Page 159 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

I laughed a little. “You know, I’m always telling other people that, but I have the hardest time applying it to myself.”

“I’ll help you,” he offered simply.

And I loved him then even more fiercely than I had the moment before that. Because that was who Dante was. He was a dangerous man with the biggest heart I’d ever known, and he never hesitated in offering his love, guidance, or protection to those in need.

“I love you,” I told him for the first time since I’d first declared it on the tarmac in New Jersey.

Why did it feel like the most dangerous thing I’d done all day was say three teeny, tiny words people usually said every day of their lives?

I love you.

It was almost absurd how language could so neatly parcel up such enormous emotion.

“Ti amo, cuore mia,” Dante responded instantly, so easily I almost envied him that capacity.

He leaned across the console, and in front of everyone gathered before the car, he clasped my face entirely in his huge hands and kissed me. He kissed me languidly, sensuously parting my lips with a stroke of his tongue before diving inside to stroke over my own. I moaned at the taste of him, at the rough bite of his stubble against my smooth skin and the sharp pain as he took my lower lip between his teeth and tugged. When he finished, he pulled away only far enough to lean his forehead against me.

“You are with me now, Elena. Let me welcome you properly to my world.”

I nodded, nerves still low in my belly but quieted by the press of love exploding throughout my chest. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he agreed with a boyish smirk that belied his eager enthusiasm to claim me in this way.

He was moving away and out of the car in a flash, walking around the hood with a ringing, “Ciao!” to the men gathered to welcome him. They called out in an uneven chorus in return as Dante reached my door and pulled it up and open for me. I took his offered hand, looking up at him as he winked at me.

“Raggazzi,” he called in a jovial shout that carried easily across the large yard. “It’s good to be home.”

There was a resounding shouted response. Amadeo Salvatore broke free of the formation on the right side and made his way toward us. He wore a white linen shirt undone to his sternum, revealing a thicket of black chest hair and a simple gold cross necklace. In loose pants, sandaled feet, with his deep olive-brown tan and tousled black hair threaded only lightly with silver at the temples, he looked like some wealthy vacationer, not a ruthless mafia Don.

“Welcome home,” he greeted with a broad grin that cut creases into his cheeks beside his eyes. It made me realize just how handsome he was and, once again, how rare it was to see such truly golden eyes. I’d only ever known Cosima and Sebastian to have that yellow gaze, and it tugged something loose at the back of my memories I resolved to study later.

For now, I let Dante usher me forward to his pseudo-father.

“Tore, come stai?” Dante asked him as they clasped each other by the shoulders and exchanged smacking kisses to either cheek.

Tore didn’t release his grip on Dante when they stepped back, squeezing the taller man’s shoulders as he beamed at him. “Better, much better seeing you free and well.”

“You were right,” Dante said cryptically, both of them casting a sidelong glance at me. “From the start. I was always going to change everything for her.”

Tore clucked his tongue, but there was more humor and happiness in his expression than I’d ever seen before. The brooding, often angry man I vaguely knew in my youth and the stoic, careful Don I’d come to know slightly better in New York was replaced entirely by this vivacious, warm host.

“You aren’t the first man to change your life for love, and you won’t be the last.” He turned his tiger-eyed gaze to me and opened his arms. “Elena Lombardi, welcome to you. I hope you come to love it here as much as my son and I do.”

I hesitated slightly, years of hatred and judgment stopping up my joints like rusted hinges. There was a flash of something in his eyes then, a shadow over that sunny gold. He looked…devastated. It was such a strong emotion, but it was there in the tightness beside his eyes even after he controlled his response.

Something tender in me reacted to that sight. I was used to rejection, to judgment, and I didn’t want to be the cause of that for Dante’s stand-in father.

So, I shook off my reserve and stepped forward to embrace the older man myself, pressing warm kisses to each of his creased cheeks. “Thank you for having us here, Salvatore.”

When I stepped back, both Dante and Tore were smiling at me. My man looked proud, and the latter looked properly chuffed. He pressed a hand to his cheek where I’d kissed him, then laughed a deep, chest-rumbling laugh.

“It’s me who should be thanking you. I never got used to America and the cold. Winter in the south here is exactly right, cool enough to wear a sweater at night, and that is it.” He shuddered. “There was snow on the ground in New York when I left. I only just arrived from Rome and already my bones are happier.”

“Your old man bones can’t take the cold, huh?” Dante teased.

Tore shot him a withering look. “I’ll show you just how young I am tomorrow when we spar. I heard from Frankie that you’ve slowed down.”

Dante searched over his shoulder for Frankie, who stood by the SUV that followed us from Naples with a wicked grin. “I’m coming for you tomorrow.”