When Heroes Fall (Anti-Heroes in Love 1)

“I can tell,” I sniffed, but inside, my blood was bubbling and popping, warm inside my veins.

For one second, I wondered, was this comradery?

I was close with Beau. We saw each other all the time, snuggled and chatted, shopped and dined. But we had been friends for five years. It made me realize I hadn’t made a new friend in a very long time and maybe, I was out of practice.

But that was kind of what it felt like lying there with the urge to laugh in my belly while a big mafioso crushed my torso where he straddled me after his fake attack.

Like maybe we could be friends.

“Che palle,” someone exclaimed from the door. “Is this the way we train now, Boss?”

I raised into a crunch so I could see the door only to wish I hadn’t.

The short man from yesterday who I now surmised was Marco, and the big one, Adriano, along with Frankie, the Grouch, Jacopo, and the Japanese man I hadn’t met yet all stood in the doorway watching us.

I flopped back to the mat and wished briefly for a return to my senses.

“Only when I’m training her,” Dante said flippantly over his shoulders before he rolled to standing with utter ease and offered me his hand to help me up. “Amici, let me formally introduce Elena Lombardi, my lawyer and unwilling roommate.”

Marco winced. “He does snore.”

“Thankfully, I have a separate room,” I said dryly, pulling my hand from Dante’s lingering grip after I stood to offer it to the short man with the strong Brooklyn accent. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Marco.”

His thick brows arched comically wavy lines into his forehead like a cartoon character. “You’re a real classy woman.”

A little laugh escaped me at his reverence as he kissed the back of my hand. “Thank you, I think.”

“For sure,” he said like it was no problem. “This here is Frankie, he’s the brains. Adriano is the brawn, but he also cooks like a fucking dream. Chen is our secret weapon, and Jaco here is… hey, Jaco? Why do we keep you around again?”

Jacopo scowled at him while the others laughed.

“Are you…?” I wasn’t exactly sure how these things worked. “Capos too?”

They laughed again, but it was Dante who stepped in line with me to say, “Rule number three, don’t ask questions.”

“Because you won’t give me the answers,” I bandied back.

I’d grown up in Naples, so I knew all about the antiquated constructs of our culture around women. We weren’t allowed in on “the business” because we weren’t to be trusted.

“Because you won’t like the answers,” he surprised me by offering.

“You skipped rule number two,” I reminded him.

His grin was feral, lips so red they seemed stained with wine pulled back over big, white teeth. “Rule number two, you learn how to fight.”

“I just showed you,” I argued, side-eyeing the assembled men, all visibly strong and scarred, even the short guy, Marco. “I can defend myself.”

“Not from me,” Dante countered.

“Not from us,” Marco agreed a second later.

The others nodded, though Adriano hesitated to do so.

My pride, the wicked thing, surged through me, and before I could appeal to my rational side, I was assuming a fighter’s stance and facing off with the group of soldati.

“Try me,” I dared, a sharp smile on my face.

It didn’t occur to me until later, lying on the mat covered in sweat, hair matted with it, clothes soaked through with it, that I hadn’t stopped smiling the entire hour I sparred with Dante and his crew.

ELENA

Adriano dropped me off that morning at my favorite coffee shop, The Mug Shot, a block down from my office. He wasn’t a chatty guy, but I noticed a photo of a pretty dog as his phone screen saver and had to hide my smile behind my hand when he’d caught my eye in the review mirror.

It was busy as it always was with local businesspeople on their way to work needing their first, second, or third cup of joe, so I settled into line to wait while I replied to emails on my phone. I was midway through the line when I felt awareness trickle like cold water down my spine.

Looking up from my phone through my eyelashes, I immediately caught a pair of brilliant green eyes only a few feet away at one of the small tables in the shop.

They belonged to a man I’d never seen before but still had the vague sense I knew, like an actor or a famous model. He had the looks of one, the hard-carved face with a strong jaw and a hawkish nose that somehow looked perfect on his tan face. The verdant green of his eyes was almost startling, especially against that golden skin and the short, styled waves of his inky hair. He was broad through the shoulders, his suit tailored to his tapered torso, and something about his demeanor was as compelling as a shout from across the room, his energy palpable, almost overtly forceful.