When Heroes Fall (Anti-Heroes in Love 1)

No one knew about Track 83 beneath the Smith Jameson Building except the previous owner of the building, who was now deceased, a man at the city planning record hall I had on payroll, and me.

It was my sanctuary, an outlet from the cage of my apartment so many floors above. It seemed fitting to own the penthouse, my own personal Mt. Olympus, and the subterranean tunnels that threaded through the entire network of New York City’s underworld.

This was where I conducted the business the probation office didn’t see, and Elena couldn’t hear.

The curved high ceilings with their faded frescos were appropriately Italianate and created lovely acoustics for the sounds of a man’s scream.

My fist thudded dully into the bones of Carter Andretti’s face, the skin splitting open like overripe fruit at the force of the blow. His head went careening to the side, bloody spittle flying in a wide arch across his prone body and my black suit.

This was why I wore black. Not because it cut a dramatic image, but because blood was impossible to get out of anything else.

“You have thirty seconds to start talking again, figlio di puttana,” I growled as I reared back to deliver another fierce jab to his other cheek, evening out the pain. “Or I’ll string you up from the ceiling, put on my brass knuckles, and use you as a punching bag.”

He groaned weakly as his head slumped between his shoulders, blood dripping down his torso.

“Even if he does talk, I’m not convinced.”

The voice that spoke belonged to one of the most infamous sinners in the city, a man with a reputation so notorious it was said women just handed him their panties when he entered a room.

Caelian Accardi.

The son of Don Orazio Accardi.

Usually such a familial tie would guarantee him a place of prestige, but Caelian was the black sheep, his father’s greatest disappointment. Caelian didn’t care about learning the family business, but he did care about dabbling in the entertainment of it—the girls, the drugs, and the gambling.

No one in the Accardi borgata gave Caelian a second look.

But I had, and I did again as I turned to face one of the two men I’d brought down there that day.

He was young, late twenties, and the youth still in his face and the bright sheen of blond hair that hadn’t gone burnished yet with age. Still, there was a certain quality about him, that athletic form held very still, those blue eyes too placid. It was the look of a man whose still waters ran very deep, very dark.

I was counting on that.

“You’re an idiot if you doubt him,” Santo Belcante scoffed from the opposite side of the room. “The di Carlos have always been greedy bastards.”

Santo was no one’s son. He had been taken in by Monte Belcante as a boy and had been groomed as his successor until Monte died of cancer last year. For reasons I didn’t know, Nario, Monte’s brother, had taken over the family instead of Santo.

I was counting on the very bitterness I heard in Santo’s tone.

Frankie had discovered who had tried to run Elena off the road in Staten Island.

The motherfucking di Carlos.

Traffic cameras had captured Agostino di Carlo, Gideone’s older brother and one of the two men contending for the throne, climbing into the GMC SUV at a restaurant the family owned in Brooklyn an hour before the chase.

The fuckers were coming for me and mine.

It wasn’t just about the fact that Cosima had killed Giuseppe and that she was a known associate of Tore and me (though no one but the three of us knew to what extent).

It was about kicking a man when he was supposedly down.

They wanted control of my operation.

More, they wanted control of the entire city.

Carter Andretti had been only too happy to explain in the early hours of the morning that Agostino di Carlo had paid him to shoot out Ottavio’s deli.

Not to get rid of Cosima.

But to get rid of his uncle.

He’d orchestrated the entire damn war between our two families so that he could use the opportunity to take power for himself. It was the kind of selfish, unthinking act that had led to pure chaos in the 80s and countless Made Men being put behind bars.

It was idiotic and foolish.

Especially because Carter Andretti had told me they wouldn’t stop at the Salvatore borgata.

The motherfucker di Carlo brothers wanted it all.

Which was why I had brought the two looked-over members of the Accardi and Belcante outfits into my confidence. If I could convince them the di Carlos were a threat to their own organizations, that meant allies, and I knew well enough that the older generations were just as happy to see me dead as the Cosa Nostra.

Without warning, I reeled back and threw another punch at Andretti. His cheek crumpled under my heavy fist, the bones crumbling.