When Villains Rise (Anti-Heroes in Love 2)

“Ti amo,” he said, the words too loud and forceful, two bullets fired in a holy place.

Behind us the Priest flinched, but I only smiled because I felt the power of those words throbbing in my hot heart too.

“Ti amo,” I said in the same voice.

We laughed, foreheads pressed together, the music traveling through us both in perfect harmony. Then, unable to resist, Dante leaned down and ate the laughter off my tongue. I offered my mouth to him like a sacrifice, letting him take everything he needed from me.

“We don’t have time for you to make out all day,” Alexander pointed out drily. “If you want to make your plane, we need the priest to marry you formally.”

Dante kept kissing me, pulling me closer so I was flush against his hard body, his hard cock pressing against my belly.

“Dante,” Tore warned a moment later.

I broke away from my man, pushing him back with two hands on his chest when he tried to kiss me again. Laughter suffused my tone, “Let’s get married, Dante. I want you to be my husband.”

His eyes flashed, lightning through a dark sky. “Now, that sounds better than any curse or please from your lips. Say it again.”

“Husband,” I teased. “Husband. Husband.”

A growl moved through his throat, his hands spasming on my face before one slid down to palm my neck.

“Andiamo, padre,” Dante ordered the priest without taking his gaze from mine. “I want to make this woman my wife.”

The little priest stepped forward, opened his bible, and in twenty minutes of compact Italian vows, I went from Elena Lombardi, cold-hearted, lonely lawyer to Elena Salvatore, Donna and wife to Don Edward Dante Salvatore.

It felt like a baptism, a rebirthing, and when Dante slide the fede, the wedding ring, onto my finger I knew with bone deep certainty that every single bad thing in my life had happened as payment for the price of this colossal happiness and I wasn’t bitter anymore, I wasn’t even scarred.

I was whole for the first time since I was sixteen.

Nineteen

Dante

It was a gamble.

A risk.

Setting up a real wedding inside the veil of a fake one.

Marrying Elena when we should have been fleeing the country.

Joining my eternally dangerous life with the life of a woman who only deserved happiness for the rest of her days. I couldn’t offer her perfection, a happily-ever-after without strife and turmoil. But I could offer her the secret delights of the dark side of her soul; chaos and wonder, violence and passion, action and endless adventure. I could show her the kind of love we hadn’t even known existed until we fell into each other and became two souls entangled into one.

It was selfish and reckless, but I would never regret making that incredible woman my wife and I’d work every day to make sure she never regretted it too.

We left the church as soon as the quick ceremony was done to return to the docks. Frankie was waiting with another boat, kissing Elena and congratulating her as I talked to Tore.

“Is everything in place?”

He nodded. “The party is in full swing. Leonardo is there. He texted to say Rocco has sent men looking for you.”

“Let them find us.” Marrying Elena had stirred the beast inside me. It pulled at the chains I kept it shackled in and growled so hard inside my chest I felt I vibrated. I’d always wanted to kill Rocco Abruzzi for selling Cosima into slavery, but now I wanted to eviscerate him for daring to threaten Elena. “We have one night to clean house here and then we’re leaving. Is Damiano ready to take over?”

“As ready as he can be,” he allowed, looking over at Elena as she laughed with Cosima and Alexander saying their goodbyes. “Will you tell your wife she is in for a bloody honeymoon and a long stretch without her new husband?”

“She won’t care about the bloody honeymoon.” My grin was savage. “If anything, she might want to put Rocco Abruzzi into the ground herself.”

“Ah, young love,” Tore joked before taking me in a back-slapping hug. “Be safe, figlio.”

“And you,” I ordered.

I moved away from him to collect my wife from her sister and my brother. She slid into my side like a puzzle piece, her smile brighter than the Italian sun descending quickly into the sea.

“Thank you,” I told Cosima and Alexander, offering my hand to my brother. He clasped it in his own, his grip strong and sure. “The risk you took today saved lives.”

“I don’t care about anyone’s life in this situation, but your own. Though, I’m happy to have saved it,” Alexander said in his blunt, cold way. “You saved Cosima when I wasn’t able to save her myself. I’ll never stop owing you for that.”

“It’s not a debt if I was invested too,” I argued.