“Game?”
“It’s usually so easy to corrupt people. I think you might prove a challenge.”
Anger and a hint of nausea rolled through me. I wasn’t corruptible. I was many bad things, I could admit. 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.
“I am not a game, Mr. Salvatore,” I informed him, my words clinking to the metal table like ice cubes as I stood and gathered my things. “Nor is this case against you. I know you’ve spent most of your life on the top of the food chain, but nothing is a bigger predator than the United States government. They’ve spent multimillions investigating and prosecuting mafia cases before, and I have no doubt they will again. So why don’t you stop focusing on me and begin focusing on how in the world you are going to fool a judge and jury into believing you are anything less than a villain.”
He remained silent, those spilled ink eyes watchful and depthless as they mapped my progress to the doors where I summoned the guard to let me out. It was only when the whirl of metal clogs spun and released, the doors shuddering open, that his words drifted after me like arid smoke.
“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.”
A shiver worked itself down my spine like fingers on piano keys, trilling a discordant tune that sounded very much like a portentous music score in one of those movies he was talking about.
ELENA
He shouldn’t have been so distinguishable in the dark, but then again, that was where monsters like him thrived, so perhaps it made sense.
Dawn was just flirting with the ink-stained night, the anemic light half-hidden by the dense cluster of buildings blocking the horizon and the artificial lights cutting shapes into the interior of the Town Car as we passed through the almost empty streets of Midtown.
Blocks of colored light spun over Dante Salvatore’s face like a child’s kaleidoscope, illuminating his bold features for seconds at a time, making his beautiful visage into something like a puzzle for my overanalytical brain to dissect and wonder over.
The truth was, he really was too startlingly handsome to be a Made Man.
I knew mafiosos. I’d grown up with them circling my family like carrion at the scene of horrific carnage. My father had been indentured to them for as many years as I could remember. My childhood was defined by the Italian Camorra’s presence in our lives.
I knew them to be short men with Napoleonic complexes, small eyes like glossed black beads in flaccid, flabby faces made swollen with too much indulgence in every kind of excess.
They were ugly men in ugly packages easily identified and labeled as the trash they were.
But this man?
The most infamous mafioso of the 21st century in a time when most Americans believed the mafia to be a dead and fossilized creature, well, he was another beast entirely.
He was too tall, quilted heavily with muscle that should have made him slow-moving and rigid but instead lent him the grace and constantly harnessed threat of a wild cat. He was as incongruous as one stalking through the concrete jungle of New York City, bigger and badder than the rest even though he wore the most meticulous suits and the most expensive designer brands.
Who he thought he was fooling with such a sheepish guise, I hadn’t a clue.
It should have been obvious to all and sundry that Dante was a wolf.
“You say nothing for a woman with eloquent eyes,” he said then, jarring me from my introspection.
Momentarily, I was ashamed he had caught me staring, but then I remembered part of my job was to study him, so I settled comfortably back behind my professional mask.
My smile was thin. “Knowing my thoughts is a privilege I don’t share with strangers.”
“Ms. Lombardi,” my boss, one of the partners in my law firm and co-lead on the case, Yara Ghorbani, chastised me shortly, but Dante only laughed.
The sound moved through the Town Car like the crescendo of noise at the beginning of a jazz song, each note a building block leading to something richer, brighter.
It was a disturbingly pleasant sound to emerge from a murderer.
“Excuse Ms. Lombardi, please, Mr. Salvatore. She’s only a fourth-year associate, and we believed she was ready for the kind of responsibility this case would afford her,” Yara said softly, in that way she had of mellifluously delivering scathing insults. “I believe you and I both will be disappointed if that proves untrue.”
I didn’t allow a single movement to betray how harshly I felt those words score down my throat. I’d learned the hard way over the years that people had no qualms about ruthlessly attacking any perceived weakness.
And I had no doubt the capo of the New York City Salvatore mafia Family would exploit anything he could find, even in his own legal team.
He watched me from his slight lounge across the back of the black leather seats, strong thighs parted inelegantly in his slouch, one hand rubbing at the thick stubble on his jaw.
We’d advised him to be clean-shaven.
We had also couriered over an entire outfit for him to wear to the arraignment because perception in cases like these was everything.
Of course, he wasn’t wearing it.
Instead, his big form was clad entirely in black, from the tips of his Berluti loafers to the perfectly tailored blazer hugging his broad shoulders. There was a glint of silver chain at his throat that I thought might have carried a cross or a saint’s pendant, but it was nowhere near enough to save his overall demeanor.
