When Heroes Fall (Anti-Heroes in Love 1)

Ambition versus morality.

Both characteristics so elemental to me, I couldn’t fathom making a choice.

But in this case, ambition was coupled with a pledge I’d made to the only sibling I ever really loved to protect her beloved Dante Salvatore from a lifetime in prison.

So, I sucked in a deep, stabilizing breath and cast my gaze to the man in question. He was watching me, eyes infinite and gravitational as twin black holes pulling me into the unknown.

“What do you say, Elena?” he asked with a roguish grin, flagrantly ignoring my polite suggestion he call me by my surname. “O mangi questa minestra o salti dalla finestra?”

I hadn’t spoken more than a word or two of Italian in the years I’d lived in New York City. It was a matter of principle or more, a matter of survival.

My mind went to dark places in my native tongue.

But I understood clear enough what Dante was saying.

Are you going to take it or leave it?

Was I going to compromise myself and step into the shadowed world of the criminal or remain pristine and untouched by the upper echelons of success and power in the light?

I pretended it was a hard decision to make, but deep inside a heart that had long ago turned to ice, the decision felt more than a little right.

The car finally pulled up to the curb in front of the courthouse just as the sun broke over the crust of the metallic cityscape and spilled like broken yolk through the streets.

We were there hours early to avoid the media, but a few eager photogs and reporters littered the bottom steps of the marble building, and they jumped to their feet as we pulled up, ready to capture their first glimpse of the people who would be representing Dante Salvatore.

With another quiet, deep breath to brace myself, I turned away from Dante’s soul-sucking eyes and Yara’s cool cynicism to wrap my sweat-damp palm around the door handle.

“Let’s do this then, shall we?” I asked, and without waiting for a response, I alighted from the vehicle into the bright light of camera flashes.

ELENA

The courtroom.

My haven.

A place so entrenched in rules and customs, its hierarchy so pretty and plainly delineated as rice fields. I knew who I was in this place and what I needed to do.

A lawyer who would accept nothing less than victory.

Media filled to bursting in the antechambers outside. The courtroom itself was packed with people, most of them standing, including my sister Cosima and her husband, Lord Thornton, Duke of Greythorn.

My client seemed entirely unmoved as we progressed to our seats, but the moment he spotted my sister Cosima in the row behind the defendant’s table, his expression melted like a candle held too close to a flame.

“Tesoro,” he murmured to her as he sat, already twisting to look at her.

Cosima’s golden eyes glittered with the sheen of tears as she leaned forward to place her hand on the rail separating them. “Fratello.”

I swallowed thickly, uncomfortable with the situation. There were three rows of media allowed in the chamber, and each camera was clacking rapidly to catch the exchange. We didn’t need Dante accused of flirting with his brother’s wife on top of everything else, and I didn’t want Cosima caught up in the drama any more than she had to be.

“We will win,” his brother, Alexander, as big and broad as Dante but golden to the mafioso’s swarthy good looks. “I won’t let them do this to you.”

Dante’s red mouth twisted. “You think you can do anything. You do know the entire world does not bow down to your grace, si?”

When Alexander only raised a cool brow, Dante laughed that completely inappropriate, absurdly lovely laugh that rang throughout the courtroom.

“Shut up,” I demanded under my breath as the rattle of camera shutters increased. “Face forward, Edward, and for once in your life, do as you’re told.”

We’d discussed calling him Edward in court to further emphasize his connections to England and the aristocracy and not the seedier side of his Italian life and criminal connections.

Of course, Dante flatly refused to answer to the name.

“Make me,” he taunted as if we were in a child’s schoolyard and not in one of the highest courts in the nation trying to convince a judge not to send him to prison while he awaited trial.

“If only the judge could see how childish you are, maybe he would agree to try you as a minor,” I countered smoothly, turning away to reorganize my already immaculate pile of papers and legal pads.

“This is not a playground,” Yara said without moving her lips, her gaze still locked on her files. “Exercise some decorum, please.”

My skin burned with humiliation, which was only exacerbated by Dante’s smooth, smoky chuckle as he readjusted to lounge comfortably in a fundamentally uncomfortable courtroom chair.