When Villains Rise (Anti-Heroes in Love 2)

I threw my right arm up and punched him straight in the throat.

He gurgled, his hands loosening. I rolled away and to my feet, grabbing for the knife on the floor again because the gun had fallen under the couch behind him.

He staggered to his feet with a growl. “Puttana.”

Whore.

I didn’t care what he called me, my focus was on his hands. He aimed a punch at my right cheek so I tucked my shoulder and rolled under it then came up and sliced at his belly with the knife. I’d learned my lesson about stabbing him, but the thin wound that bloomed on his stomach was hardly enough to stop him.

He came at me again.

And again.

And again.

Sweat dripped into my eyes and made them burn. There was no way I was going to be able to defend myself forever. He was bigger, stronger, better than me.

Maybe it was the defeatist thought, but on his next punch, he caught me on the chin and sent my head snapping back. The white ceiling whirled with black and white constellations as my knees turned to jelly.

He let me fall to the ground, my forehead bouncing against the corner of chair at the dining room table before thumping to the ground.

I fought to stay conscious.

Which was why I missed the cacophony at the door as my Family arrived.

I groaned as Agostino carted me to my feet and pressed me my back tight to the front of his body. A second later, the cold bite of metal met my temple.

He’d recovered the gun from under the couch.

But my vision cleared enough to see the hero who stood in the doorway.

Dante.

His face was thunderous as he glared at us over the barrel of his gun. His expression was so terrifying, so without mercy, that I could finally understand how he got the nickname The Devil of NYC.

He’d come for me.

“Dante,” I croaked, just needing to say his name and hear his voice.

“Stai zitto, trioa,” Agostino snapped in my ear, grinding the gun deeper into my temple.

Shut up, whore.

Across the room, Dante coiled tighter, the air around him buzzing with potential energy.

“Speak to her like that again I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in your brain,” he threatened.

Agostino laughed, moving the gun from my temple to my lips, pushing until my teeth tore the inside of my mouth and I was forced to open around the barrel. For the second time in my life, I knew the taste of a gun. “You would never take shot. She’s too close, you could end up killing her.”

There was a noise in the hall and then Jacopo appeared in the door, gun raised, face set to stone.

My heart turned to ash when I looked at him. I knew he was just protecting his sister, but I couldn’t believe he’d turned on Dante. They were cousins and friends, comrades.

“Bambi?” Jaco whispered as his eyes blew wide and his mouth dropped.

He’d spotted her.

In the commotion, with an obvious concussion, I had almost forgotten her.

Jacopo dropped his gun to his side and raced through the stand-off between Dante and Agostino to drop to his sister’s side. Blood had pooled in the center of her chest, but not much. It gave me a brief flare of hope before Jacopo shifted, moving her slightly so that I could see the lake of blood staining the ground beneath her.

One look at her angelic face lost to repose and I knew she was dead.

Jacopo burst into tears, hauling her into his lap.

Neither man shot him.

Dante seemed to realize this, his eyes narrowing. He didn’t appear to mourn Bambi at all, but I knew his entire focus was on getting both of us out of there alive.

“Jaco,” Dante called, his voice like smoke, dark and acrid. “Jaco!”

His cousin didn’t respond, still bent over Bambi, water her with tears.

“You didn’t suspect, did you?” Agostino gloated. “You had no idea your dear sweet Bambi was reporting to me. What Jacopo, huh? Did you suspect?”

Dante’s face didn’t give anything away. He only stared into my eyes, trying to communicate that everything would be okay.

I had a gun shoved between my lips, a dead friend at my feet, and Aurora witnessing it all from the kitchen cabinet, but I trusted him.

I had to.

This couldn’t be the end when we’d only just started our life together.

“You’re pathetic, really,” Agostino continued and I had to wonder if this stronzo was actually a psychopath. “You think you can rule a Family with love? This is the mafia, Salvatore. The only way to rule is through power and fear. Bambi and Jacopo didn’t fear you as much as they feared me so they became mine.”

On the floor, Jacopo stopped crying.

“Big words for a man who lost $227 million dollars’ worth of cocaine in one night,” Dante said calmly, so coldly I almost shivered. “The refrigerated container at the Port of New Jersey? The one filled with about 140 packages of premium grade coke from the Ventura Cartel.”