Code of Silence: A Mafia Romance (The Dark Kingdom Book 1)

I SIT IN the driver’s seat of my car, scrolling through her phone. She didn’t have a lock on it, so it made this easier. I go through all her texts, calls coming and going, and nothing shows any sign of a guy that I can see. Everything consists of her friends, Emilee and Jasmine.

I go through her pictures. She doesn’t have many. They’re mostly of her and Jasmine. A few of her and Emilee.

Turning the phone off, I throw it onto the passenger seat and run a hand down my face. I’ve never felt so fucking jealous, so furious with her in my life. I wanted to strangle her. The thought of her touching another guy, let alone on her knees for another sends me into a rage. I’m gonna find out who it is, and I’m gonna break his goddamn legs.

Pulling my own cell out of my pocket, I shoot Nite a text.

Me: Don’t let her out of your sight.

He answers immediately. Yes, sir.

Her little stunt in the bathroom earlier earned her a babysitter. She wants to act like a kid, then I’ll treat her like one.

Thirty minutes later, I’m pulling into a parking lot right off the Strip. Glass in black letters is written on the side of the two-story building. I make my way around to the back and park next to a blacked-out Lamborghini Reventon. Only thirty-five were made in the world, and my business partner owns one of them.

Exiting my car, I walk up the metal staircase to the second floor and punch in the code on the keypad to unlock the door. I step inside and walk down the hallway, entering the first door on the right.

I walk over to the desk and drop Haven’s cell on top of it, right in front of my business partner.

His brows pull together as he looks at the picture of Haven and Emilee from when she went to visit her three months ago in Chicago. She doesn’t know that I know. But she hasn’t done a damn thing without my knowledge. That’s why I don’t understand how she could have been seeing someone and I missed it. She had to have been lying. And when I find out that’s the case, she will regret making up shit just to rile me up.

“What’s this about?” Bones asks, leaning back in his seat.

“Haven’s phone.”

He arches a brow. “And?”

“And nothing.” I sit down in the chair.

He reaches up and shoves the phone away. I smile to myself. He never speaks of Emilee, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten about her. You don’t ever forget the one who got away. Or more like the one you let go of.

“What couldn’t wait until later?” I ask. The bastard called me an hour ago and said to meet him up here. I had planned on going home and getting a few hours of sleep, but he doesn’t care about things like that. He and Titan rarely sleep. They only crawl into a bed if it’s to fuck a woman.

“Marco is on his way,” he answers.

“Ah.” I nod. “What do we plan on doing to him?”

“Not sure yet.”

So we could be burying a body in the desert in the next hour or not. Never know with Bones. Just depends on what kind of mood you catch him in.

Just then, the door opens, and the man of the hour enters. He doesn’t look like he’s been to bed yet either. He wears a pair of black jeans and a red collared shirt. It’s the dress code here at Glass for the male employees.

He looks from me to Bones and comes to a halt. “Bones?” he shrieks.

Everyone in Las Vegas knows the Dark Kings. They’re each feared for something different. Bones is known as the enforcer, but no one knows that he owns a part of Glass. He’s a silent business partner. So Marco probably thinks I hired him to work him over. Get his hands dirty for me.

“Have a seat.” I gesture to the chair I vacated.

“No, that’s okay …”

I grab his shirt and shove him down into it.

Bones grabs the remote, pointing it at the large monitor that hangs on the wall, and then pushes play.

The date in the lower right-hand corner shows three weeks ago. You see Marco working behind the bar, rushing around making drinks. Then you see the customer give him cash. He slips some in his back pocket and only rings up half of the cocktails he just made.

Bones pauses it. “I have fifteen more just like this.”

“I can explain …”

“We don’t need an explanation,” Bones says. “See …” He places his tatted hands flat on the desk “The only thing I care about is money. And you owe us five grand.”

“I … I can … I’ll …”

“You’ll pay us back,” I say.

He nods quickly and begins to dig in his pocket. He throws some twenties on the desk. “That’s everything I have on me.” He quickly pats his other pockets to double-check.

Bones ignores the money and grabs a blank piece of paper from the printer. He sets it on the desk along with a pen. “Sign this.”

“What?” Marco blinks.

“I said sign it.”

“But there’s nothing there.” His round eyes look it over.

There’s a tic in Bones jaw. “If you don’t sign your name on this, I will break both of your hands. Do you understand?”

The guy grabs the pen and scribbles his name down.

“You have five days to come up with the money,” he says, falling back down into his seat.

