When Heroes Fall

by Giana Darling

  He didn’t stop advancing.

  I looked over his shoulder at Frankie, who had lost the battle with his smile and was grinning madly at me.

  “If he puts one hand on me, I swear to God, I’ll cut it off,” I promised them both.

  The short wise guy laughed, then covered it with a cough.

  “This is kidnapping!” I snapped as the big guy reached for me, and I realized I was running out of living room and was almost up against the kitchen counter.

  Frankie shrugged one shoulder. “I gave you a choice. You just made the wrong decision.”

  “You don’t want me anywhere near your precious capo,” I swore darkly. “I’ll kill him for putting my career at risk. I’m serious.”

  “I have no doubt you are,” he agreed easily, almost jauntily, enjoying the entire situation way too much. “I’d actually love to see you try.”

  Clearly, there was no reasoning with these mindless savages.

  So, when the man with the face of a mobster from a classic Hollywood film reached for my wrist, I resorted to the only thing I had left.

  My self-defense training.

  I brought my captured wrist up as if I was holding a mirror in my palm, which twisted the man’s arm upside down. Then I grabbed his wrist with my opposite hand and wrenched it hard until a bone popped beneath the skin, and his grip loosened as he grunted in pain.

  Before he could recover, I leaned back to grab a knife from the block on my kitchen counter and held it up between us.

  I was panting hard, the blade shaking in my hand, but somehow my voice was sturdy when I said, “Touch me again, and I will cut you. Now, I’ll go with you but only to give Dante a piece of my mind. Excuse me while I grab my purse. You can get a head start of putting my door back exactly the way you found it.”

  The three men all shared a quick look before Frankie tamed his feral grin enough to say, “You got five minutes.”

  “I’ll take ten,” I bartered without waiting for him to answer as I dropped the knife and stalked from the room toward my bedroom.

  “You don’t want Adriano’s dirty hand on your panties, you best pack a bag,” Frankie called after me.

  I shuddered at the thought of those thugs going through my things, so I resolved to pack an extra pair of underwear in my purse just in case, but nothing more.

  There was no way I was moving into Dante’s den of iniquity.

  “Madonna Santa, that woman’s got balls,” one of the men I didn’t know hooted loudly enough for me to hear in the hallway.

  “Wouldn’t want to be the boss,” the other one muttered.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Frankie laughed as the sound of their heavy footfalls sounded behind me, going back down the hall to fix my damn door. “I’m looking forward to the fireworks.”

  DANTE

  She rolled in like a northeasterly winter storm, the air crackling with static, the wind through the open patio doors kicking up a gust as she powered out of the elevator and stalked on the harsh clip of her heels into the living room where I sat waiting for the thunder and lightning to fall.

  It was obvious she had cried at some point by the slight smudge of makeup under those glimmering gray eyes, but I couldn’t picture how she might have looked vulnerable with tears when she presented such a force standing before me now with her hands fisted on her hips and her flaming hair tangled in the breeze tunneling in from outside.

  “You’ve got some nerve demanding I move in with you just because you want constant status updates,” she began, each word punctuated with fury, dripping with disdain. “Poor little capo can’t take the consequences of his actions? Then he shouldn’t commit felonies. You reap what you sow.”

  I tilted my head as I crossed a foot over my opposite knee, settling deeper into my couch as I studied her. “How fitting because you have sowed this.”

  Indignation turned her delicate, overtly feminine beauty into something hard and deadly. It shouldn’t have turned me on to see such rage in a woman. It never had before, but something was deliciously wild about her energy like this, a static restless hunger I felt echoed in my own blood.

  She was fucking magnificent.

  “I’ve worked my ass off on this case already,” she countered, pointing her finger at me as if it was a loaded weapon. “We just succeeded in getting Mason Matlock’s statement suppressed, and we have dozens of people working on finding out who the other witnesses might be and what else the prosecution might have on you. How the hell you think I deserve this treatment is beyond me.”

