When Villains Rise (Anti-Heroes in Love 2)

A haunted look came into his dark eyes, a ghost walking an empty house at night. “The truth is, Noel dragged her into his Hell and she was too soft for that world. It killed her long before Noel did.”

“You couldn’t have known. You were just a young man.”

His lips compressed. “Alexander and I were never just young men. We were raised in the image of our father from the time we could cogitate. He trained us. We learned fencing and chess, read The Art of War and Marquis de Sade as boys, attended Eton then Oxbridge with only the best tutors. We were smart and taught to be smarter. We should have known what was going on in our own home.”

“Eventually, you found out. Even if both your parents didn’t want you to. Your mama was probably trying to protect you, Dante. Lord knows, Caprice has made so many mistakes because of exactly that,” I admitted.

His eyes sharpened, peeling back my skin with scalpel like precision. “What mistakes has she made with you?”

My heart stopped up in my chest, a panicked response that made my skin prickle with knife-points of anxiety. “Nothing too bad.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Elena,” he growled, constricting around me like a boa making a meal of me. “Tell me. I want to know what you’ve been through.”

“It’s nothing really,” I said, but the lie scalded my tongue.

I didn’t want him to know about Christopher, about the years I’d spent stupidly allowing myself to be groomed and used by him. How he’d turned on me when Giselle was taken from him. How he’d taught me how to hate myself and hate my own sister.

Dante opened his mouth to pry further, but I was exhausted from traveling, from the outrageous events of our lives over the last week. I just wanted the peace only he could afford me and a deep sleep safe in his arms.

“Not now, capo,” I murmured, snuggling in close so I didn’t see the way his eyes warmed. “I’m tired.”

“Va bene, cuore mia,” he murmured, kissing my hair and holding me close. “Sleep well and I’ll watch over you.”

“I know,” I muttered, already half-asleep. “You’re the only person whose ever made me feel safe.”

And then I fell asleep, not knowing that Dante lay awake for hours holding me with his nose pressed into my hair.

Nine

Dante

I left Elena sleeping in after our late-night interrogation, her long, pale body stretched out diagonally across the bed the moment I left it, seeking my warmth. I watched her bury her face in my pillow, hugging it like it was my torso and felt heat balloon in my gut.

Tore was on the red flagstone patio at the back of the villa drinking a small espresso and reading Corriere della Sera. He didn’t look up when walked to his side and plucked a ripe plum from a bowl in the middle of the old, scarred wood table. There was a tiny EDD carved into the soft top that I’d put there as a boy on one of our first visits to Zio Tore’s home. I traced it with my thumb, wondering at how far I’d come since then.

“You’ll do anything to keep her,” Tore started the conversation the way he had a habit of doing, starting in the middle as if picking up the thread from a talk we’d already been having. “Even though the smart thing would be to marry Mirabella Ianni.”

“Is that the smart thing?” I questioned before taking a bite of the fruit, juice seeping down my chin. “A girl whose reputedly not a virgin anymore, with few important ties and little else to commend her.”

“Abruzzi wants it. He’s capo dei capi here now, figlio, whether we like it or not. He could help with the di Carlo situation in New York. You know support from the motherland means everything, even to those arrogant Americans.”

“Maybe,” I conceded, sitting across from him as Martina, Tore’s ancient housekeeper, appeared with an espresso and a fresh, homemade sfogliatella. I thanked her before turning my attention back to Tore. “But there’s more to this Mira situation than we’ve been told. Rocco used to love his niece and now, he speaks of her as if she’s an abomination.”

“You know they prize virginity here.”

I hummed, but there was something about it that rankled me still. “You know I’ll do what it takes to keep our family safe.”

“And Elena?”

“Always.” Anger reignited in my gut as I thought of Umberto endangering her last night. “She will always come first.”

“Her safety or her happiness?”

And wasn’t that the question.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure both,” I admitted. “Even if it means sacrificing my own safety and happiness. No one has ever put my woman first and I am not going to make that mistake.”

“So, you won’t marry Mira.”

I downed my espresso, the bitter liquid heating my gut where a cold, hard kernel of dread sat. “I didn’t say that. Marrying Mira might be the only way to keep the New York crew safe from the di Carlos. You overheard the plan we made with Umberto Arno last night.”