Release Blitz: With This Ring by Natasha Knight

Title: With This Ring

Series: To Have and To Hold Duet #1

Author: Natasha Knight

Genre: Dark Mafia Romance

Release Date: February 2, 2021

BLURB

When I rescued Scarlett De La Cruz from her tower it’s not like her prospects were looking so great. 

You’d think she’d show a little gratitude. Thank me for putting my ring on her finger and marking her as mafia property. 

My property. 

I’ll keep her safe. And the trade-off isn’t so bad. Most women would jump at the chance to sleep in my bed. 

Not Scarlett, though. 

My Cartel Princess has a big mouth and an even bigger attitude. But it’s her furious caramel eyes that keep me coming back for more. That and the way her body bends to mine like it already knows it belongs to me. 

Scarlett is my enemy. She’s also the one woman I can’t keep my hands off. 

But if I don’t keep my head on straight, everything I’ve worked for all these years will have been for nothing.

5 stars

Review by Jen Skewes

I have read many of Natasha Knight’s book and With This Ring was by far the best one yet. I don’t know if it was the strong heroine, the sexy alpha mafia boss, the story itself or the way this book started off with a bang and completely sucked me in.   I love a mafia story and Ms. Knight knows how to write a flawless one.  Her words are gripping, the intensity level high, the twists and turns, lies and betrayal, not knowing who to trust and who to love.  And bam just when things really start to happen, your heart rate elevating, BAM, we are left with the mother of all cliffhangers!!!  

 

Christiano is out for revenge.  His only goal is to take care of those who murdered his family ten years ago.  While taking out two more people on his list, he finds himself rescuing Scarlett De La Cruz.  At first he is not sure what to even do with her.  She is technically his enemy, but there is something about her and he is not sure exactly what.  Scarlett on the other hand hates Christiano and fights him every step, having no plans to give in to him at all.  Only to learn that as long as she cooperates, her brother will be ok.  She soon find herself a prisoner in his home, and while she hates him, her body has yet to get that memo.  When Christiano tells her that she will soon be his wife, her first instinct is to fight him on it.  But she knows that she has no choice.  She agrees but she will never back down and give in so easily.  

 

Scarlett is an unexpected distraction that Christiano cannot afford. But at the same time, he needs her in more ways than one.  There is only one thing Christiano wants from her and that is her loyalty, to never betray him.  What will happen if she does?

 

With This Ring was gritty and raw, the relationship between Scarlet and Christiano was intense, full of hate, but at the same time there was an undeniable attraction, and their chemistry was dripping of the pages.  Scarlett is feisty, and a strong woman who has no problem fighting with Christiano.  I think it is her strong will that attracts him to her.  He is demanding at times, very intimidating and scary, but when it comes to Scarlett, you can see she is becoming more than just a pawn to him.  That is one thing I love about Mafia romances.  The hero is this powerful man who is just so many words that I cannot write in this review.  But I love watching them become weak to the woman who is supposed to be their enemy, a pawn in the game that they are playing.  A feisty heroine who knows how to fight their hardest when it comes to the mafia boss, making him weak at times, is the perfect book for me.  

 

This book had my emotions all of the place.  Flawlessly written, it drew me in from the start.  I was on the edge of my seat the entire time.  I had no idea how this story would go, which characters I could trust and who I should hate.  I loved when Christiano and Scarlett were together,  the built-up tension between the two of them was everything you want in a story such as this one.  There were twists and turns that I’m not sure I saw coming.  And can we talk about the end!!!  Holy crampy heart did not stop pounding, my mouth wide open in shock, fille with worry over what happens next.  Oh, the things going through my head at the ending.  I cannot wait for I Thee Wed.  I need this book now!  I need to see that Christiano and Scarlett will get through this major, major obstacle and come out the other side exactly where they should be.  

ADD TO GOODREADS

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EXCERPT

Lace falls across my face. It’s yellowed over the years and the smell that clings to it is musty. Old. But it’s my mother’s. The one she wore on her wedding day.

Baby’s breath and discarded lilies litter the stone floor as the woman grumbles behind me. She’s annoyed at having to work with the old veil when a brand new, prettier one sits unused in its box. I move my foot, crush the delicate baby’s breath, impaling the fallen petal of a pale pink lily with my heel.

Funeral flowers for a wedding. An omen.

Not that I need one.

The stink of them turns my stomach. This isn’t how I imagined my wedding day.