  “Cursing, Elena,” I said, clicking my tongue as I shook my head. “I thought such coarseness was beneath you.”

  I watched as her skin warmed with a blush I wanted to taste with my tongue. It was so much fun to rile her up. I sincerely thought I could sit here and argue with her for the entire night.

  “I should have known blackmail wasn’t beneath you,” she hissed, storming forward so that she could loom over me from where I reclined against the cushions of my couch. She was a tall woman made taller by those sexy as fuck high heels she was always wearing, but I found the position more arousing than intimidating.

  After all, I probably had a hundred pounds on her, and the idea of clutching her wrist to send her tumbling down on top of me was practically impossible to resist.

  The only reason I did was because Frankie, Adriano, and Marco were in the doorway to the entryway enjoying the show, and I didn’t want to embarrass Elena further by disrespecting her personal space in front of my men.

  “You do make me out to be quite the villain,” I told her, adjusting my cuff as if the entire conversation bored me just to feel the way the air around her went molten because of my provocation. “Maybe I’m just trying to be the hero, here, Elena?”

  She snorted, inelegant, more real than I’d ever seen her. “By forcing me to live with you? Forgive me for sounding dramatic, but I can’t see much worse a fate than that.”

  I brushed my fingertips over my lips, watching the way her furious gaze dropped to my mouth and lingered before snapping back to my eyes. “Have you ever considered it may be dangerous for a woman living alone in a house with a security system? A woman who has become a known associate of a very dangerous man with enemies who will stop at nothing to hurt him.”

  “Don’t pretend you made this move because you have a bleeding heart,” she scoffed. “You did this just because you could.”

  “There may have been that as well,” I agreed easily with a wide, slow grin that dominated my entire face.

  She blinked at the sight dispassionately. “I am your lawyer, Mr. Salvatore, not your slave and not your soldier.”

  Oh, if only she knew the truth about my family and its history of taking female slaves. If only she knew that Cosima had paid that price in servitude to my brother before they’d actually fallen in love.

  I wondered how the cool Elena would react, knowing the extent of the sacrifice her sister had made for her? If she’d be broken by the weight of it, knowing there was no hope to repay her. She seemed like the type of woman who could not abide a debt remaining unpaid.

  I stood then, unraveling from the low couch to my full height. She was discomforted by my proximity, only a thin wedge of vibrating space between our two bodies, but she didn’t stand down. Instead, she cocked her chin high in order to look me dead in the eye, her brows arched with haughty disdain, her lush red mouth a contrast to the tightness in her jaw.

  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.

  At that moment, I wanted to crush her to my body and ravish that prim mouth, dishevel that perfectly curled hair, tear open the silk bow on her blouse with my teeth, then rip apart the bra barely visible beneath that so I could suck on her breasts. I wanted to make her shake for me, quake for me, fucking break for me.

  Because I knew no one had ever broken Elena Lombardi.

  That fucker Danie
l Sinclair hadn’t even come close.

  I’d grown up around horses in England, learned to ride about the same time I learned to walk, and I knew all about the wild, willful beasts. Elena reminded me of an Arabian, she had all the raw power and majesty of the stead, but someone had mistreated her, taught her to bite and shy away from the rider.

  I knew with the right training and a patient master, she would be glorious.

  It was the worst idea I’d ever had, and I’d had my fair share, but suddenly, irrevocably, I wanted to be the one who earned that hard-won trust. The man who would be rewarded with the glory of those spoils.

  Eyes locked on her, jaw clenched against the lust surging inside me, I lifted my hand and cupped her long throat easily in my palm, curling my fingers around the side over the mad thrum of her pulse.

  “No,” I agreed in a low purr. “You aren’t a soldier or a slave. You are a fighter, my fighter until you’ve won this war with me. But I am the general, Elena, and the sooner you get used to taking orders from me, the better.”

  “I don’t take orders from any man,” she snapped, teeth clicking together with the force of her delivery.

