You can always drop now if it's not your taste. The author has the tendency to write problematic or in your definition stupid mc/ml in most of her works, the only differences is this one was long enough to have proper character development. If you want green flag or relatable characters right from the beginning this series is not for you.
If u want u can try to read the novel, actually comprehend the characters, and give this a chance. There's a reason why he did that w the child. Grayson isn't some baseless dumbed down kid. The moment he understood his emotions towards dane he literally groveled because he thinks something as deep as love cannot be terrifying like that. This man is one of the best/decent ml's in the verse—this is NOT the worst story in the series. that I can guarantee. someone's worser and brutal than Grayson. and fyi God ain't saving Dane, that man you're siding with fully admitted he raped grayson. if you can't handle something mild like this do NOT read anything from ZIG LOL /nm
Crying bcs i know for a fact you don't read shit about this author at all anyways if you want to read it I suggest you read the novel bcs even Dane is not the green flag you think he is lol and why are you justifying Ashley's abusive and psycho personality like he even did that to chase, that's why his kids are all messed up in the first place, if you want some wholesome shit go read something out there, there's literally so many stories about the shit you like

left it to marinate, only to get a dumb bitch of a protagonist.
There's huge difference between apathy and not understanding/relating to other people's feelings
and lacking common sense and having the iq of undeveloped toddler. Grayson isn't written as an emotionless psychopath but as a literal kid with the dumbest brain bec ffs how's not speaking when someone's literally shushing you and trying to be secretive or how isn't it the most basic common sense not to leave a kid locked up even when you don't pity them or even give a single fuck what that child may be feeling then...etc
I'm usually against child abuse, but Ash should've beaten that dumb bitch even harder
also the way all women written here absolutely gives me the ick what kind of MenWritingWomen challenge r we cooking here
anyway god save Dane bec I honestly kms if I had to be paired with a dumb bitch