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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 allwhatever—“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.