  Ah, I’d hit a nerve.

  “Ah, but I am not just a man,” I promised her, gentling her the way I would a nervous mare, my thumb stroking down her throat. “I am capo dei capi of the New York City Camorra. If you do not know how to obey, I will teach you.”

  She seemed to have forgotten I was holding her so intimately, but my movement made her swallow hard against my hand. I was close enough to see the way her pupils expanded, shadows eating up the silvered gray.

  For one uninhabited 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.

  And then Marco coughed.

  It echoed like a bomb in the silent room and tore Elena from my grip. She stepped back immediately, and then, before I could blink, she struck out with her right hand and slapped me right across the cheek.

  Heat blasted over the side of my face, a spike of pain on the side of my cheekbone where one long, red fingernail tore my skin.

  We stared at each other for a long interminable moment, her breath a harsh rattle, her eyes wide and pewter, brushed with fear for the first time that night.

  Good, the beast inside me growled, loving the sight of vulnerability in her gaze.

  Fear me.

  I moved closer on one heavy step, and she flinched but otherwise didn’t move even when I leaned close enough to taste her breath on my lips so I could snarl softly, “Next time you hit me, lottatrice, I will hit you back. Only it will be on that sweet little arse I’ve glimpsed behind your tight skirts, capisci?”

  “You wouldn’t fucking dare,” she said, but her voice was all breath, her pulse a visible beat in her pale neck.

  “Boh,” I said as I ducked my head to speak hotly against her ear just to feel her slight shiver. “Try me.”

  The air crackled around us, and our hearts thundered. I’d known she would bring the storm when she heard her marching orders this afternoon from Yara, but this was more than I’d hoped for. This woman who was barely alive made me feel like a live wire, a lit fuse raw with power.

  I hadn’t even kissed her, and I felt like roaring, like beating my chest and crowing with glory.

  All because the ice queen didn’t realize it yet, but the thaw had started and soon, so fucking soon I could almost taste her––something warm and plummy like wine––on my tongue.

  Soon, she’d be mine.

  For one kiss, one hour, one night, I didn’t fucking care.

  I’d moved her into my home for pragmatic reasons, but in the end, I couldn’t fool myself.

  Elena Lombardi was an acquired taste, something to be appreciated by only the most refined palette, the most exquisite mind. As deep and brilliantly complex as expensive Italian wine, the more I learned about her, the more I wanted to drink her down like a glutton and force her to be mine.

  ELENA

  I spent the rest of the night in my room and hated that I felt petulant and childish for doing so. I’d had an idea of who I should be and what I should want all my life, and this mafioso with obsidian eyes and absurdly long lashes, with man-killing hands and an arrogant authoritative manner, made me feel…undone. As if the years of work I’d spent carving my public persona, my refined mannerisms, and thoroughly educated speech were transparent before the eyes of the Don. He seemed to see through my shields, tearing them in his mighty hands as easily as tissue paper. It was more than disconcerting; it was harrowing.

  I didn’t want to be seen by anyone, let alone a man like him.

  But his presence had left irreparable cracks in my foundation, just enough space for doubts to grow like weeds.

  My sister said she trusted him with her life.

  With mine.

  I’d tried to call her again to talk about what I’d learned, but she had only texted me back assuring me to keep calm and that she would explain everything next month when she visited. It was poor consolation, but even knowing she was happy now, it made me sick to think of what she had truly gone through for us.

  For me.

  It only proved to heighten the feeling of obligation that had led me into taking Dante’s case and knowing she loved him at the end of that ordeal, that maybe he had…helped her cemented my loyalty to his cause if not his person.

  To top it all off, Seamus had all but threatened me if I didn’t offer good intel on the capo. At least, if I was living here, I’d be safe from him and his.

  I knew Dante’s enemies were circling in the waters, scenting his blood after his RICO indictment, and that potentially, they could use me as some kind of pawn in their game of domination.

  So, I was safe from external forces in Dante’s two-story Upper East Side fortress.

