When Heroes Fall (Anti-Heroes in Love Duet #1)

by Giana Darling

Not a trace of my native land remained in my tone. I’d cut, washed, and bleached the foreignness out of my voice so that anyone first meeting me would never guess I was anything but American-born. It was the way I preferred it.

I had a vicious temper when wronged and held a grudge until the end of time, I didn’t have a talent for making friends, and I wasn’t good at taking criticism or teasing. But I knew right from wrong.

My therapist told me there was a name for what I had, that furious drive for perfection that had marked my entire life. Kodawari, the Japanese word for the relentless pursuit of perfection. I didn’t so much want to be perfect––which I was aware enough to know was an impossibility––as I wanted to seem perfect.

I’d lost so much of myself before I’d ever truly known who I was.

“You know, it is the contrast between two opposites that heightens them both to keener glory. You shouldn’t be afraid to be coarse, just as I shouldn’t be afraid to be gentle. Too much of one thing is boring, Elena.”

“Soft heart,” I reminded him. “A powerful man’s downfall.”

I didn’t mind working with a bitch. In my humble opinion, they were underrated.

Death was nothing. Sacrifice, that was the real killer.

“This is what you must understand, Elena. They are wrong. Women bear the trials of their men, the delivery of their babies, the weight of their families. Women are extraordinarily strong. So, you must trick the men into giving you power. Do not tell them you are strong, and do not fight them with words because words can be undone. Fight the injustice with action, lottatrice mia, because action can be understood in any language, by any man.”

I was too proud to go unnoticed in my profession, too greedy to accept pennies, too envious to be content with what I had at any given time, and too aroused by power to let it slide through my fingers.

I wanted to be the kind of a woman who was called a hero, but I’d spent most of my life being called a villain. If enough people treat you like a villain, you become one.

I needed the win so I could get out from under the shadow of my family, their accomplishments and pitfalls, and stand strong in the limelight as my own person.

Success is defined by society. Happiness is defined by our hearts and minds.

That two opposites could coexist in one whole. That you didn’t have to be all or nothing, black or white, good or bad.

There was such a thin line between love and hate, just as there was between heroism and villainy. It all depended on the circumstance and perspective.

For one uninhibited second, I thought she might let me kiss that mouth. And for one vivid breath, I wondered if that might become one of the biggest accomplishments in my already storied life.

I could be an emotional terrorist, my broken pieces weaponized like shards of broken glass. I was used to being the bitch, the warrior, something strong and impenetrable, more a worthy adversary than a worthy friend.

I wondered if there was any wedge more destructive to the bond between two sisters as the love of a shared man.

I had always found, if you could understand something, it was almost impossible to hate it because then you could empathize with it.

“Are you flirting with me?” I asked, proud that my voice didn’t shake the way my thighs did beneath the table. “Will you hit me if I say yes?” His playfulness was infectious. I tamped down my urge to smile and nodded somberly. “Yes.” “Good,” he said with a wink, “then hit me. I like it rough.”

“I’ve never been so proud to make another person laugh,” he told me seriously.

“Not all love is romantic,” he pointed out rationally, staring into my fearful eyes. “I don’t think you’ve had enough of it to know that, but I’m offering the love of a friend and the love of my body. The love of a man who can see you are not hateful. You are not villainous. You are misunderstood. And Elena, you don’t realize this yet, but I see you, I know you, and I’m fucking undone by the beauty of you.”

“Let me love you anyway,” he suggested.

It had taken losing everything to realize how empty I’d felt as I chased and chased for more. I’d never taken the time to appreciate those things I already had.

I realized I had this idea of a hero as someone who was socially accepted, someone who was revered by the masses. But heroism didn’t always arrive dressed in white and topped with a halo or on the back of some shining steed. Heroism was about your willingness to right wrongs, to sacrifice your own comfort and safety to affect change when you crossed something that needed changing. It was assuming responsibility for people who didn’t have the power to stand up for themselves. It was about being brave enough to live life by your own rules and accepting who you were, flaws and all.