When Heroes Fall

by Giana Darling

  “Sex or love?”

  I leveled him with a cool look and opened the door of the Ferrari, signaling my closure of the subject. “Men,” I countered before I ducked into the low car. “Goodbye, Ric.”

  It was only after I started the car, the smooth rumble of the engine vibrating through me, that I took a deep, shaky breath.

  I hadn’t lied.

  I was done with men.

  Unfortunately, Dante Salvatore was so much more than a man.

  He was a beast and, the truth was, he was the only one to ever make me feel like a beauty.

  A sigh leaked out of my mouth like air from a puncture wound as I instructed the car’s system to dial his name and pulled out from the curb to drive back to Manhattan.

  “Ciao lottatrice mia,” Dante’s deep rumble, so similar to the smooth purr of the car around me, settled some of the panic lingering like lactic acid in my tissues. Somewhere along the line, I’d stopped being annoyed when he spoke to me in my mother tongue. “How are you enjoying my beauty?”

  I rubbed my hands over the buttery leather steering wheel with glee. “She’s exquisite.”

  “Say it in Italian for me,” he coaxed.

  Humor and giddiness bubbled up my throat at his flirtation. It had been so long since I enjoyed such simple banter with anyone. “Lei è squisita.”

  “Molto bene, Elena,” he praised darkly. “Next time I kiss that gorgeous red mouth, I’m going to make you so crazy that all you know is Italian.”

  I tried to snort derisively, but the idea was oddly appealing. Usually, Italian was the language of my panic, my fear, its roots deeply seated in past trauma. The idea of Dante coaxing it out from the shadows into the light with something as powerful as his touch was both arousing and heartening.

  “I didn’t call to flirt with you,” I told him archly, remembering myself. “We just interviewed Ottavio Petretti. He agreed to turn witness for our defense.”

  There was a long pause.

  “I was under the impression he would not be turned,” he said carefully, but there was a wealth of unsaid thoughts behind the words.

  “He was persuaded.” It was difficult to keep the smugness from my voice, and I knew when Dante chuckled that I hadn’t succeeded.

  “How I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that. You’ll tell me about it when you get home.”

  Home.

  Dante’s apartment was definitely that for his community. Chen, Marco, Jacopo, Frankie, and Adriano practically lived there as did Bambi, who cooked and cleaned, and her sweet little girl, Aurora, who visited often. Tore was in and out at least once a week, down from his home in the Niagara valley, and he always stayed the night at the apartment, making dinner himself elbow to elbow with his pseudo-son. They filled the space with laughter and their tangible admiration and adoration of each other.

  They were ruthless mafia dons, yet the way they treated each other and everyone else was a far cry from the cruelty I’d witnessed from soldiers in Naples as a girl.

  Tore and Dante relished in the games they played with Aurora, laughing with her as if she was a treasure. They played chess together after dinner over wine, exchanging trash talk in a mixture of English and Italian.

  They were patriarchs not only of a criminal conglomerate, but of a family.

  And that family, that home, had been opened to me without reservation.

  For the first time in a very, very long time, I felt part of a happy family.

  Part of a whole home.

  The feelings it stirred in me left me almost nauseated as I checked my rearview to pull onto Korean War Veterans Parkway leading out of Annadale. There was a motorcycle a few yards behind me, a dull black but sleek and powerful.

  It stirred a memory that was instantly forgotten as I remembered the real question I wanted to ask Dante.

  “Did Cosima kill Don di Carlo?” I asked, the words exploding from my mouth without my normal tact.

  I needed to know.

  There were so many secrets Dante and Cosima kept from me as individuals and as friends. I was tired of being on the outside looking through foggy glass.

  It was time I knew what the hell their history entailed.

  I didn’t push myself to admit why I was so desperate to know the particulars of their relationship, but I almost couldn’t breathe for the need of knowing.

  “Let’s speak when you get back,” Dante suggested over the sound of men arguing in the background. “I am not alone.”

  “Just answer the question. Yes or no. It’s simple,” I pressed.