  The problem was, I had the distinct feeling the greatest threat to my safety was inside that same apartment prowling the halls like a caged beast.

  The room he’d given me was lovely, which annoyed me too. The walls were gray plaster, the same dark shade as my eyes, but everything else was either a pearly white, silver, or accented black. It was like living inside a cloud with its ever-changing moods, light to dark, everything soft and opulent.

  He had good taste, a quality I felt was underestimated in a man.

  I fisted the satin sheets in my hands and wrenched at them.

  I hated to be maneuvered, and I hated to lose.

  And there was no doubt that I had.

  Restlessness coursed through me, and though it was only four in the morning, a full hour and a half before I normally got up, I pushed out of bed and padded over to the black dresser to investigate.

  Clothing lay neatly folded in the drawers.

  I puffed a breath through my lips as I fingered a cashmere cardigan.

  Of course, the bastard had bought me clothes, knowing I wouldn’t pack my own.

  Anger fueled me better than coffee ever could as I wrenched open drawers until I found a pair of black leggings and a sports bra. I knew there was a gym somewhere in the massive apartment, and I decided I’d lift weights in bare feet because I didn’t have appropriate shoes.

  Tying my hair in a messy bun, I quickly applied some mascara and lip tint before leaving the room.

  I wasn’t the kind of woman who went anywhere without looking her best.

  I found the gym almost immediately down the same corridor as my bedroom on the second level, at the end of the hall where it opened into a massive space lined with mirrors on one side and floor-to-ceiling windows on the other. My eyes immediately sought out the view of the nightscape through the glass, transfixed by the glitter of lights like sequins woven into the velvet night. I walked to the window and touched my hand to the cool glass as if I could feel the texture of the night beneath my fingertips.

  “New York City is the most beautiful at night.”

 
I closed my eyes against the sound of his voice, furious with myself because a small part of me, something wild and unbridled in my chest, had hoped I might run into him.

  “Then again, most things are,” Dante continued as he appeared in my periphery, a monumental shadow next to me.

  I didn’t turn to look at him. “I’m a terrible sleeper, so I’ve come to enjoy the night. It’s peaceful. Sometimes it feels like you’re the only one awake in the entire world.”

  “Mmm, that seems rather lonely,” he murmured. “Night should be spent on passion.”

  I rolled my eyes, ignoring his light chuckle. “Fucking indiscriminately, you mean?”

  “Oh, Elena, be careful cursing around me,” he purred darkly, moving just a little closer. “I like the sound of something dirty in that red mouth.”

  I told myself the tingle I felt at the base of my back was from a cold draft in the room.

  “If I’m going to stay here, there must be rules,” I decided primly, finally turning to face him.

  My God.

  I turned back to the window immediately, seeking solace in the New York night.

  Because Dante was half naked beside me.

  The broad expanse of his chest was quilted with deeply defined muscle, his abs a boxed chain in his abdomen, his pectorals round and hard topped by dark nipples covered in light, crisp black hair. An ornate silver cross hung at the end of a thick chain around his neck, the tip of the cross resting in the crease between his chest and tight belly, sexy in a way that was blasphemous. But it was the corded length of his arms, the ripple of muscle in biceps the size of my thighs that had my legs clenching together against a vague ache at my core.

  He was astoundingly magnetic, a perfectly formed monster of a man.

  The sheer size and strength of him should have made me tensed, frightened. Christopher was a quarter the size of Dante, and I knew from experience what a man that slight could do to a woman if he tried.

  Yet the barely harnessed power kind of…aroused me.

  I was a woman who appreciated control. Therefore, I appreciated the care Dante must have taken to build that body and take care with it around others. I’d seen him hold Cosima’s face tenderly, hug Yara gently, kiss Tore robustly on both cheeks, clap hands with some of his soldiers. I’d witnessed the rolling grace of that densely muscled body unfold and prowl across a room, so much control lashed around his sheer power that it made my mouth water.