When Heroes Fall (Anti-Heroes in Love 1)

“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain, Elena,” she reprimanded. “But yes, I do like this man. He is very…sicuro di sé.”

“Self-confident,” I translated for her. “And he’s like that because he’s a capo, Mama. He’s used to getting his own way or killing the men who disobey him.”

“Mmm,” Mama hummed again. “I do not think such a man needs to kill for his orders to be obeyed.”

I thought of Dante, all six-foot-five inches of muscle, the intimidation of his glower, but also his acute charisma.

“Maybe,” I allowed grumpily.

Mama laughed under her breath. “Ah, figlia, sometimes I wonder if I should have kept so many secret things from my children. Maybe if I had shared my history, your own would not be so disappointing.”

“No one blames you for Seamus,” I said instantly, horrified that she would even think so. “He was responsible for his own actions, and he was the one who put us all in impossible situations.”

“Si, Elena, but you see, in the beginning, your father was not a bad man. He was a professore, very, very smart and very different from the men I knew who I thought were boring as dead fish.” She sighed wistfully, her eyes trained on the crowd, though her mind focused on memories. “He was very good at pretending to be what he was not, you understand?”

Oh, I did.

In a way, Daniel had done the same with me. Maybe I’d encouraged him to hide the extent of his sexual proclivities from me, but he hadn’t been honest about so many things. He told me he didn’t want marriage, then married my sister after knowing her for a few months. He said he wanted to adopt a baby with me, then months later, he decided he did not, only to get that same sister pregnant immediately. He told me he loved me, and I assumed that meant something.

But it was just another lie.

So, I understood Mama.

“This is what I like very much about Dante,” Mama continued. “He is like his brother, Cosima’s husband, yes? They are who they are. No lies, no masks. Dante Salvatore is exactly who he made himself to be.”

I am the most honest man you’ll ever meet.

Dante’s words unwound from my memory and laid out before me beside Mama’s, and I had to admit they both had a point.

There was no pretense. Even when Yara and I had encouraged him to act the gentleman, to dress like the saint he would never be, Dante remained true to himself.

In fact, it was admirable and enviable in equal terms.

I’d often wished I felt comfortable being myself, when the truth was, I wasn’t even sure who that true self was.

“This, I like,” Mama reiterated, bumping me softly with her hip as she blew a lock of hair from her face. “This, I think, you will like, too.”

“Mama,” I warned with a groan. “I hope you aren’t trying to matchmake. Dante is, well, all fire and impulse. I’m ice and control. He is a criminal, and I’m…” I failed to find the word to describe myself.

I wasn’t a hero, and I wasn’t a villain.

I was just a woman trying to navigate life.

A twenty-seven-year-old who felt newborn after the dissolution of my life with Daniel. For the first time ever, I wasn’t sure what I wanted anymore or how to get it.

Mama shrugged one shoulder. “You do as you like; you always have. I just wanted to say I like him. He is very different from your papa. From Christopher, too.” She hesitated when I stiffened at the mention of his name. “I will never live well with myself, lottatrice mia, that I did not shield you from the man who was really a snake. But it is a mother’s wish to see her daughter happy in love, and this I still wish for you.”

Acid ate at my heart, a corroded battery. I pressed my hand over it as if that would help.

“I hope so, too,” I whispered quietly as if I might spook the dream if I spoke too loudly. “But there is no happily-ever-after with a man like Dante, Mama. I know you know this. La mafia is a living nightmare.”

Mama hummed again noncommittedly. We worked silently for a bit, the scent of cocoa powder and the Amaretto-soaked ladyfingers perfuming the air around us. I wanted to open my heart up to my mother and have her sort out the broken fragments that remained of my soul, but I was afraid of what she might find there.

Because the truth was, I was intrigued by Dante in a way I’d never been with another soul. He was such a contradiction in terms, a puzzle that my lawyer’s mind couldn’t help but want to piece together.

Thoughts of him haunted me as I finished helping Mama and collected the trays of tiramisu, schlepping them back to my apartment to put in the fridge while I finished some work from home.