Page 12 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

He did not want to grant bail.

But he would.

While it wasn’t guaranteed, bail was the right of any person awaiting trial unless they were a proven danger to society, like a serial killer.

Of course, it was my opinion that Dante had probably killed numerous people in his sordid life, thus earning that distinction, but I wasn’t about to point that out.

“I know your reputation, Ms. Ghorbani, and I won’t have any shady business conducted in this courtroom, is that understood?” He waited for a firm nod then continued. “As I see it, Mr. Salvatore is a flight risk, but he poses no immediate threat to the public. I do not pretend to care about the safety of your client, Ms. Ghorbani, but I will allow bail to be set. Mr. Salvatore, I am releasing you on ten million dollars bond and placing you on house arrest. You will only be permitted to leave your residence for church, therapy, or medical appointments and will be monitored via GPS bracelet.”

There was a clamor in the room as shutters clicked, and people balked, then whispered at the decision.

House arrest.

For a man like Dante, a man who seemed like a barely leashed beast at the best of times, I imagined house arrest was akin to being locked in a cage for the next six months to three years.

Yet he sat there beside me in his bespoke black suit, sleek and powerful as a panther, looking nothing short of mildly bored and perhaps a little drowsy. I felt like shaking him until his teeth rattled, yelling at him that this was the rest of his life at stake and demanding him to tell me why he was so utterly blasé about the whole thing.

I didn’t know why I cared.

It wasn’t that I’d formed some lunatic instant connection to the man. In fact, I abhorred almost everything he stood for.

Perhaps, it was as simple as the fact that I wanted some of that unshakeable calm for myself. I wanted to steal the magic of his self-assuredness and bottle it like perfume to spritz on my pulse points whenever I needed validation.

“Court is dismissed,” Judge Hartford said distantly, and then there was chaos as everyone rose to leave, photogs clamoring for one last shot of the impudent mafioso.

“Well,” I said, unable to curb my impulse to poke at his calm, like a child shaking a bottle of pop hoping for an explosion. “I certainly hope this lends a new gravity to your understanding of the situation.”

Dante didn’t look at me as he unfolded to his immense height and adjusted the silver cuff links with the same crest emblazoned on his gaudy silver ring. Only when we were pressed together by Ernesto and Bill shuffling out of their seats did his gaze lock on mine with an almost audible click. I gasped slightly as a rough hand, that same one that had left an imprint on my thigh only minutes before, wrapped nearly double around my wrist, his thumb notched over my pulse. It drew my attention to the quickened thud of my heartbeat.

Adrenaline flooded my body at being so close to and held by such a man, a mammoth predator, but there was something else there too in the hot undercurrents, something sunk deep into my blood.

Something like lust.

I fixed a glower to my face and breathed through my mouth so I could avoid that oddly intoxicating lemon and pepper scent of his.

He wasn’t deterred.

If anything, his eyes danced for the first time since we entered the courtroom as his lips barely moved around the words, “You can cage the man, Elena, but not the idea. No collection of walls is strong enough to hold me or mine.”

“You are very poetic about organized crime.”

“Thank you,” he said even though it wasn’t a compliment. “Have dinner with me tonight. It’s my last as a free man.”

I’d missed that somehow when I’d been dazed out thinking about the irritating man shackling my wrist. Typically, he would be imprisoned pending house arrest, but I had no doubt Yara had finagled something legally or with a well-placed bribe to give the capo one last night. I tugged free of his hold and bared my teeth between my painted red lips, not caring for once how I might look to the photographers gathered.

“I wouldn’t go to dinner with you if it was our last night on earth,” I promised darkly before turning on my heel and following Bill and Ernesto, leaving my client with Yara.

The tendrils of his smoky chuckle somehow threaded through the noise of the room and wound its way into my ears, a casual, beautifully toned mockery of everything I held dear.

It was official.

I hated him.

The mafia ‘lord’ laughs in the face of his crimes.

I scoffed as I read the headline inThe New York Timesabove a grainy black and white photo of a laughing Dante Salvatore that still managed to capture the depth of his beauty. It made him look like a movie star playing some kinda charming criminal the audience was supposed to root for in an HBO show. The new moniker they had given him, “the mafia lord,” proved to glamorize and civilize him in a way that would appeal to millions of Americans.

Exactly Dante’s intention.