to raise and protect the child that’s coming, because that kid is going to be a badass from their very first breath.
Escape Rating B: At first, I had a bit of time getting into this one. It’s hard for me to get into a story when everyone is talking inside their heads but not saying much of anything important to each other, even though there’s one hell of a lot to say.
I mean, I got it. I got what was going on and it’s important. But he’s stonewalling and she’s trying to break that stone wall – or his stone head – and they’re both withdrawing and it’s no fun at all. I was glad that he didn’t ACTUALLY go all caveman, but the scene of her knowing he wants to and him knowing he wants to but can’t and neither of them talking about it is well done but seriously messed up.
As contradictory as it sounds, once Vander and Rhys get kidnapped the story kicks up into the gear I want this series to be in, and from that point it’s action and adventure and drama and romance all the way.
The rescue/breakout scenes were a whole lot of adrenaline-fuelled fun, as Vander is breaking out because he knows Brynn is coming to get him and he’s figured out what’s going on and thinks he can negotiate his way out. Not that he’s not willing to make a mess and take down a lot of bad guys, but he’s figured out what’s behind the whole thing. While someone is definitely going to go down for this, it’s not going to be him and Rhys if they can just get out of the way.
Unless Brynn comes in guns blazing – which is going to make negotiations a whole lot harder. Which it definitely does. Even if they do all manage to walk away from this mess relatively easily.
But it brings home to Vander that dodging bullets, chasing bad guys and blowing up drug labs and hidden dungeons is how they both roll. And that they’re both better off doing it together. That they finally get it together while literally caught in the crossfire made for a terrific, and terrifically explosive, even more happily ever after of an ending. And that was fantastic.
We might get more Norcross Security short stories like this one and Mr. & Mrs. Norcross. Which is lovely if it happens because it’s always fun to see how the gang is doing now that they’re all settling down – at least as much as they ever will.
Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to the author’s next book, Burn Down the World, which will be the first in her new action/adventure romantic suspense series, Unsanctioned. I can’t wait to see where she’s taking me next, sometime this December.