“Finished,” the woman announces.

I stand, the petal sticking to my heel. I don’t care. I look up to meet my reflection in the mirror.

“He won’t like the veil,” she says. She’s a blur beside me.

I shift my gaze, letting my eyes focus on her. She’s plump and short and has a wart on the side of her face with a thick black hair growing out of it. Don’t judge a book by its cover has nothing on this one. She is as much a bitch inside as she looks on the outside.

“I guess he’ll have to get over it.”

“You should wear the one he sent.”

I don’t bother to answer her, although I agree. The veil was a gift from my brothers.

Gift.

No, not a gift.

Just another cruelty to make me wear my mother’s veil for this sham wedding.

She snorts, turns to gather up the dress, the keys jangling on her belt. I could take them. Overpower her. That part would be easy. It’s the men with the guns outside the door who’d be the problem.

Noisy footsteps on the hundred stairs announce the approach of soldiers to my tower room.

A tower. They locked me in a fucking tower. My own fucking brothers.

From the sound of things, they’re expecting me to put up a fight. They’ll take me kicking and screaming if I do. Besides, I know better than to waste my energy on them. I’ll need it after. For the wedding night.

A man says something, another one laughs, just before I hear a loud crash, like something smashing hard against the wall.

It’s then that it happens. Gunfire explodes just beyond my room. A bullet splinters its way through the thick wooden door and shatters the mirror, breaking my reflection into a thousand pieces, sending me backward into the stone wall.

The woman with the wart screams.

I right myself. Touching the back of my head with one hand, I somehow still manage to keep hold of the lilies. Suddenly, the door is kicked in, banging against the wall as heavily armed men in military fatigues raid my room. A cloud of smoke follows behind them, seeping into my circular tower.

They fan out, a dozen of them and I don’t recognize a single one. These aren’t my brothers’ men.

The woman is on the floor blubbering something, sobbing.

I just stare at the door as another set of footsteps approach, quieter now. This one isn’t in a hurry. And I know the instant he steps into my line of vision that he’s in charge.

He’s the one to worry about. The only one who’s masked.

He stops just inside the room, surveys it, eyeing every soldier, every stone, every cobweb. And when deep blue eyes land on me, a weight drops in my belly, a hundred-pound cement block.

The woman with the keys stands, tripping over her words as she walks toward him. He looks down at her like he’s irritated, and she doesn’t get far. An echo of bullets shuts her down, splattering blood like paint on my neck, my face. The shots put her back on the floor.

Fuck.

I don’t spare her a glance. I don’t need to, to know she’s dead.

The man’s eyes return to mine. They narrow. And when he takes a step toward me, I take one back, knocking the chair behind me to the floor, panicking then. Animated then.

I turn to run but see a dozen sets of eyes staring back at me. The masked intruder, the biggest of them all, blocks the only exit. I can’t even jump from the window. They’re barred. Suicide was never an option, not for my brothers. They needed me.

But something’s gone wrong.

And before I can decide what to do, before I can make up my mind to try to charge him, to risk bullets putting me down like they did the woman on the floor, he’s got my wrist in his right hand and he’s squeezing it.

My hand opens. Flowers scatter to the floor. I watch them, then watch him lift my hand to his face. His thumb comes to my ring finger where the hideous diamond catches the waning sun. For a moment I think he’s going to break my finger. But he twists and forces it off. It’s tight but he manages. He pockets the ring then shifts his gaze to mine again.

I swallow hard.

He cocks his head to the side, one hand still locked around my wrist. He spins me around.

I scream as he jerks me to him, his body a solid wall at my back.

He releases my wrist and bands his arm beneath my breasts. With the other, he pushes the veil off my neck, his hand rough against my skin, fingers digging, bruising. I think he’s going to snap my neck. One quick twist is all it would take. He’s a fucking giant.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, the moment I turn my face up to his, he squeezes and instantly, my knees give out. My arms drop uselessly to my sides. He shifts his grip and as I slip, he lifts me up, hauling me over his shoulder, turning the room upside down before it goes black.

COMING SOON

Releasing February 23

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AUTHOR BIO

Natasha Knight is the USA Today Bestselling author of Romantic Suspense and Dark Romance Novels. She has sold over half a million books and is translated into six languages. She currently lives in The Netherlands with her husband and two daughters and when she’s not writing, she’s walking in the woods listening to a book, sitting in a corner reading or off exploring the world as often as she can get away.

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