Marco nods, jumps up, and storms out without another word. He doesn’t have to be told twice.

The door slams shut, and Bones leans his head back, closing his eyes.

“Go home. Get some rest,” I tell him. “You look like shit.”

He runs a hand down his unshaven face. “I’m heading to Kingdom.”

No one knows about our business deal here. Two years ago, I went to Bones with a plan. I wanted to start a business that didn’t involve my father. I wanted something that was completely mine. Something I had control over. I had the perfect place and the money. I just needed someone to help me with it while I was in Italy. A partner.

Bones was the perfect candidate.

So we went into business together and bought Glass, a strip club right in the heart of Sin City. It was once a run-down wedding chapel, so it felt fitting.

The girls are the elite of Vegas strippers. They must be at least twenty-one and audition, but other than that, they can pretty much do whatever the fuck they want. We have VIP rooms. The men pay for bottle service, and the girls decide how far they want to take it. We make sure the girls are taken care of and well protected. We always have armed guards on the property. Plus, most of them also work for the queens at Kingdom. They’re literally rolling in cash.

His phone rings, and he digs it out of his pocket. Hitting answer, he leans back in the chair. “Hello?” He pauses. “Yeah, I’m about to head that way.” He runs a hand down his face again. “I’ll take care of it.” Then he hangs up and stands. “I gotta go. Make sure Marco pays up. If not, let me know, and I’ll deliver the threat.”

HAVEN

I sit out on a chaise on the large balcony to our room. Nite stands off to the side by the sliding glass door. True to Luca’s word, the bastard has been breathing down my neck ever since this morning. I look over the black railing at the heart of Sin City. You can see the Strip from where the house sits. I always found Las Vegas ugly and dirty during the day, but at night, it comes to life and shines brighter than all the stars in the sky.

Standing out the most, Kingdom, dominates the sky with four towers—one for each king. Back when their fathers owned it, it only had two. They’ve built onto it over the years. When they took over after college, they made some changes. And those alterations made them even more untouchable. More royalty in this town. And gave them even more enemies.

I take a puff from my cigarette. Leaning my head back, I let it out slowly and close my eyes, thinking of Emilee and how much I miss her. I visited her recently in Chicago.

“So what are we gonna do while I’m in town?” I ask, falling onto her bed. Her entire apartment is about as big as her bedroom back at home, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Emilee never needed expensive things.

She walks out of her bathroom and gives me a big smile. “We’re going out tonight.”

“Where to?”

“A club.”

“That’s vague.”

She winks at me.

I laugh because I love seeing her like this. So free. Bones always had a hold on her. She swore she didn’t love him, and I believed her, but the Kings were two years older than us. So when Bones, Titan, and Cross graduated, they started to take over Kingdom, and that left Emilee alone. She has never said it out loud, but I know that hurt her. They grew apart, and she started seeing someone in our grade. After graduation, she chose to move to Chicago, and that was that. She was gone. I think she was running away from something she knew she couldn’t have. None of the Kings would ever settle down. They were meant to be ruthless playboys who ruled their own world and had no room for women or families.

“There’s this awesome club here called Seven Deadly Sins.”

“Oh, I like it already.”

She nods. “They have these private rooms for each sin.”

“Sounds fun.”

“It is by far the best club I’ve ever been to.”

I eye her skeptically as she smooths down her dress in the floor-length mirror. She turns around and looks at her ass over her shoulder. “You’re fucking someone who works there.” It was more of a statement than a question.

She chuckles “I am. I’ll message him before we get there, and he’ll let us in the back.”

“It is serious?” I ask. I’ve known Emilee all my life, and I’ve never seen her fall in love with a guy. I don’t know if she just hides her emotions that well, or if she truly can just use a guy. Maybe Bones broke her.

I hate that I’ve only ever slept with Luca, and that I can’t get over the fact I love him so much. I want to be more like her. Detached.

She frowns. “No, it’s just a little fun”

“What does he do at the club? What’s his name? I wanna know all about him.”

The guy turned out to be a pretty nice guy. Not to mention gorgeous in that I’ll kick anyone’s ass kind of way. I could totally understand why he was head of security. We got to watch him in action twice that night.

He put us up in one of the rooms with a waitress who kept the drinks flowing all night. After the club closed, we went out and ate breakfast with him. Then he drove us back to Emilee’s apartment. I went inside while he kissed her goodbye on her porch—I might have watched out the window—and then he left. We stayed up a few more hours laughing and sharing a bottle of Riesling she had until we made our way down to the closest gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes. We had only ever smoked one other time in college. For some reason, we both thought it would be a great idea to try it again.

