When Heroes Fall (Anti-Heroes in Love 1)

I tried to hurt Yara after she struck me with those career-killing blows.

I’d honed the edge of my blade-like tongue, slashing at her with comments about corruption and betrayal, blackmail, and abuse of power.

Because it was all true.

She didn’t have to tell me, though she did at some point in my tirade, that I would be fired, and if she had any say in the matter, blacklisted in New York if I refused her demand. She didn’t have to imply that anyone who refused the Camorra was often found soon after beaten within an inch of their life or dead in some gutter.

I fought with her until my voice was hoarse, my throat cut up by the barbs I tried to throw at her, and then worn weak by the pleas I’d followed up with when nothing else seemed to work.

Yara was unmoved.

She stared at me with that frozen expression I’d once admired so much, watching as the flame of anger and injustice erupted within me and melted me from the inside out.

I felt so young, so weak and naïve to have ever believed she might be my mentor, might take me under her wing and nourish me with love and guidance. Hadn’t I learned better yet? Why did I allow myself to hope for kindness when I saw a hand extended my way when I knew I’d more than likely receive a slap to the face instead of a handshake?

I was at the point in my life where I didn’t even dream of happiness. I just yearned for a life without further pain.

But it seemed God or fate or whatever forces of nature had cursed me since birth had decided to fuck with me again by threatening the only thing I’d ever derived confidence from, the only dream I had left.

If anyone found out I was living with the capo of the New York City Camorra, I’d lose my licence to practice law.

The degree I’d spent four years studying for in Italy and another year computing into American law at NYU, then the last four years of my life practicing with a rabid kind of ferocity.

It could all disappear in a puff of smoke.

I was fucked if I agreed, fucked if I didn’t.

When I left Yara at the café, too furious to say goodbye, it was nearly impossible not to drown in the ocean of self-pity and sorrow rising tidal strong from my gut up into my throat, choking my airways, leaking from my ducts.

I hadn’t cried in over a year, not since I found out Giselle was pregnant with the baby I’d yearned so hard to have with Daniel.

But I cried then, and I discovered just how many types of tears there were.

Angry tears, so salty they burned my hot cheeks.

Wallowing tears, the kind that seeped into my mouth and made me nauseous as if I’d swallowed too much sea water.

Lonely tears as I realized how few people I had in my corner, how few loved ones I could call my own. As I realized much of that solitariness was my fault because I’d pushed so many people away out of fear of being hurt. Only, didn’t this situation prove exactly why I’d done that?

I’d admired Yara, respected her and yearned for her validation.

I’d even…come to appreciate Dante the way one might appreciate a worthy adversary. After all, what was a hero without her villain?

But it seemed even that was crumbling to dust.

Dante has promised a game of corruption, and this was his trump card.

How could I remain unmoved by his heady charisma and the toxic fumes of his criminality if I was forced into such proximity with him for the next six months to three years? Would I have to stay that long if the trial was postponed as such cases often were?

What about my apartment?

Suddenly, the echoing loneliness of my space felt like an Eden, and through sheer coercion, Dante had force-fed me the forbidden fruit and damned me to his hell.

I walked the streets aimlessly, letting the idiosyncrasies of each neighborhood I passed through lend me their solace. From the moment I’d gotten off the plane and cabbed to our new home in New York, I’d fallen in love with the ever-changing nature of the city. It reminded me, in some ways, of myself. I wanted to be like the city herself, all things to all people depending on where you looked.

But as I walked, I realized I’d lost that somewhere in the last few years. Instead of being multifaceted like a prism, refracting light and beauty, I’d compressed in on myself and stagnated like coal where I would have been diamante.

I felt so lost in the maze of my own mind, I stopped seeing my surroundings and the hundreds of people who passed me. One of the things I loved most about the city was the anonymity you could experience in the teeming streets, the fact that I was a crying mess and no one stopped to stare or inquire about me.