He looked criminal, filled with wicked intent and handsome enough to tempt the pope to sin.
So not the look we wanted on a man being accused of three counts under the RICO Act.
Racketeering.
Illegal gambling.
And murder.
Sitting there in all that black, cloaked in shadows, he looked every inch the crime boss he was being accused of being.
“A penny for your thoughts then,” he offered.
His voice was strange, Italian, British, and American accents tangling in his tone to create something wholly unique and oddly appealing. 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 narrowed my eyes at him and adjusted my portfolio on my lap, conscious of how sweaty my palms were against the stiff paper.
“Maybe you aren’t ready to hear them,” I countered coolly, brow raised. “Some people take criticism better when it’s not from a virtual stranger.”
Yara didn’t chastise me this time, probably because Dante’s smoky chuckle filled the interior again and took away her opportunity to do so.
But also, maybe because Dante had not been an easy client thus far.
He flouted our suggestions, ignored sensible ideas, and seemed almost childishly easy to distract from the gravity of his predicament.
It was as if being accused of murder was only passably amusing whenever he did succumb to its presence in his life.
If he was enjoying my company, it might mean he would be more…pliable in the future. I decided then, even if this hadn’t occurred to Yara, I would suggest it to her myself after the indictment. I had no doubt I intrigued him because of my relationship with his best friend, who also happened to be my sibling, but I was a lawyer, so I’d use anything I had in my arsenal to earn an advantage.
“You’re not much like your sister.” It was a statement, not a question, and it made me grit my teeth to avoid the impulse to bite back at him.
He shouldn’t have said that.
Of course, I’d divulged my connect
ion to the client before I’d made my bid for placement on his legal team, so Yara was unsurprised by the comment.
That wasn’t what made irritation burst into itchy, painful flames on the back of my neck.
Even though I loved her deeply, I dreaded any comparison to my youngest sister.
Cosima Lombardi, an international supermodel, was married to a gorgeous British aristocrat and she was as lovely at heart as she was on the surface.
In a comparison battle, anyone would lose to Cosi.
Still, I hated to lose.
And I’d been losing that war since she was born.
The favorite of my father, maybe silently of my mother, and certainly of my other siblings.
Cosima was the golden child, whereas I was the black sheep.
I was the firstborn but the least liked and most unsuccessful.
My ambition surged through me like adrenaline at the thought, reminding me just what was at stake in taking this case.
If we won this trial against all odds, it would make my career and catapult me to the kind of greatness a lawyer could only achieve in the Big Apple.
I wanted that.
Not for the money or even the power, though both were more arousing than most men had ever been to me.
No.
I wanted it for the status.
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 been close, once.
As little as a year ago, I’d had my job at one of the top five law firms in the city and a gorgeous brownstone with my fiancé, a man both beautiful and successful in his own right.
We were going to get married, adopt a baby.
Adopt, because life saw fit to deal me another tragic blow and take my fertility from me early.
Still, it would have been a picture-perfect life.
My Daniel Sinclair and I.
After the life I’d been born into and excruciatingly endured in Naples, I’d deserved it.
Somehow, now, the brownstone was considerably less lovely when I was the only one living in the rambling, big home. Somehow, the job was a lot less satisfying without my companion at my side encouraging me in my climb up the legal profession ladder.
And it was all because of one person.
Quite simply, the bane of my entire life.
My other sister, Giselle.
Fury savaged my insides, blazing along the familiar path it always ran through my system, obliterating everything else until I was scorched earth, incapable of harboring any other emotion.
“Elena?” Dante’s voice pulled me back. “My comment was merely an observation, not an insult. I apologize if I caused offense.”
I brushed away the idea with a casual wave of my hand and smiled, knowing it was thin and transparent on my face despite my best efforts.
“Please, call me Ms. Lombardi. Cosima is my sister, but she’s also my best friend. Any comparison to her is a compliment in my eyes,” I explained breezily. “But that’s beside the point right now, Mr. Salvatore. What is important right now is the fact that you are being charged on three accounts of RICO, and today, we are fighting to get you out on bail. They’re going to argue you are a flight risk and that with your underground connections, you could easily find a way to leave the country. This is our one chance to keep you out of prison until and if you are eventually tried and found guilty. You really should have listened to our advice and dressed a little more saint and a little less sinner.”
A smooth smile spread across his face, crinkling his eyes and alerting me to the fact he had square white teeth behind those ruddy lips.
It annoyed me that I found him so attractive.
No, it did more than that.
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.
