When Heroes Fall (Anti-Heroes in Love 1)

“You gonna hurt her, he steps outta line?” Joe asked, leaning forward somewhat eagerly.

Whoever said women were terrible gossips clearly had never met an Italian man.

Whatever plans I had for Elena were decidedly more about pleasure than pain, but Joe Lodi didn’t need to know that.

Just as Elena didn’t need to know I’d forced her to move in, in part, so that her arsehole of a father would back off our operation. It was a risky bet, given I’d doubted the man had a heart, even in regards to his daughters, given he’d sold Cosima into slavery to pay off his gambling debts to the Italian Camorra, but it was worth a shot.

I loved it when those paid off.

I arched a brow at Joe, watching as he deflated slightly under my cold regard. “No, Joe, I’m not going to beat a woman who is a guest in my house just because her father is a pezzo di Merda. I don’t trust those Irish bastardi, so we stay vigilant, but now we’ve got something on them, so I’m hoping we can focus on the di Carlo problem.”

“Mason Matlock’s been moved to a safe place like you asked,” Enzo promised. “He’ll stay there under surveillance until you say so.”

I nodded. “Good, though I have a feeling that broken fucker has told us all he knows. Now, we know the di Carlos have a civil war brewing over leadership between the di Carlo brothers and Giuseppe’s underboss, Italo Faletti, and we can use that to our advantage.”

Irrationally, I wanted Gideone di Carlo and his older brother, Agostino, to die horrible deaths just for approaching Elena, but I knew if I was going to back a horse in this race it had to be the younger di Carlos.

There was an idea lurking at the periphery of my mind when I zoned out on the myriad of problems facing me. A solution to the feud Giuseppe had started with us and the Irish problem, even the irritating fact that the other heads of the five families in the Commission still didn’t accept me as one of their own.

Could I wipe them all out in one fell swoop with a singular, explosive idea?

It was still too murky to detail out loud, but if everything came together, including a certain icy redhead in her room upstairs, I could emerge from this cazzato trial with more power than I’d had even before it.

I grinned at my men as I decided to set the wheels in motion. There was a mole in my operation, a fact I wouldn’t soon forget, but hopefully, this scheme would also draw them out.

“Enzo,” I ordered, “Have Violetta Matlock brought close by and get Caelian Accardi’s information for me.”

“The son of the ’Ndrangheta boss?” he questioned.

Gaetan hit him on the back of his head. “Just do as the boss says, numb skull.”

Enzo winced, then excused himself to make a call at the back of the room.

“What’re you thinking, D?” Frankie asked from the coffee table in the middle of the room where he’d set up shop.

The smile that overtook my face was as lethal as a weapon. “I think it’s time to shake things up a little. These motherfuckers think this is their world just because they were born on American soil. Let’s show them what it’s like to die in ours.”

She was sleeping when I finally got the time to check in on her. I almost laughed at the image she made in the mammoth pale gray bed with a black silk face mask over her eyes and black foam plugs in her ears. Only Elena Lombardi would look like she was preparing for war just to take a simple nap.

But there was no denying she looked exquisite in slumber, her classic features softer in repose, her mouth pink without the usual lipstick. I found I wanted to lean down to savor it with my own, exploring the small white teeth beneath those bow-shaped lips, sliding my tongue alongside hers to taste her dreams.

I wondered with a fierce surge of possession that nearly stole my breath if she was dreaming of me. There was no doubting the powerful arousal she had felt watching me jack off in my office last night. It was there in the flush I could detect even though she was tucked in the shadows of the hallway, in the way her mouth bloomed open like a rose ready to be pollinated, her breath a harsh pant. She had been fucking captivated by me and by her reaction to me, almost scared and awed of the crackling chemistry between us.

It was heady as fuck to know I could have that effect on a woman who had clearly never harnessed the power of her sexuality. My usual ironclad control was tenuous at best now, knowing that beneath that gorgeous, cultivated class lay the heart of a wanton, desperate for a man to show her how to navigate the world of pleasure and hedonism.