  “Do not push me,” he warned, low and hushed. “You want my secrets, Elena? You earn them.”

  “I’ve lived with you for a month,” I snapped, feeling cornered somehow, desperate to lash out because panic was creeping through my blood. “I haven’t breathed a word about anything I’ve learned since then.”

  “You haven’t learned anything I didn’t want you to,” he countered, all cold, hard mafia capo.

  “So, you don’t trust me,” I surmised, shocked by the pain that wrung out my spine and left me slumped against the seat.

  Why did I even care if he trusted me? I was his lawyer. I’d worked with clients before who lied to me constantly and were suspicious of my every word.

  So what if he didn’t want me to know his dirty little secrets?

  I didn’t really want to know them anyway.

  “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?”

  He paused, letting that sink in, knowing better than most that it could take a while for things to seep under my thick skin.

  “Come home, Elena,” he ordered gently. “We will talk when you return.”

  I was about to agree, somewhat petulantly because I was still shaken by Ric’s observation of my happiness, by the revelation that Dante was probably risking his entire life and livelihood for my sister, when the roar of a motorcycle cut through the air.

  My eyes darted to the rearview mirror in time to see that same sleek bike accelerate around an old Buick and settle in behind me again.

  I frowned. “Hey, Dante…”

  A massive black GMC SUV appeared from the lane to my right, its windows tinted inky black so I couldn’t see the driver.

  Apprehension skittered down my spine.

  “Dante,” I repeated, my breath lost to the adrenaline spiking through my system. I revved the powerful engine of the Ferrari and changed lanes without indicating.

  A second later, the motorbike cut into the same lane.

  A moment after that, the SUV pulled into the lane in front of me, tires screeching.

  “What’s going on?” Dante demanded, his voice hard and alert.

  The ambient noise of conversation in the background went quiet.

  “I think I’m being followed,” I whispered stupidly as if the people in the other cars could hear me.

  “How many?” he demanded, snapping his fingers at someone in the room with him and then muttering something in Italian I couldn’t discern over the roar of blood in my ears.

  “I think I recognize the motorcycle from that day we drove you to the arraignment.” The body on the back was large and helmeted, almost completely anonymous, but it was hard to forget the details of a man who’d shot at you, even through a car window. “There’s also a black GMC SUV.”

  “Adriano and Chen are coming for you,” he told me over the renewed cacophony in the background. “Where are you exactly?”

  “Korean War Veterans Parkway in Arden Heights. I’m almost at Latourette Park. What should I do?” I asked in a way that was almost begging, desperate for guidance.

  I was a lawyer.

  The most action I’d ever experienced in my job
was being doused with red paint on the way into court when I’d defended a low-level fashion company for cruelty against animals.

  Car chases were outside of my purview.

  “Should I try to find a police station?” I guessed, frantically beginning to type it into the GPS system.

  “No,” he ordered, his voice heavy as a weighted blanket over my raw nerves. “I don’t trust the cops on Staten Island, too many Cosa Nostra there. Can you try to lose them?”

  An exit was approaching on the right. The SUV in front of me slowed down to a near crawl while the bike behind me sped up to kiss the bumper of my car. The Ferrari jerked under my hands on the wheel. They were trying to force me into the exit.

  I explained as much to Dante as I fought to keep control of the car without letting them batter it.

  “Elena.” His voice whipped through the phone, startling me out of my fearful fog. “You are my fighter, a gladiator. You do not cow in the face of adversity. Do not be afraid. I’m going to talk you through this. There is a dashcam in the car. Frankie is hacking into it now, and I’ll be able to guide you, capisci? Chen just left, and Adriano’s already in Brooklyn. They’ll get there as soon as they can. Try to get over the Verrazano Bridge and they’ll meet you on Belt Parkway.”

  I nodded even though he couldn’t see, sucking in a deep breath to settle myself. This was just like facing the mafiosos in our little urine yellow house in Naples.

  This was just bravery.

  Coraggio.