“As a six-foot-five, two hundred and thirty-pound Italianate-looking man, did I ever have a chance of appearing in any way less than I do now? In my experience, it is riskier to assume a person’s ignorance than it is to play into their desires. The world, Ms. Lombardi, wants me to the be their villain. So, I will give them one they can truly sink their teeth into.” He punctuated his tidy speech with a wink.
This time, it was Yara who let out a thin chuckle, much to my surprise. “Of course, I should have known you would want to play that angle.”
He inclined his head with gracious solemnity, but there was mischief in his ink-dark eyes.
“You’re assuming the public loves a bad boy more than a good man,” I argued. It was my job to look at both sides, but also because I’d always been inclined to play the Devil’s advocate. “You expect the public to cheer for a murderer?”
His eyes narrowed, jaw clenching as he studied me again for one long interminable moment. “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.” He leaned forward, his body so big it seemed he took up the entirety of the roomy car. I could smell him, something bright and sharp that mellowed into sweet warmth like lemons heated by the Italian sun. “Can you tell me, Elena, that you’ve never been drawn in by a bad boy?”
I arched a brow at him.
I’d had all of two lovers in my twenty-seven years of life.
Christopher and Daniel Sinclair.
The former was more than a “bad boy.” He was worse than the scum scraped off the bottom of my shoe.
And Daniel?
He had been perfect, or as close to it as you could find on this earth.
Bad boys with their cigarette-stained teeth, their lack of proper diction and abundance of curse words, their rough hands and animalistic impulses?
My only interest in them was putting them behind bars where they belonged.
So why was I in that car on the way to an indictment representing one of the most infamous criminals in New York City?
Because my sister, the same gorgeous sister I’d loved and envied all my life, had begged me to take on the case.
Cosima was one of the only people I loved to the depths of my soul. One of two people, including my mother, who had ever supported me and loved me despite my obvious flaws.
So of course, I would do this for her.
Even though, for the first time in my career, I knew I was representing someone who, without a shadow of a doubt, was guilty of this crime and probably many others.
As if on cue, there was a knock on the side window.
My head snapped to the side to see a homeless man beside the car where we waited at a red light. He was heavily draped in threadbare layers against the deep chill of late autumn in the city, but there was something in his anticipatory manner that seemed off.
I watched as he pointed at his sign––Cold and hungry, please help––and opened my mouth to say something to Yara, when Dante’s voice snapped through the air like a whip.
“Drive!” he barked. “Now.”
But Mr. Janko was driving the car, a man who drove exclusively for the firm with a sensible manner and careful politeness.
He only blinked in the rearview mirror at Dante.
And by then, it was too late.
The homeless man had dropped his handmade sign, hand delving into his layers of clothing to produce a long gun, the barrel of which he pressed to the window.
I had time only to gasp before he fired the shot.
Crack.
The bullet shattered the glass, but I felt none of those sharp edges nor the impact of that metal projectile lodging itself in my flesh.
Instead, I gasped because the air compressed from my lungs by the weight of a large, incredibly heavy Italia
n man caging me against the seat.
I tipped my face up, mouth open, eyes dry and prickling with shock. Dante caught my gaze, his own burning coal black and just as hot.
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.
Then he was yelling, “Cazzo, drive, man! NOW!”
With a squeal of tires, Mr. Janko revved the engine and gunned us forward into the intersection despite the red light.
Another shot was fired from behind us, this time wedging itself with a clunk into the trunk of the car.
Dante curled even tighter around Yara and me, protecting us with his massive frame. Surrounded in the warm citrus and pepper scent, pressed tight to his unyielding chest, I almost felt safe despite the madman shooting at us.
He remained there for a few moments until we were long gone from the scene, racing through the streets like a northeasterly storm.
When he finally pulled away, he checked Yara quickly then turned his eyes to me. One large hand went for my face, and I flinched despite myself.
I’d never seen hands like that, hands that large, that rough, that undeniably cloaked in metaphorical red.
Something in his eyes flickered at my reaction, but still, he reached out to pluck a small shard of glass from my cheekbone. I didn’t notice the pain until he pulled it out, making me hiss at the little burst of hurt.
“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.
My stomach roiled, but my thighs tingled even as my mind rebelled against the unwanted intimacy of his touch.
“Stop trying to unsettle my associate,” Yara ordered calmly, righting her suit jacket as if she was shot at every day, and this was just another nuisance. “Sit down and watch that you don’t cut yourself on that glass.”
I blinked at the gorgeous older woman beside me, but she ignored my silent inquiry. Instead, she watched Dante grin and settle in the seat on the other side of the broken window, perpendicular to us.
When Heroes Fall Page 2