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

by Giana Darling

“Elena,” he murmured in that way he had of making my name an Italian song. “If I didn’t trust you, would I let you inside my home? Would I tell my men to buy every season of that god-awful vampire show and send Bambi to get that expensive French chocolate you like? Would I train you with my inner circle every morning and laugh with you over good Italian wine?”

I could give up the idea of being a hero and rise up the villain beside a man I was beginning to understand was so much more than that.

He was the kind of man who called his seven-year-old niece the love of his life and watched episodes of some cheesy vampire show to give a lonely woman some comradery. He was the kind of man to rip someone apart with his bare hands for wronging him or his, but he was also the kind of man to take the fall for a woman’s crime because she was the sister of his heart. He was everything I’d feared and everything I’d never consciously known I longed for. And all that, six-foot-five inches, two hundred thirty pounds of British-Italian man, could be mine. All I had to do was be brave enough to reach out and take it.

There was only Dante Salvatore. And me. Not Elena Moore or Elena Lombardi. Not lawyer or sister, bitch or loner. Just a man and woman tangled together in the most fervent kiss I ever could have imagined.

Where did one learn the right vocabulary for such things? How did I learn to thank a man for the simple yet profound act of loving me? With his body. As a friend. Looking after me even though it was a wretched job I’d never be able to make easier. Seeing me when I’d been secretly fearful for so long that I would die unseen and unknown.

I focused on the feel of a strong man around me, shielding me from the outside world but also from myself.

I laughed limply. “How do you always know what to say? Is there some kind of class for that?” His lips twitched. “It’s my natural-born charm. But it’s also this. Whatever you and I are made of, it’s the same. You don’t have to be good with me, right or true in any sense, but especially the conventional. You can be your worst self with me, because Elena, it’s the contradictory nature of your soul that intoxicates me.”

“Now that I’ve had you, I won’t let you go until I’ve had my fill, and I have a feeling that will take a very long time.”

“Acted like a real donna,” he told me with admiration clear in his gravelly voice. “Made us proud.” Donna like the queen in a chess set or the queen on a playing card. Donna like a female boss.

The heartless capo I’d made him out to be at our first meeting was only a mirage. The real Dante might have had the flat black eyes of a criminal, but he had a heart of gold for those he cared about.

Much like the red-headed Italian woman who haunted my thoughts, she was a chaos of contradictions I wanted to spend my life untangling.

“You call Elena a bitch ever again, Jaco, I’ll carve the word into your forehead with my blade, capisci?”

“You always said women ruin a man,” he reminded me perniciously. “They make them weak.” I cocked my head, my hand squeezing his neck painfully. “Did I? I think you misunderstood. Maybe it was my accent, hmm? What I said was that a man in love has one weakness, his woman. It’s his Achilles’ heel. But that same love makes the rest of him impenetrable, strong as a god.”

“Elena’s got it too,” he continued as if picking up the thread from a conversation we’d been having before. “What?” “What it takes to be donna.”

How was it possible there could be a time when she didn’t seem like mine? But donna. Boss. The queen to my kingpin. A partner not just in this case against me but in crime. In my shadowed underworld. It should have seemed ridiculous, but a part of me could picture her there under the faded frescos, checking guns and ordering soldati coolly, efficiently. She would be fucking magnificent.

Wild dogs and armed Cosa Nostra soldati couldn’t have kept me from moving closer to witness Elena Lombardi like I had never seen her before.

This was the reason there was music; when words suffered from limitations, and the only way you could express those gargantuan nameless emotions was through song.

I’d never been so affected by a woman. Because Elena wasn’t just gorgeous. Every single aspect of her fascinated me.

“Break apart. Come for me. And say the name of your capo when you do.”

She was such beautiful chaos, such a windstorm of contradictions that even she was helpless to understand their currents.

“What? Capos need cuddles too.” “Ridiculous,” she muttered, but a smile haunted her lips. “How am I supposed to resist you when you act like this? The big bad capo and the boyish charmer with the big heart.”

“Between the hero and the villain, there is the anti-hero. A person who may do evil deeds and seem unscrupulous, but who, within their own set of morals, possesses a big heart and the willingness to protect that which they know to be good.

“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.”

In fact, I was in danger of losing my blind respect for the law and completely compromising my previous hardline views of morality because the truth was, they were not always properly 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.

I had a text from Elena on one of them. Seamus was going to take Giselle and Genevieve, maybe Mama, too. I had to go with them. I know you’ll find me, capo. Xx, E Fury like I hadn’t known in years boiled my blood, eviscerating everything else in its path until I was a pure flame locked in human flesh.

“You doing this because of Cosima or because of the girl?” he finally asked. I almost winced because not once had Cosima crossed my mind. “Elena, you fool.” He nodded curtly. “Fine, come into the living room. If you want to fuck all our plans to high hell for a woman, God knows I’m not in a position to stop you.”

Why risk it for this pussy?” “I’m fucking going,” I said with deadly calm. “You want to get in my way, Jaco, be my guest, but I’ll paint you black and blue with my fists and leave you for dead if I have to.”

I could only hope that Dante had stayed at his apartment, properly attached to his ankle monitor, waiting for his men to bring me back safely. But a small voice in my gut told me differently. 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 knew in my bones he would come for me himself.

“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. I let my wobbly legs collapse, taking me to the floor. Seamus stopped, eyes flickering with worry as I fell, but I was already moving, rolling closer to Dante so I could grab the gun near his hand.

And I knew it then. What it was to truly be in love with someone, body and soul, everything else be damned.

I’d happily follow him to Hell if it meant being with him forever.

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.

“Sono con te, lottatrice mia,” he said, “anche quando non lo sono.” I am with you, my fighter, even when I am not.

“I love him.” Tears formed and broke free of my eyes like diamonds rolling down my cheeks. “I do. I love him. I don’t know how it happened…He just…he wouldn’t leave me alone.”

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?

I was about to growl at him when a screech of car tires exploded in the silent night. Immediately, Frankie and I both pulled our guns. A moment later, Chen rounded the plane again. “What the hell is…?” I trailed off as he pulled to a stop at the base of the stairs and a familiar redhead appeared out the back door. I blinked, wondering if the bullets had given me a concussion somehow. “I see her too,” Frankie whispered. “Dante,” Elena called as Chen and Beau both emerged from the vehicle and went to the trunk. “I’m coming with you.” My chest was so tight I couldn’t fucking breathe. “I didn’t ask you,” I told her. Because this wasn’t a joke. We weren’t going on vacation to Bora fucking Bora. We were going on the run. As in I was jumping bail and facing serious prison time for skipping the country, and I’d have to be careful about every single move I made from here on in. “I don’t care,” she yelled back. “I’m coming.”

was about to growl at him when a screech of car tires exploded in the silent night. Immediately, Frankie and I both pulled our guns. A moment later, Chen rounded the plane again. “What the hell is…?” I trailed off as he pulled to a stop at the base of the stairs and a familiar redhead appeared out the back door. I blinked, wondering if the bullets had given me a concussion somehow. “I see her too,” Frankie whispered. “Dante,” Elena called as Chen and Beau both emerged from the vehicle and went to the trunk. “I’m coming with you.” My chest was so tight I couldn’t fucking breathe. “I didn’t ask you,” I told her. Because this wasn’t a joke. We weren’t going on vacation to Bora fucking Bora. We were going on the run. As in I was jumping bail and facing serious prison time for skipping the country, and I’d have to be careful about every single move I made from here on in. “I don’t care,” she yelled back. “I’m coming.”

“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.”

“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.

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.