Page 179 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet
“Have Jaco pick up Bambi and take her and Aurora to his house. They should stay with him until we get back Stateside or take down the fucking di Carlos.”
“How are we going to do that with half the crew including our capo in Italy? You’re a wanted fugitive, D. The second we go back, they’ll arrest you for bail jumping and then drag the trial out for years to keep you in jail.”
“You think I don’t get that?” I said between my gritted teeth. “I’ll think of something.”
“You always think you can get out of any tight spot,” he argued, reminding me of Alexander. “Sometimes, there are consequences we gotta face, D.”
“Watching my guys get picked off by the di Carlos isn’t one of them. I’m not some uneducated thug, Frankie. You forget I’ve got a brain, and I know how to use it.”
“I’m just saying, you can be smart as hell and still make mistakes, still get busted.Cazzo, Dante, you didn’t even fucking kill Giuseppe di Carlo, and they’re trying to take you down for it. I’m just saying, we got a shit ton of fires to put out here. Some things might get burned.”
“I won’t allow that,” I reiterated in a voice that felt like stone, the words hard and painful in my throat before I said them. “This shit isn’t just my business, Frank. It’s family.”
Finally, his face softened, and he sagged a little. When he reached forward to clasp my shoulder, I did the same to him. We stood there like that for a long moment just taking in air, sending out prayers for our brother Marco.
“Your woman is on the patio being all domestic preparing dinner with Tore,” he finally muttered. “The old man’s laughing with her. It’s a scene I never thought I’d witness. She doesn’t know about Marco yet.”
“Some good today, then,” I allowed as we broke apart and moved in tandem toward the house. “I’ll add it to my win with Rocco.”
“He agreed to back our plans for the city?”
“If I marry Mirabella Ianni.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
“Another fire,” he pointed out gently.
“Not afraid to get burned, Frankie,” I reminded him casually as we made our way into the kitchen at the back of the villa and out the massive glass doors.
The sight of them hit me like a wave, taking my thoughts out from under me.
Elena sat at the round wood table in the seat I usually took facing the citrus grove. She hadn’t curled her hair, the strands loose and wavy beneath a green, white, and red scarf she was using to hold back the mass of it as she bent to cut rounds out of a zucchini. The strap of her white linen dress had slipped off one shoulder, the skin browning in the Napoli sun. She hadn’t noticed me yet, fixed on her task, but her mouth held wide by a genuine grin as Tore told her a story I recognized about my time spent in the villa as a boy.
He was leaned back in his chair with a glass of red wine held in one hand, the other telling his tale in tandem with his voice as it moved through the air in that quintessential Italian manner. His face was creased with the depth of his smile, his aura utterly relaxed.
I couldn’t breathe for the beauty of the scene. My two favorite humans, the only two who loved me enough to fight for me, smiling together at the dining table, the rolling green mountains at their back, the soft strains of Andrea Bocelli playing in the background.
This was what I’d wanted since my mother died.
Exactly this.
A family.
A home.
Sensing me, both of them stopped almost simultaneously and swiveled their heads to look at me. My throat closed up as twin smiles broke open their faces.
“Dante,” Elena sung happily, more carefree than I’d ever seen her.
She opened her arms for me instantly.
“Figlio,” Tore greeted in that low rumble, tipping his chin at me.
“I’ll do anything to protect this,” I swore in a muted whisper to Frankie beside me before I strode across the red flagstones to Elena’s side.
When I bent to her, she offered her mouth without hesitation, my conservative girl blooming so fucking beautifully after only a few days of my love and validation.
