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

by Giana Darling

“It’s you that’s made me happy today. A man I thought I’d hate is now one of the men I most admire. I just don’t know what that means.” Her admiration felt like an anointment from God. “It doesn’t have to mean anything,” I assured her. “Happiness is the point.”

She was right; it wasn’t. But lying there naked and cooling after some of the most intense sex I’d ever had, I couldn’t help but wonder if it could be. If there was a way to ensure we could be happy together for longer. Maybe even forever.

It could have been any man after that to make me orgasm. But it wasn’t just any man. It was Dante Salvatore, the black-eyed capo.

aligned. Dante was one of the best men I knew, and I could admit that now. But he was also, without any doubt, a criminal of the highest order. The old Elena would have wanted him behind bars for life. The new Elena couldn’t imagine even a single day without him.

This time, I didn’t want more. This time, I only wanted to keep what I had.

I’d allowed that for myself because I felt I deserved it, but I’d secretly always wanted to be one of those good guys. And now I was faced with the fact that it was all an illusion.

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.

I didn’t respond because the truth was, I was reeling. I was desolate because I felt I had let Dante down. I’d been so sure Seamus would lead me to something that could help him, but if anything, it had only made the entire situation worse. I was scared that Dennis would do anything to get Dante convicted. I was petrified he would win and Dante would spend the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary. I was horrified that a man I was coming to care for more than I was ready to admit was going to leave me. And I’d be alone again, somehow even more so than I was before.

After I’d fucking promised her I’d keep her safe, after she’d finally given in to this simmering, fucking sensational pull between us, and I’d already betrayed her. Just like the other bastardi in her life.

“Better my career?” I bit out, struggling as the plastic ties dug deeper into the bloody mess of my wrists. “I was trying to help the man I love.”

This was the man who had taken murder charges instead of letting my sister go to prison. He might not have loved me like Cosima, but we had a bond. He had promised to keep me safe. He was the kind of man who would die before breaking his oath.

“I’ll warn you once,” a voice said from the top of the stairs. It was cold, low as fog rolling down the treads. “You touch another hair on her goddamn head, I’ll rip you apart with my bare hands and then hand-feed the pieces of you to the neighborhood dogs.”

It wasn’t a decision so much as an animal impulse. A bear defending his mate.

But he didn’t understand. He’d taught me exactly what he meant to. Family was everything. He just wasn’t my family anymore.

Hauling me halfway over his body even though it had to hurt, he kissed me like he hadn’t taken a breath since the last time he saw me, and he was dying for fresh air.

“You’re okay,” he said in that British-Italian accent I’d once hated. “Io sono con te. I am with you now, si? You are safe, Elena.”

What it was to truly be in love with someone, body and soul, everything else be damned. Because I’d known as I picked up the gun, heavier and hotter than I would have imagined, that I’d raze every single one of my morals and mandates to the ground if it meant keeping Dante alive and at my side. I’d happily follow him to Hell if it meant being with him forever.

I didn’t know what to say or do. My entire world had turned on its axis in the past twenty-four hours, and I couldn’t see straight anymore. All my life, I’d run from the dark, only now I seemed unable and unwilling to escape Dante’s shadowy embrace.

He was right, what he’d said about us being made of the same stuff. We weren’t opposites, not even close. He was a chaos of contradictions, and I was a contradictory chaos, but that was why we worked. In all my life, the only person who had ever understood me despite my best efforts to stop them was Dante.

curled my hand into his blood-soaked black tee and yanked him so I could kiss him. Because I didn’t have words, I only had the fire he’d started inside my soul, and the only way I could share it was by sliding it like a present under his tongue. He took it with a moan, eating at me, devouring me. I never wanted it to end, and I whimpered when he pulled away. But still, I didn’t have the words.

“Sono con te, lottatrice mia,” he said, “anche quando non lo sono.”

I am with you, my fighter, even w...

“He’s not anything I ever would have allowed myself to like or know. He’s my client. Being with him risks my career. Being with him risks my life,” I tried to explain, but the words just kept coming more and more panicked. “It makes no sense, Beau, but we are compatible. He’s a criminal, a hedonist, a sinner. But everyone likes him. You should see it. It’s impossible to dislike him because he has this smile and this charm…”

“He’s leaving,” I murmured. “He has to leave now because of me. He’s going, and I don’t know where or for how long, but I probably won’t ever see him again. And I love him.”

“So alive I burn.”

“So alive you burn,”

He’d threatened Mama, Giselle, and Genevieve. He’d destroyed our lives in Naples and sold Cosima into sexual slavery. He’d nearly killed Dante.

I couldn’t bear the thought of knowing I existed in a world where Dante didn’t. And he had done the same for me. I’d always known Dante was a killer.

It was the same place that burned when he touched me, when he taught me what to do with his body and what to do with mine. It was the same place that stirred whenever my family had been threatened in Naples and I’d stood up to protect them. Because they were mine to protect. Just as it seemed, now I was Dante’s to protect. It was a place of instinct, a primal impulse in my gut that transcended thought and even feeling. Dante was mine.

missed my capacity to love, my propensity to have faith in people and mostly, in myself. Dante had taught me how to love myself again. He’d taught me how to let someone in again. How could I possibly give that up?

Not the insignificant bullet hole I’d have Frankie stitch up on the plane, but the gaping hole in my rib cage where Elena Lombardi ripped out my heart to keep it for her own. I didn’t mind. I wanted her to have it. But the pain was fucking excruciating.

“I don’t care,” she yelled back. “I’m coming.” I stared down at her, thinking that even with wet hair and no makeup, Elena Lombardi took exquisite to a new level. Cazzato, but I wanted her. I needed her. The idea of leaving her behind tore me up from the inside out.

The smile that spread across her face dazzled me as we moved toward each other, faster and faster. Then she was right in front of me. Elena Lombardi. And all I could think was mine.

“I won’t go back to my life before this,” she murmured into my chest as she hugged me. “Don’t leave me here in this purgatory where nothing makes sense anymore except you.” “I have too much of you in my heart to say no,” I admitted gruffly, pulling her head back by the hair so I could see her face.

“Ti amo,” she told me as if the words couldn’t bear to go unspoken. “I love you, and I’m going with you.” I laughed. I laughed because we were both crazy and mad and hopelessly lost in this new and wild thing between us, and I didn’t give a damn about the consequences. “Sono pazzo di te,” I told her before I claimed her lips for a bruising kiss. “I’m crazy about you, Elena.

“Okay,” she said simply when she finished, smiling at me, more serene than I’d ever seen her. “They’re all afraid of you, and they all hate me. What a pair we make. Two villains in love. I’m not afraid of anything that will come at us, Dante. I just don’t want to be without you.” “Then you won’t,” I promised. And I kissed her. I wasn’t sure if there was such a thing as happily ever after for people like us, but I’d fight tooth and fucking nail to make sure I gave Elena Lombardi the world. It wouldn’t be the world she thought she wanted, but I’d make her regina of my dark kingdom and in the end, I’d ensure every single one of my soldati would die for her just as they would die for me.