When Villains Rise (Anti-Heroes in Love 2)

I woke up on my twenty-eighth birthday to a heavy weight on my chest.

When I opened my eyes, Rora was lying on her stomach on top of me, her chin propped on her hands, her elbow digging painfully into my beasts.

“Buon compleanno!” she shouted in my face as soon as she saw I was awake. “Happy birthday, Zia!”

I grinned, wrapping her in my arms to roll her off me and onto the bed at my side where I could tickle her. “Gattina, you dare to wake me up on my birthday?” I teased over her squeals of laughter.

I looked over at Dante who stood in the doorframe holding a tray.

My eyebrows raised. “Breakfast in bed?”

“Only the best for donna mia,” he explained with a little shrug as he sat on the edge of the bed and put the tray beside me.

I stopped tickling Aurora so I could lean over to accept his warm kiss. He cupped my cheek in one hand and brought me back for more.

“Gross,” Aurora yelled rolling back onto my legs so she could watch us kiss with her tongue sticking out.

Dante pulled away and bopped her on the nose. “You’re gross. I bet you didn’t brush your teeth this morning.”

“Yes, I did!”

“If I check your toothbrush, will it be wet?” he questioned with narrowed eyes.

I lay back against the pillows, grabbing a piece of bacon from the tray to watch their normal morning routine.

“Si.”

“Because you splashed water on it or because you actually brushed your teeth?” He raised a brow. “Come here, let me smell your breath.”

Rora glared at him for a second then huffed, rolling off the end of the bed to stand and stalk sassily from the room.

“You better wait for me to open her presents,” she shouted on the way to her bedroom.

Dante stared after her bemusedly. “Dio help me when she becomes a teenager.”

I laughed, fisting my hand in his black tee to bring him closer to me for another kiss. “Her papa is an infamous mafia Don, I don’t think you have to worry about boys around her until she’s fully grown.”

“It’s not the boys I’m worried about,” he muttered, moving the tray over my lap so he could sit beside me, curling an arm over my shoulder and taking the ends of my long hair between his fingers. “She’s enough trouble on her own.”

I laughed again, because this was undoubtedly true.

“Happy birthday, cuore mia,” he murmured, drawing his nose from my forehead to my ear. “Are you a happy twenty-eight-year-old?”

I beamed at him. “I don’t think I could be happier. I barely recognize myself sometimes.”

It was true. When I looked in the mirror in the mornings, there were no haunted eyes staring back at me a ghostly shade of gray. I smiled more often, laughed readily, and couldn’t wait to return to home to my loud house filled with loved ones at the end of every work day.

He chuckled as Rora came sprinting back into the room in her pajamas and dove onto the bed at my side.

She snagged a piece of my bacon and chewed it nosily as she asked. “Can we give her our presents now?”

“I think so.” Dante leaned over the bed and handed me a long, wide, flat wrapped present. “This one is mostly from Rora.”

My sweet girl grinned at me, propping her arm and chin on my thigh as she watched me open it.

I tore the paper off without an inkling to what may have lay beneath it, so I wasn’t prepared when I saw the adoption papers signed and notarized in my hands. I had signed them months ago when we first got the papers back from Gideone, but we hadn’t asked Aurora yet how she would feel about being our daughter.

My mouth hung open, my wet gaze snapping between Dante and Rora.

“What?” I whispered.

“Rora came to me a few weeks ago and asked why we hadn’t adopted her yet,” Dante explained, as he reached across the bed to draw his big hand over her head. “She thought we didn’t want to keep her.”

My eyes darted to Rora, horrified. “How could you ever think that?”

She shrugged a little weakly. “You guys could have your own babies one day. Maybe you wouldn’t want me then. I just wanted to know where I would go if that happened so I could be prepared.”

My heart tore inside my chest with an audible ripping sound that echoed in my ears.

“Rora, gattina,” I murmured through the tears in my throat. I cupped her sweet face, staring into those big brown eyes that were much too worldly for a seven-year-old. “We would never want you anywhere but at our side, capisci? We didn’t want to rush you into becoming our daughter legally. You’ve been through so much.”

“I never had a dad, not really. I loved my mama,” she whispered brokenly. “I love her today and always. But she’s gone and I love you too. I want to be your daughter. You both saved me. I don’t feel safe anywhere but here at home with you.”