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

“Goddamn it. Mia told me she was in bed, sick.” George wipes his face with his palm over and over. “She never left.”

Mack walks back in.

“She went out via the parking garage,” he advises, thrusting the phone in my face, and I watch as Mia hid in the corner of the garage and then ran when the roller door began to close, after the car exited.

“Jesus Christ,” I curse. It’s been five minutes since I got home, or maybe six now, and every minute counts.

Mia knows my secret and could’ve exposed me.

Does Joe Mancini know? Is Nathan walking back into a trap?

There’s nothing in my office which connects Decker or Nathan visually, but there are names.

How close did she look?

“Pull the video footage from inside my office. See what she did. What she looked at. Work out what she could’ve been focused on and thinking,” I say to Mack, asking the impossible.

But this is what they trained us to do as marines, and it’s better than standing around, flapping our lips.

He grabs a laptop off a nearby table and starts tapping. The data is accessible from the cloud, and I know why he wants a bigger screen rather than his phone. He wants to watch her eyes.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, Connor,” George says, even though he has no idea what’s really going on.

Aside from my three Kings, no one knows my other venture or my true identity. Which is why I need him to leave, before he sees or hears anything more.

Usually, there would be no excuse for this type of oversight, and while part of me wants to throttle him and take out my anger at losing Mia on someone, I know George did nothing wrong.

I’m not willing to lose him over this.

“She’s the daughter of a gangster. I underestimated her. This is on me,” I growl.

It absolutely is.

I ignored my instincts, which I’ll never do again.

I toss him a set of keys. “Go pull the Maserati around. Park out front. I’ll be down in five.”

“Yes, sir,” he says.

Next minute, Mack has the video casting on the huge screen on the wall in the living room. We stand shoulder to shoulder, watching Mia walk into my office.

God, I feel sick seeing her in there.

I cross my arms, then run a hand over my chin nervously.

She freezes, and while the video isn’t good enough quality to see, I imagine the blood draining from her face. Then she’s looking at the section where her family is displayed.

Her hand flies to her mouth.

I curse.

Then she runs out.

Mack pauses the video and turns to me. “How the hell did she get in?”

“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head. Then I work it out and curse again, sharing what I think happened. “She videoed me punching in the keys while pretending to be a sassy little bitch.”

Jesus, I’m impressed.

He smirks. “Sorry, but that’s quite badass.”

I afford myself a smile. “Yeah, it is.”

But now, everything has changed. She knows enough to hate me, to fuck up everything I’ve worked for my entire life, and to probably put a hit out on me by two mobs.

If she talks.

Mia’s smart, but I know she has feelings for me. Genuine feelings. I’ve been trying to fight hers and mine. Now I need to acknowledge them because it could be the one thing that saves my life.

I’ve got the best security team in the damn world, but if two of the most dangerous mafias want me dead, they’ll eventually succeed.

I have a backup plan. Of course, I do. You don’t fuck with the mafia without having one. But if I’m going to activate it, I need to make a call very soon.

It will mean leaving behind my entire life and business.

“What are we doing?” Mack asks.

He knows I’m contemplating Plan B and is thinking the same things I am, but I doubt he’s worried about how Mia is feeling. Despite the risk to my life, I hate she’s hurting right now.

She feels betrayed and confused.

I know that woman. She want answers and feels alone, feels like she can’t trust anyone.

Which is true.

She shouldn’t trust me.

But she can.

With her life. Not her family.

I walk to the floor-to-ceiling glass window overlooking Manhattan and go through several scenarios in my head. It’s likely she went to Sienna’s. She won’t go home. Not immediately.

“Ask George where Sienna lives,” I say to Mack. “Meet me downstairs.”

He nods as I go change. I quickly remove my suit and pull on a pair of blue Prada denim jeans and a black T-shirt. Then add a black leather jacket. It’s not cold, but if things turn ugly, I want some protection.

I open my vault and pull out a handful of weapons, checking them with a click or two, then slide them into my pockets and into the back of my jeans.

I add a black Yankee’s cap at the last minute, then grab my phone and head downstairs.

“Got the address. Who’s driving?” Mack asks, as George waves farewell for the night and walks off down the sidewalk. Likely heading to the subway to go home.

Or a bar, after the night he’s had.

“You.” I move to the passenger door. “Whatever happens in the next few hours, I want you to make sure Nathan is protected,” I tell him. “Forget me. I have a Plan B. I will contact you when it’s safe. Nathan is your priority.”

He pulls away from the curb with a fuck this.

I pull my phone out of my pocket as we drive through the NYC streets and text Nathan. He needs to know what’s happening, and I’m giving him the same instructions but to protect Mia.

Despite whatever decision she has made in the past few hours, she is still innocent.

My phone beeps as I’m unlocking it.

CODE RED. Nathan texts before I can even start typing.

Mack’s phone goes off beside me.

Fuck.

None of us have used that code before.

I dial.

“He has her,” Nathan says at once. “I’m on my way there now. They have a priest.”

What the fuck?

He’s talking about Cade and taking an enormous risk by telling me. If he gets caught breaking omertà, the mob’s sacred code of silence, he’ll be dead the next second.

Adrenaline bursts through my body, and I start to piece everything together, my heart pounding in my chest.

“No more contact,” Nathan says before I can speak.

“Stop. Nathan!” I yell, and when there is only silence, I keep talking, hoping like hell he’s still on the phone. “She knows. She saw my office.”

“Fuck,” I hear him curse, then he hangs up.

Mack slows for the red light, and we share a dark look.

“Get to Sienna’s, fast.” We need to find her, and Sienna is the only one who may know where they went and where she might be.

Fuckkkkkk.

I stare out in the night as we drive, my jaw tense and trigger finger itching. It feels like my entire life has brought me to this point. To this woman. I’m getting Mia back and saving her from Salvo Vitale.

Nobody is marrying her or touching her but me.

The rest, we will sort out.