  I’d be fine because Dante wouldn’t let them hurt me. Even an hour away, I knew he wouldn’t let them get to me.

  That unshakable faith, something like I’d felt as a girl for God, settled me deeply.

  “Va bene,” I agreed as I put the car in reverse and gunned the engine. “Let’s go.”

  The Ferrari shot backward so quickly, my torso jacked forward.

  It had the desired effect.

  The bike behind me swerved madly as it tried to get out of my path, forced to divert into the other lane on a barrage of shouting horns. I took the opportunity to peel across two lanes away from the exit they’d been trying to force me into. The lane opened up in front of me as the road changed to Drumgoole West.

  “Take Richmond to Forest Hill and try to lose them in the park,” Dante instructed over the roar of the Ferrari as I pushed the speedometer from 55 MPH to 60 then 65. “Don’t worry about the cops, Lena. We can deal with them later if we have to. Just drive.”

  It was easier said than done. Weaving in and out of traffic in the bright daylight of a weekday morning in Staten Island was hardly inconspicuous. Horns and rough shouts followed me as I blew by other cars. I clipped the edge of a Volvo, felt the clang in my teeth, but didn’t stop.

  The motorbike was still behind me, weaving with ease through the traffic. The SUV struggled with a half-block lag.

  I wasn’t a professional driver. The only car I’d ever owned was the family’s ancient Fiat back in Naples, and though I’d always loved cars and driving, even the occasional drag race with Sebastian, I hadn’t done much of it since I’d moved to America. I wasn’t equipped to deal with this, not really, but my body seemed to have found its own adrenaline-filled calm. My vision was razor-sharp, my eyes unblinking as I stared as if through a tunnel at the road ahead of me, my instincts quicksilver as I jerked in and out of lanes without indicating.

  I’d always had a very well-honed sense of fight or flight cultivated over years of being faced with such situations over and over again, but this took it to another level.

  I’d never actually had to flee for my life.

  The tires squealed against the asphalt as I careened from Richmond onto Forest Hill, the left side of the road giving way to trees, and then, up ahead, the rolling green of a manicured golf course.

  There was a sharp crack.

  “What was that?” I cried right before another shot was fired.

  The bullet lodged in the back of the vehicle with a dull thwack. I pressed harder on the gas. “Dio mio, they’re shooting at me!”

  The motorcyclist had a clear shot at me now on the road, and he was gaining ground, one hand raised with the unmistakable sight of a gun in his hand.

  Hot metallic anxiety pooled on the back of my tongue as another shot was fired and broke through the back window, glass chattering like teeth as it broke into the car. I ducked slightly, panting.

  “Take the golf course, Elena,” Dante ordered, his voice a calm, steady weight pinning down my reeling thoughts. “Now!”

  Without thinking too much, I wrenched the steering wheel to the right, taking the car off the road through a gap in the trees and onto the smooth grass of the fairway.

  “Frankie is looking up the course, but you should be able to follow it across to Richmond Road,” Dante told me as I traversed the green.

  A curse tore from my mouth as the car fell from the edge of a small hill, soared over a bunker, and landed lopsidedly on the green once more.

  “Dio mio, Madonna santa,” I chanted, forgetting my atheism and my Americanism in my all-consuming panic.

  The motorbike had veered off the road behind me, but I could see in my rearview mirror that the SUV had continued on, probably looking to cut me off somewhere ahead.

  “Dante, if they get me––” I started.

  “Stai zitto!” he barked, ordering me to shut up. “Do not say such things. Focus, Elena. Coraggio!”

  So, I focused.

  A golfer dove out of my way as I zoomed past a tee box. A ball cracked the front windshield. I almost lost traction trying to slow down to maneuver through a small copse of trees, but finally, the clubhouse appeared in the distance and the parking lot beside it.

  “Benissimo, Elena,” Dante praised me as my hands cramped painfully around the wheel. “My fighter.”

  Distantly, I was aware of sirens building to a crescendo.

