The Darkest King: A Dark Mafia Romance (The Dark Kings of NYC Book 1)

I hold Mia’s hand as our car speeds toward her father’s house on Long Island. No one is around to witness this display of affection—if you can call it that. After hearing Cade Mancini tried to coerce Mia back to the family, I’m feeling a little protective.

Mia is mine.

For now.

I’m lying to myself that it’s because she is the key to me getting close to her father, but I know it’s a little more. I like Mia—that’s all. I like having her in my life and in my bed. That’s probably normal.

If you ignore the fact that we’re faking an engagement and I’m using her to avenge my slaughtered family.

After I fucked her in the hall, she kept apologizing about the media. I didn’t care about them. Well, I do, but that I can deal with. Losing Mia, not so much.

George was stressed as fuck once we got to talk with Mia out of earshot. Putting the heir to the Mancini throne in a neck lock wasn’t a good move, but I told him he’d done the right thing.

She belongs to me.

Cade is not to be trusted. His little stunt adds a level of tension to tonight’s family dinner. My skin crawls at the thought of the Mancini’s being my in-laws.

But needs must and all that shit.

I considered arriving via helicopter, but for security reasons, landing blind in the gangster’s property isn’t smart.

I’m not sure what to expect, and Mia has been less than helpful. She keeps shrugging and saying it will be fine.

Fucking hell.

In the vehicles behind us, I have eight of my men. All former military. It is unlikely I’ll need that many, but it is a clear message to Joe and Cade Mancini—and the entire Italian mafia—that I am a man of power.

And Mia is now under my protection.

She is.

Mia gave me a look when I took her hand, which I ignored. I fucked her so hard last night, I’m surprised she can sit upright. She didn’t argue either. It was like she needed it as much as I did.

“It’s going to be fine,” Mia says suddenly, glancing up at me.

I turn to her. “What?”

“Tonight. It will be fine. You don’t need to worry.”

I hold back a laugh.

With my head slightly tilted, my lips soften for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours. “You think I’m nervous?”

Her fingers tighten around mine, and I glance down. This time, I laugh and release her hand, pulling her into my arms.

“Mia, I am not afraid of your father or your family. I’m fucked off they challenged me.”

Her icy blue eyes narrow.

“Cade didn’t challenge you. He ambushed me,” she snaps, attempting to pull away. “This is not about your ego.”

I lower my head. “No, it’s about taking what’s mine.  You belong to me. Whether its fake or not.”

She wriggles like a kitten in my arms, so I release her.

“I don’t belong to you. And I don’t belong to them!” she snaps again, moving a few inches away along the leather seat.

I let her go, focusing on the landscape flashing past us while I contemplate the evening ahead. I have a clear strategy, but it will take my total focus, and I need Mia on board if we are to succeed.

So, I give her space to defuse, and then, as we grow closer, I turn back to her and tug her body up against me. Her questioning gaze meets mine, and she lowers the mobile phone she’s been scrolling on.

“In a few months, you’ll be my wife, Mia. Whether this marriage is legitimate or not, it will be legal. You are under my protection and belong to me. That is what we agreed.”

She fish-mouths for a moment, looking stupidly gorgeous, but before I let her say anything, I have more to add.

“It’s in your best interest to let me dominate and claim you in front of your family. If you want your freedom, then this is what’s required.”

She glances away, but I know she understands this more than most any other woman. Her family is all about power. This is the language they speak.

If she’d chosen a weaker man, they would chew him up and spit him out.

“Fine. In front of others. In front of my family. But you do not own me, Connor Barrett. No one does.” She won’t meet my eye.

I grab her chin, and she slaps my hand away, but not before I see the moisture in them. Fuck.

This time, I force her to look at me. My words jumble inside my head. I was going to growl and tell her she is fucking mine, but she isn’t.

Mia’s just a pawn in my game of revenge.

But the need for it to be real right in this goddamn moment, knowing she could’ve been taken or decided to walk away, consumes me. Not for the reasons it should.

I’m fury and heat. Impatience and dominance. I want to scream and marry her now so it can’t be undone.

Instead, I smash my mouth down on hers and take what she isn’t offering.

I’m a thief when it comes to Mia Mancini.

Revenge has always been my first thought when I drift off at night and when I wake. Until now.

Now, I wake and reach for her.

Now, I think of all the ways I want to pleasure her, enjoy her, protect her. I look forward to taking her to places I’ve felt alone, showing her my life and having her on my arm.

Yet she has no idea about any of this, and it needs to remain that way.

As I ravish her mouth, I’m filled with both desire and anger. She’s a dangerous distraction. The need to fill her with my come every fucking day is becoming more than just sexual greed—she’s like a drug.

