When Heroes Fall (Anti-Heroes in Love 1)

“Why would she do that?” I spoke slowly through numb lips because I was almost there.

Almost at a conclusion my mind had been trying to draw for years, only I hadn’t allowed it because the truth was too eviscerating to acknowledge.

He pursed his lips, another characteristic I’d inherited. “Cosi, well, she offered herself to the Camorra in order to repay my debts. It was all her idea, you understand. I only found out about it after the fact and tried to stop her, but it was too late.”

His words had an echo, my head empty of everything but what his speech confirmed.

Madonna Santa.

Cosima had sold her body to repay our father’s gambling debts.

Bile surged over the back of my tongue, and before I could control it, I leaned to the side and vomited all over the back wall of the alley. The poison of the truth worked through my system, pulling everything from me in a toxic rush I spewed onto the dirty asphalt. Tears sluiced down my cheeks as I retched painfully, but I held myself up with one hand on the wall and closed my lids to hold on until it passed.

Done, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and leaned against the wall a few feet from the crime scene. My hand trembled as I brushed clammy sweat off my brow.

It was so atrocious. So unspeakable.

My poor Cosima, the most beautiful human I’d never known. I couldn’t fathom what she’d had to do in order to get us out of our Italian nightmare and into our American dream.

“Do you know who bought her?” I whispered, staring at Seamus through lowered lids, unable to bear the sight of him.

I didn’t believe for one fucking second that he hadn’t been behind the exchange. Narcissus himself had nothing on Seamus goddamn Moore. He would have no remorse exchanging anything for a chance at his own freedom and betterment.

He hesitated, licking his lips nervously. “Her husband, Alexander Davenport.”

Physically rocked by his words, I let the wall at my back anchor me. “You’re kidding.”

“Would I kid about something like this?” he countered with a raised brow. “Listen, it’s all turned out for the best. Your sister is wildly in love with the bastard.”

“She probably has Stockholm Syndrome,” I yelled.

He shrugged. “They were apart for years, so I don’t think so.” Watching me struggle, he sighed gustily and dragged a hand over his beard. “This isn’t why I wanted to talk to you, Lena.”

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, settling my hand over my oceanic stomach to steady myself. I pushed off the wall to face him as I wanted to, strong, shoulders back, chin hiked high so I could look down the length of my nose at him.

“Elena,” he tried to cajole, hands widespread in surrender to my mood even as he took a little step forward and affixed that crooked smile to his face that was a facsimile of Sebastian’s. “I’m here because I don’t want you to get hurt.”

The laugh that erupted from my throat was all fire and smile, burning up my lungs and scorching my mouth. I laughed bitterly, a little manically at the thought.

“How can you take yourself seriously?” I asked, genuinely interested. “You haven’t cared about any of us in years.”

“I care,” he countered, his features flickering like a bad TV connection between placid tenderness and curdled anger. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

“Say what you have to say, then.” I waved my limp hand at him as I was hit by a wave of exhaustion.

Was this it?

Was this to be the pattern of my life forever?

Men fucking up my happiness?

No, not even that. I’d never been truly happy. They’d kept me from even obtaining it for longer than a fleeting moment.

And it all started with Seamus.

For the first time in my life, I understood cold-blooded violence, the desire to murder someone who felt like nothing more than a trivial decision akin to taking out the garbage.

Seamus was trash, and he deserved to be taken out.

If I’d had a gun, instead of a canister of mace, I might have.

He read the violence in my eyes, but instead of taking it to heart, he seemed challenged by it. His eyes went dark as steel bullet casings.

“I heard you were working for the Salvatore borgata,” he drawled, too casual, a fox lying still in wait.

I barked a hollow laugh that hurt my throat. “Did you?”

He cast me a sidelong look. “The entire underworld knows now that you’re the Camorra capo’s lawyer. It puts a target on your back, Elena. How could you be so reckless?”

My mouth gaped in furious wonder. “How you can ask me that with a straight face is beyond me.” Wrath ate at my incredulity, fueling me to stalk toward my dad once more, each step punctuating my hard-bitten words. “You sold my sister to repay your debts to the Camorra. I am representing a capo because you involved us in the mafia before we were old enough to speak. You do not get to tell me I’m reckless when all I’ve ever tried to do is get out from under the mistakes you’ve made that nearly ruined our family.”