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

by Giana Darling

To the strong women who have earned their armor by battling their entire lives for respect, admiration, and a love worthy of their greatness.

Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood.” – Leonardo di Vinci

And it’s capo, Dante Salvatore, who had just made the front page of The New York Times for being arrested on suspicion of three counts under the RICO Act, including, but not limited to, murder.

I could still remember the sheer size of his heavily muscled form bent over Cosima’s hospital bed, his swarthy features and olive-black eyes immediately alerting me to the presence of a southern Italian man. The look of that face, the set of the stubborn bones in his slightly dimpled square chin, and the roughly carved cheekbones taut with strain spoke to something even worse.

tried not to look into his face as he flashed me a beguiling smile, afraid I’d see spots as if staring into the sun. It was no wonder this man had gotten away with murder before with a face and body as beautiful as his. I was sure he was able to charm himself out of most situations.

My mouth went dry, and irritation flared. I was not the kind of woman to find something so uncouth attractive.

The way he said my name was indecent, a long, slow blurring of vowels and a flick of his tongue over the consonant.

I knew my sister called him the brother of her heart. That she swore up and down he was one of the most loyal and loving men she had ever known. That he would die for her. Such fierce loyalty resonated with me.

All I valued now, desired now, was steadfast loyalty. And I had to credit this man with that, even if I wanted to hate him for representing every villain I’d ever faced in my childhood.

“You watch too many movies, Elena. In real life, the villain always wins because we are willing to do anything to succeed.” He paused as I did in the doorway. “I think you know a little something about that.”

The truth was, he really was too startlingly handsome to be a Made Man.

It should have been obvious to all and sundry that Dante was a wolf.

He looked criminal, filled with wicked intent and handsome enough to tempt the pope to sin.

I told myself it was this odd mix of personas—the Italian hedonist, the British reserved mystery, and the ballsy American arrogance—combined into one man who intrigued me and not the almost overwhelming sight of such a beautiful body sprawled contemptuously across the leather.

I wanted it for the status.

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.

It felt like blasphemy after the oath I’d made to avoid beautiful men in the wake of my fiancé leaving me. Sacrilegious that I might ever find a mafia man, once the tormenters of my youth, even marginally desirable.

“I expect the public to fall for an anti-hero. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last.”

Instead, I gasped because the air compressed from my lungs by the weight of a large, incredibly heavy Italian man caging me against the seat.

For an instant, just one, I felt his wrath move through me like a tangible thing, something heady and drugging like the finest whiskey or the best Italian wine.

“It’ll heal,” he assured, swiping his thumb over the droplet of blood there then, shockingly, disgustingly, he brought it to his lush mouth and sucked it off.

Ambition versus morality. Both characteristics so elemental to me, I couldn’t fathom making a choice.

“O mangi questa minestra o salti dalla finestra?”

So, it was my greed that led me to the courtroom that day defending a man I didn’t like and didn’t believe for one second was innocent of the crimes he was accused of and many more besides.

“A man knows when a beautiful woman is being admired,” Dante drawled in that bastardized accent. “It isn’t me he wants.”

I could still feel two pairs of hot eyes on me, Dante from the left and Dennis from the right, but nothing existed for me except Judge Hartford.

Only when a broad, hot palm wrapped fully around the circumference of my thigh beneath the table did I freeze. Dante didn’t look at me, his eyes fixed on the judge and lawyers conferring at the judge’s bench, but he gave my thigh another squeeze before removing his hand.

Including the fact that my fiancé had left me for my sister.

I didn’t know why I cared. It wasn’t that I’d formed some lunatic instant connection to the man. In fact, I abhorred almost everything he stood for. Perhaps, it was as simple as the fact that I wanted some of that unshakeable calm for myself. I wanted to steal the magic of his self-assuredness and bottle it like perfume to spritz on my pulse points whenever I needed validation.

Adrenaline flooded my body at being so close to and held by such a man, a mammoth predator, but there was something else there too in the hot undercurrents, something sunk deep into my blood. Something like lust.

“You can cage the man, Elena, but not the idea. No collection of walls is strong enough to hold me or mine.”

I wanted to hope, but if life had taught me anything, it was that hope was a slippery thing, and just as soon as you found purchase with your hold, it slipped away again, elusive and cruel.

Sorrow warped my throat into a misshapen swollen mess, air catching in the narrow channel until I felt I might choke. I’d lost so much of myself before I’d ever truly known who I was.

“The lady can be coarse,” he said finally, still speaking through his chuckles. “Oh, the sound of a curse on your lips is sinful, Elena. You should swear more often.”

“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.”

I stared at him, finally pinpointing what it was exactly about Dante Salvatore that put me so ill at ease. He was utterly genuine. In his dominance, in his charm, in his concern. He committed himself entirely to the moment, to that which was at the center of his attention. To be in his spotlight felt like being naked, razed of every defense I’d spent twenty-seven years meticulously forging.

“It is okay to admire me.” His voice bumped into my thoughts, upending a flush that spilled like the wine in his glass all the way from my cheeks to my breasts. “You are a Lombardi woman, and as such, I’m certain you have a deep appreciation for beauty.”

I felt as if I was being cross-examined at court, his eyes searching for cracks in my façade, his mind carefully calculating every word out of my mouth. It infuriated me that he thought he had the right to interrogate me. That he thought he had a right to know me. No one did. I was an island, and I liked it that way.

“Who knows, lottatrice, maybe you’ll find more pleasure being in bed with the devil than you would have imagined.”

The mafia was founded on the idea of brotherhood and greed, both so essential to the human existence it could never be snuffed out.

The mafia originated in Sicily because, after decades of constant invasions and shifts in power, the natives developed a finely honed sense of loyalty to their neighbors over their loyalty to the government. As a result, they were able to maintain a culture based on their unique community and not that of their oppressors.

The mafia was founded as a result of a greater power trying to cut Italians down, so Italians created their own organization to fight back and police their own.

Well, in this life, my third in thirty-five years, I was Dante Salvatore, capo of the Salvatore borgata. Charmingly mad, bad, and entirely too dangerous to know. Or so they said.

Yet, he’d taken a reckless runaway British lad under his belt and groomed him like a son, even knowing the wildness in his blood would never cool. We were a good contrast, he and I. He was cold and calculated. I was instinct and hot-blooded brutality.

I’d do anything for them. Had done anything for them. Without question, without qualm. This was what family meant to Italians. Mafia or civilian, we protected our own at all costs.

She was…unexpected. Nothing like mia sorella di scelta, Cosima. She had none of her boldness or unstudied sensuality. She was not a natural flirt or a warm, radiant energy in a room. She was, in essence, an ice queen.

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

Cutthroat, whip smart, and ruthless were all characteristics anyone in the underworld needed not only to thrive but also to survive.

“No,” I agreed uneasily, staring down at the illuminated wine; the very same glossy shade of deep red echoed in Elena’s unusual hair. “But you see, I am not a professional, and there is something about all that studied perfection that makes me eager to break her.”

The urge to break apart the pieces and glue them back together in a way that worked for me was nearly impossible to resist. And at my heart, I was a hedonist. So, I admit, I didn’t try that hard to resist.