When Villains Rise (Anti-Heroes in Love 2)

Not even a little.

I yearned for my Mama, her semolina scented arms and the soft press of her bosom against my cheek as she comforted me. I missed Cosima who was never around much and even Sebastian, though our connection was still fragile.

I missed what I always missed about Giselle. The ‘what-if things had been different’ and ‘if only I hadn’t this, this, or that’. I longed for Beau because he was mine and only mine in a way no one else could understand.

But I didn’t miss my mausoleum of a house or the glass shard of a skyscraper that housed my much-worked for office. I didn’t even really miss the law, at least, not in the way I thought I would. I had always wanted to be a hero, someone on the right side of justice, and in a way, being with Dante still let me do that, only now I was a vigilant instead of a stock hero bound by the limitations of the law.

I held his hand in the back of the GMC SUV Frankie was driving. Dante was on his phone, typing madly on the screen, the whoosh sound alerting me to email after email being sent. When he told me they conducted most of their business online instead of in person now, I’d been skeptical. Couldn’t emails be tracked and phones hacked?

But he’d laughed and showed me Frankie’s three monitor set up on the plane. They had so many firewalls and contingency plans, redirects and shell companies, it would take the most talented hacker years to crack even one of their codes or schemes.

I looked at my thin gold wedding band glinting in the sun and squeezed his hand a little harder in mine.

We’d agreed we would visit Marco at New York Presbyterian before Dante called the police and turned himself into the authorities. According to Chen, the small Italian man had woken up two days ago and wouldn’t talk to anyone but Dante.

“You’re quiet,” Dante noted. “Did I tire you out?”

I smiled a little, a flush working its way into my cheeks.

After our argument, we sat down and set out a plan of attack with Tore and Frankie before removing ourselves to the bedroom.

If we only have one more day left, we had to make use of it.

I’d lost count of how many times he made me come. On his fingers, tongue, and dick, once even when I was riding his thigh as he played with my nipples.

He’d fucked me until there was no cum left in his balls, until we were both so satiated that we were boneless masses sunk deep into the mattress.

It had been amazing.

“I promise, when I get out, we will have a proper honeymoon,” he continued. “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t care,” I said honestly. “Just having you back is more than enough.”

His face softened, those strong, dark features suffused with warmth. “Sometimes, Elena, you know just what to say too.”

“I’m learning from the best,” I quipped.

“In every way,” he countered with a wiggle of his brows.

I laughed, and then I shook my head because it was extraordinary how he could make me laugh even when my heart ached.

“You’ll be okay,” he told me. “Frankie, Chen, Addie, and Jaco will stay with you at the apartment. One of them will go where ever you go, capisci? Do not try to leave without him or I will go mad in prison and you don’t want that.”

“No,” I agreed. “I won’t. My life won’t be very exciting anyway. I’m going to dedicate all of my time to figuring out how to end this farce of a case.”

“If anyone can do it, it’s lottatrice mia,” he said as we pulled to a stop.

I looked out the window and frowned. “This is not the hospital.”

“No,” Dante grinned that wide, boyish grin that had endeared him to me despite myself months ago. “It is not.”

He got out of the car before I could say anything else, opening mine to help me from the vehicle. It was a nondescript shop front, the name Gatti scrawled on a faded red sign with the image of a cat curling its tail around the ‘I’.

I followed him inside without question.

“Ciao Gatto,” Dante called as bells chimed over the door.

A portly man with jowls like a bull dog entered the room behind a row of glass counters and clapped his hands loudly. “Dante! I wonder when I will see you again and here you are.”

“I brought a special woman to the only place I would ever go to buy her something as treasured as she is to me,” Dante explained, tucking me into his side and leading us forward to the back.

The shop was a smallish rectangle with a U-shaped formation of glass cases holding glittering jewels and jewelry. I stared at a sapphire the size of a pistachio and blinked.