She didn’t care that much for it, so I put them in my suitcase. The same ones that were packed and brought here to Luca’s. We were drunk and really didn’t know what we were doing then, but I light one up every now and then.

Keeping my eyes shut, I take another drag of the cigarette. I miss her so much and wish that she were here. Hell, I wish I could talk to her. Luca may have taken my cell away, but I found a phone in his study earlier today. I waited for Nite to stop me, but when he didn’t, I dialed her number. She didn’t answer, and I didn’t leave a voicemail. What would I say? Hey, E. I’ve been forced to marry Luca, and I wish you were here to help me through it? I just hung up.

“What in the fuck are you doing?”

My eyes spring open, and I jump at the sound of his voice. “Luca …”

“Since when did you start fucking smoking?” he demands, his blue eyes narrowed on the cigarette between my fingers.

I bring it to my lips. “I do a lot of things you don’t know about.”

He snatches it from my fingers and puts it out on the railing.

“Hey!”

He grips my upper arm, pulling me from the balcony and through the open door into his bedroom. My eyes fall to the massive bed that sits up against the wall with its white comforter and burgundy sheets. And I think of how many women he’s had there, and I hate it. I hate that he makes me jealous and that he’s brought me here in the first place.

“Let go of me.” I try yanking my arm free of his hold, but he just grips me tighter.

He walks over to a door, yanks it open, and shoves me inside. I spin around to face him just as he shoves it closed in Nite’s face.

Fisting my hands, I turn to see we’re in a closet. He shoulders past me, walking down the short and narrow structure, then he takes a left and disappears. Rubbing my upper arm, I follow him. I’ve always dreamed of my things being in here Now I wanna burn my shit so I don’t have to fill it. We make the turn, and it opens to a large room. The left side is full of white shelves from the floor to the ceiling. Ahead of me are different-sized cubbies with rods to hang clothes on in various sizes. It looks the same but different.

In the middle is a silver dresser with a glass top. Running my hands over it, I smudge the glass with my fingers. We had sex on it once. It has three large drawers. Walking around the other side, I open the top drawer. It’s long but not very deep. It’s covered in black velvet, and the indentions let me know it’s for jewelry. I pause when I spot the Harry Winston three-carat emerald sitting in a platinum setting on the fifth row. It looks out of place.

My mouth instantly goes dry, and I take a step back, shaking my head slowly. Luca reaches in and grabs the ring and turns to face me. Tears sting my eyes as he grabs my left hand. I want to punch him. Fight him. I want to tell him that it’s ugly and over the top, but it’s really all I ever wanted.

He slides it on my finger, and a tear slides down my face. It fits perfectly, of course. He runs his finger over it before releasing my hand. It drops to my side like an anchor, the weight pulling my hand down.

I spin around to run, but something else stops me. My stomach drops when I see the black garment bag hanging from the rack. I take a step back, but my ass hits the dresser. “Is that …?” I swallow the knot in my throat. It’s a reminder of what this truly is.

A contract.

This isn’t love.

The ring. The dress. It’s all too much. Too fast. There has to be a way to stop it.

He comes up to me and places his hands on either side of my hips. I stiffen.

“Calm down, Haven,” he orders softly. “I can hear your heart pounding in your chest.”

I feel it may explode.

“This is your dress for our engagement announcement tonight.”

That doesn’t help me. Just because it’s not a wedding dress doesn’t mean it’s not just as threatening.

He runs his knuckles down the side of my face, smearing the single tear down my neck. He stops on my racing pulse, and I look up at him. “We can … You can call it off.” I stumble over my words. “It’s never too late.”

He arches a brow.

My heart pounds as my thumb runs over the platinum band of my engagement ring. “They don’t get to rule our lives. I know—”

“They?” he interrupts me.

Swallowing nervously, I add, “Our fathers.”

He gives me a smile that makes the hairs on my neck stand. He opens his hand and slides it into my hair, tilting my head back in the process. I hold my breath as he bends down and whispers in my ear, “This is all my doing, Haven. Make no mistake about that. I wanted you, and now I have you. Today, tomorrow, forever.” He kisses my forehead gently. When he pulls away, I feel another tear fall. His dark eyes watch it without any remorse. “Get in the shower. You smell like cigarette smoke. And Mrs. Brown will be here in an hour to help you get ready.” With that, he exits the closet.

The sound of the door shutting behind me has me falling to my knees.