Maybe having her in my bed is a poor decision. Remaining focused on the darkness inside me which fuels my revenge has to be my priority, or I’ll fuck up this opportunity.

I release Mia roughly.

“Connor,” she gasps, blinking.

“We’re nearly there,” I snap. “Remember your role. You’re my fiancé. Or the deal is off.”

I shut down any emotions and focus on my game plan.

First, Joe Mancini will see me as the enemy—we already are, but he doesn’t know that—as the man stealing his daughter. Then he will grow to trust me. I’m not sure how yet, but I will find a way. I didn’t build a billion-dollar empire without shrewd tactics.

Once I learn whether Carlos was, or is, part of Mancini’s gang and who gave the kill order, I will give Mia her desired freedom. It might mean destroying those she loves.

Until then, she is mine to use as I choose.

OUR VEHICLES ARE waved through the gates. We cruise along the circular driveway and pull up outside the Mancini Mansion.

The mob’s soldiers are everywhere, armed with machine guns, dressed in what appear to be black pants, zipped-up jackets, boots, and sunglasses.

The same outfit Nathan wears when we meet.

As my team positions around the vehicle—a stark contrast in their tailored black suits—Mack opens the door and gives me a nod.

I climb out, look around, then reach for Mia. She takes my hand and glances up, letting me drop a kiss on her lips.

“Good girl,” I whisper.

Her obedience is going to give me a fucking hard on. But then I spot the subtle anger still sizzling beneath that blue ice. I better get used to it. She’s going to hate me more by the time this is all over.

“Maria, mia figlia,” Joe Mancini says, stepping out of the house with his arms wide and greeting his daughter in Italian, completely ignoring me and the eight armed men I have around me.

The Don is dressed in a navy suit and red tie over a crisp white shirt, which stretches over his large belly.

Like me, Joe knows my security won’t harm him. The consequences are too great for men like us. We’d need a very good reason to give them a kill order.

Mia stays by my side until I release her, and then she moves into his arms. I don’t miss his twitch as he acknowledges her choices.

Sorry, your girl is mine now.

I’m not sorry at all. This man could be responsible for the slaughter of my family. He could know who and where Carlos is.

If he does, I will find out.

“Daddy, this is Connor,” Mia says, after he kisses her cheek three times. “Connor Barrett.”

His warm demeanor hardens when he faces me. I don’t approach him, staying a few steps away, as he decides how he wants to play this. Joe runs his eyes over my body and then at the men around me—as if he hadn’t already done so from the window when we pulled up—and nods.

“Mr. Barrett,” he says coldly.

“Please, call me Connor,” I reply with little emotion.

His eyes lower back to Mia’s. “Bring your man inside. We will eat and then talk.”

Man?

Fuck that. I’m not going to be dismissed by this asshole. He thinks I’m Mia’s fiancé, and he knows my position of influence in this country.

Joe Mancini is testing me.

If he thinks he can fuck with me, he’s sorely mistaken.

I am Connor fucking Barrett.

“Mr. Mancini, I am not Mia’s pet. I am the man she is marrying. If you cannot speak to me directly, then I will take my fiancé and return to Manhattan.”

Mia’s mouth falls open. Her mobster father halts his progress inside and slowly turns.

“Conno—” Mia starts, but her father interrupts.

“Perhaps if you’d asked for my daughter’s hand in marriage, we may have begun our relationship on a better footing, Mr. Barrett,” the man says darkly. “It is you who did not talk to me directly.”

He slides his hands into his pockets and stares at me in challenge.

I nearly grin.

Game on, gangster.

Instead, I shrug. Just to piss him off.

“You would’ve said no, and I wasn’t willing to lose the moment with such a beautiful woman who has stolen my heart.” I know this is what he wants to hear. “My loyalty is to her and her alone. However”—I shrug all whatever—“Mia wishes us to be a family.”

In other words, I don’t want to be here, but I’m doing it for her.

Untrue, of course.

I’m here for me. For my family. For my sister who never got to see her fourth birthday. Possibly because this asshole ordered her dead.

Joe glances at his daughter. This time, I see affection and realize I’ve hit the bullseye. Family is important to the mafia—I already know that—so I took a chance that he’s not a complete psychopath and loves his daughter. I was right.

I don’t take my eyes off him, but whatever he sees in Mia’s face shifts something within him.

The Don glances back at me, then nods.

“Family is everything. Come. Let’s eat,” he growls, and I watch as he takes in all the security around us. Joe points to one of his black-clad soldiers. “Let three of his men enter. The rest remain out here.”

Three.

That is acceptable.

If shit goes down, I make four.