When Villains Rise (Anti-Heroes in Love 2)

To us.

Two broken and battered people made whole by love.

Not sweet, sugary, happily-ever-after cazzato.

No.

This love was all teeth and claws, fight and passion.

Light was easy to love.

This love was dark, it was night as black as my eyes and as stormy as hers, it was seeing the shadows in each other’s souls and being drawn into their abyss. It was knowing we would never understand each other, not fully, and it was loving that challenge as much as the mystery.

This was what happened when two villains fell in love.

And it was as beautiful as anything I’d ever known.

“Say yes.”

She blinked up at me, her mouth red as a flower I wanted to pluck with my lips.

“Scusi?”

“Say yes,” I told her, holding her so tightly I could feel the bones beneath her skin. “I’m going to ask you to trust me because I’m going to tell you a nightmare, but then I’m going to hand you a dream.”

“Dante…” she murmured, a wary question.

“Dimmi si,” I repeated in Italian this time.

“Okay,” she said simply, melting into my arms even further so I was almost carrying her, trusting me with her body as well as her mind. “Yes, Dante.”

“There is going to be a wedding between Mirabella Ianni and me,” I told her slowly, ready for her flinch. She tried to pull away, but I held her close and let her struggle fruitlessly. “Marco’s in the hospital fighting for his life. He could be the mole and even if he isn’t, there is someone out there who is and they’re helping the di Carlos come for our family, Lena. We have to do something. We won’t get support from the Italian Camorra without this wedding. It’s how things are done in the Old Country, I don’t have to tell you that.”

“You’re marrying Mirabella Ianni,” she said coldly, the ice queen back in such force she was almost too cold to touch. “After everything.”

“No.” The word was a bullet piercing her through the heart. “No, cuore mia, I would never marry Mirabella, but there will be a wedding and I need you to trust me even though it might seem like I’m betraying you.”

“Just tell me the plan,” she insisted.

“I can’t. Mi dispiace,” I murmured against her forehead. “I don’t exactly know yet how I’m going to pull it off, but I will. I promise you that.”

Her heavy sigh feathered against my neck. I felt her lips there when she finally spoke. “I thought about it a little while ago. If there could be love without trust. And I decided there could be. I loved Daniel, but I didn’t trust him. I haven’t trusted anyone in so long… not even my family.” She tipped her head back, her hair cascading over my arms around her back, her eyes as depthless as the sky above us. “But I trust you. So, yes, Dante. Whatever it is, I trust you and I believe you when you tell me you’re going to give me a dream one day. I haven’t had one of those in so long, I’m happy to wait a little longer for it.”

I’d never been a lucky man, but standing there with Elena in my arms in the only place that had ever really felt like home even with enemies all around us, I felt like a fucking God.

Eleven

Elena

“I’m taking you out.”

I was lying in the sun beside Tore’s lap pool on a chaise lounge that felt like a cloud. In my haste to catch Dante’s plane, I hadn’t packed a bathing suit, but when I mentioned that fact to Dante, he’d disappeared for a few hours and returned with armfuls of shopping bags.

“I got bored so the lady picked out some of it,” he admitted as I rifled through the Valentino, Versace, Intimissimi, Prada, and Dolce & Gabanna branded bags. “But I got you three swimsuits I heartily approve of.”

I was wearing one now, a tiny red number that hardly covered my small breasts, let alone my groin and buttocks. Normally, I never would have worn something like that, but the way Dante’s eyes heated like lit coals made me feel like a goddess in it.

I was reminded of that as I opened my eyes, shading them with one hand so I could squint into the descending sunlight at Dante standing near the foot of the lounge chair.

“Oh?” I asked, raising my foot to run my toes along his inner thigh. “I wouldn’t mind staying in.”

He growled slightly as he caught my foot, lifting it higher to place a kiss on my arch. “As tempting as that is, I realized we haven’t been on a proper date yet. I want to take you out. Woo you properly.”

“I followed you to Italy,” I noted drily. “I would say you’ve done a serviceable job of wooing me already.”