  The car skittered over the grass at the end of the first hole and jumped the curb into the parking lot. I lost control for a split second. The body of the Ferrari spun out, and the passenger side slammed into a parked Bentley. My head hit the door with a painful crack I felt reverberate in every bone of my body.

  “Elena?” Dante snapped. “Are you okay?”

  I shook my head, gritting my teeth. Behind me, the motorbike went around a bunker and barreled toward me, gun raised once more. There were people on the green, around the clubhouse, in the parking lot.

  A shot fired, and screams erupted around me.

  “Andiamo,” Dante shouted at me.

  I put the car in reverse, cringing at the grind of metal on metal as I pulled away from the crumpled Bentley. My hands shook around the wheel, fingers aching as I gripped it too hard. But I ignored all of that and stomped hard on the gas pedal to peel out of the driveway just as the motorcycle jumped the curb.

  As I raced out into the street, the GMC SUV nearly T-boned me when it pulled up. I swerved in time to avoid the worst of it, getting clipped at the front right as I shot forward onto Richmond Avenue.

  I watched with bated breath as the motorbike wasn’t as lucky.

  It flew into the side of the stalled car, the biker’s helmet crashing through the passenger side window. When the man pulled back, not hurt so much as pinned between his bike and the other car, I caught a flash of longish black hair.

  Another vehicle coming from the other direction caught the edge of the SUV, spun out, and crashed into the ditch on the other side of the road, blocking traffic.

  Blocking my pursuers.

  “They crashed,” I croaked, my throat so dry the words hurt.

  “Keep driving,” he commanded.

  I drove.

  Dante coolly instructed me through the neighborhood streets to Staten Island Expressway, which took me over the Verrazzano Bridge into Brooklyn. A black sedan peeled in front of me from an onboard ramp at 92nd Street, and I instantly tensed, air hissing between my teeth.

  “Calmarsi, Elena,” Dante soothed. “It’s just Adriano
. You can follow him home, si?”

  I nodded again.

  “Talk to me,” he ordered gently.

  “Bene,” I whispered, then cleared my throat. “Okay, I’m good.”

  “That’s my girl,” he told me, the warmth of relief and pride in his tone washing over me through the speakers. “Adriano will see you home. I’ll be waiting.”

  “Don’t get off the phone,” I hastened to say, too shaken to be embarrassed by my need. The shaking in my hands had traveled up my arms into my shoulders and chest. I vibrated like a second engine in the driver’s seat. “Stay with me.”

  There was a silence that felt like a hand cupping my cheek, holding me still for one long, deep breath.

  “Bene, Elena, io sono con te. I am with you.”

  I followed Adriano home on autopilot, my brain still under fire in the aftermath of the chase.

  Logically, distantly, I recognized I was still in shock. There was a numb cold in my limbs in the wake of the fiery adrenaline, a kind of muffled quiet in my head as I slowly recognized that I was safe and alive.

  It wasn’t the first time a criminal lawyer had been caught in the crosshairs of their client’s ordeals, but it was my first, and it had a profound effect on me.

  Only, not the way I would have imagined.

  As I clued into my body methodically, atom by atom, I realized that what I felt was not horror and weakness but exhilaration and victorious rage.

  Those stronzi had come at me, trying to intimidate me perhaps or kidnap me at worse, using me as a pawn against Dante or to send a message to the Camorra in general.

  But they hadn’t succeeded.

  For the first time in my entire life, I felt as if I had come out on the other side of the conflict with the mafia as the winner. I felt as if the entire organization could come at me the way they had come at my family in Naples, and I could take them head-on in that fight. I could show them what it meant to battle a Lombardi, what it meant to face a woman at the end of her rope.

  What had happened was more than just a car chase.

  It was a pivotal point in my life.

  One where I could make the conscious decision to take ownership of my flaws––the anger, the violence, the ruthlessness–– of my circumstances––Dante, the Camorra, this game of corruption–– or I could succumb to them, return to what I had always been before, unable to stand the heat of this new existence compared to my prior deep freeze.