When Heroes Fall (Anti-Heroes in Love 1)

I didn’t know why I cared.

It wasn’t that I’d formed some lunatic instant connection to the man. In fact, I abhorred almost everything he stood for.

Perhaps, it was as simple as the fact that I wanted some of that unshakeable calm for myself. I wanted to steal the magic of his self-assuredness and bottle it like perfume to spritz on my pulse points whenever I needed validation.

“Court is dismissed,” Judge Hartford said distantly, and then there was chaos as everyone rose to leave, photogs clamoring for one last shot of the impudent mafioso.

“Well,” I said, unable to curb my impulse to poke at his calm, like a child shaking a bottle of pop hoping for an explosion. “I certainly hope this lends a new gravity to your understanding of the situation.”

Dante didn’t look at me as he unfolded to his immense height and adjusted the silver cuff links with the same crest emblazoned on his gaudy silver ring. Only when we were pressed together by Ernesto and Bill shuffling out of their seats did his gaze lock on mine with an almost audible click. I gasped slightly as a rough hand, that same one that had left an imprint on my thigh only minutes before, wrapped nearly double around my wrist, his thumb notched over my pulse. It drew my attention to the quickened thud of my heartbeat.

Adrenaline flooded my body at being so close to and held by such a man, a mammoth predator, but there was something else there too in the hot undercurrents, something sunk deep into my blood.

Something like lust.

I fixed a glower to my face and breathed through my mouth so I could avoid that oddly intoxicating lemon and pepper scent of his.

He wasn’t deterred.

If anything, his eyes danced for the first time since we entered the courtroom as his lips barely moved around the words, “You can cage the man, Elena, but not the idea. No collection of walls is strong enough to hold me or mine.”

“You are very poetic about organized crime.”

“Thank you,” he said even though it wasn’t a compliment. “Have dinner with me tonight. It’s my last as a free man.”

I’d missed that somehow when I’d been dazed out thinking about the irritating man shackling my wrist. Typically, he would be imprisoned pending house arrest, but I had no doubt Yara had finagled something legally or with a well-placed bribe to give the capo one last night. I tugged free of his hold and bared my teeth between my painted red lips, not caring for once how I might look to the photographers gathered.

“I wouldn’t go to dinner with you if it was our last night on earth,” I promised darkly before turning on my heel and following Bill and Ernesto, leaving my client with Yara.

The tendrils of his smoky chuckle somehow threaded through the noise of the room and wound its way into my ears, a casual, beautifully toned mockery of everything I held dear.

It was official.

I hated him.

ELENA

The mafia ‘lord’ laughs in the face of his crimes.

I scoffed as I read the headline in The New York Times above a grainy black and white photo of a laughing Dante Salvatore that still managed to capture the depth of his beauty. It made him look like a movie star playing some kinda charming criminal the audience was supposed to root for in an HBO show. The new moniker they had given him, “the mafia lord,” proved to glamorize and civilize him in a way that would appeal to millions of Americans.

Exactly Dante’s intention.

Though the article was a condemnation of his criminal character, there was no doubt he had succeeded in swaying public opinion at least slightly in his favor.

The reporter, a man whose work I’d read since my arrival on American shores and who I knew to be a hard-nosed, rarely forgiving journalist, even allowed that Dante Salvatore, though built like a savage beast, still retained some of the grace his rearing as a Lord’s second son had born in him.

I rolled my eyes as I tossed the paper onto the chair beside me, then pinched my nose to briefly relieve the headache stirring behind my eyes.

It had been a long day with the indictment, but we’d achieved what we set out to do.

Judge Hartford agreed to post bail.

To the outstanding tune of ten million dollars.

Cash.

For a New York mafioso, such a number shouldn’t be a hardship. Dante was under investigation, which meant he had to be able to prove his bail money came from a legitimate business, but Yara had informed me that Dante had more than enough cash from his lawful businesses to post bail immediately.

In addition, he was going to be housebound, shackled to his apartment by a high-tech anklet that tracked his every move.

It was impossible not to think of him as a wild animal locked in a cage, prowling madly, growing restless as each day passed, his savagery ballooning to fill every inch of that cramped space.