Page 163 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

“Villa Rosa?” she questioned softly.

“Yes, we’re staying here until we figure out a game plan.”

“You left the law for this man,” she murmured, almost sounding awed. “I am so happy for you.”

“What?” I blinked at the lemons rattling softly in the wind across the sloping green yard from me.

“This pleases me,” she repeated, clapping in the background. “You have a need for a man like Dante, you understand? Daniel Sinclair was looking for peace,figlia mia, but you? You were always looking for chaos,si? Someone who makes you feel alive.”

So alive I burn.

I blinked unseeing at the table, my index finger tracing the outline of Dante’s initials. “I didn’t know that was what I needed until, oh, I don’t know, two days ago. How did you know?”

“I am your mother,” she stated firmly, then sighed. “I have not done many things right in this life of mine, Elena, but being your mother has always made me so proud. You are fierce and strong. Nothing pushes you to the ground for long. You are a lawyer. You like adversity. Dante, he gives you this conflict and the power to overcome it, yes?”

Yes.

She was utterly and completely right.

“He’s a criminal,” I pointed out, just to make sure she understood the situation completely. “And not some two-bit shoplifter, but a man probably wanted by Interpol and the entire United States government now.”

“Yes,” she said gravely. “This is a problem, but you like problems.”

“I do,” I admitted.

“If anyone can fix this, it is you,” she stated so matter-of-factly it was as if she was reading the constitution, something historical everyone took as absolute. “You will find a way to bring you both home.”

“I’ll try,” I promised.

Until then, I’d been playing catch-up. The events of my life in the past few days were shocking and irreversible. I hadn’t gotten around to thinking of the consequences, let alone how to rectify them.

“Seamus is dead,” I confessed to her softly.

Without hesitation, she said, “Bene.”

“Really? He was your husband. The father of your children. I hated him, Mama,loathedhim, but I’m still disconcerted by his death,” I admitted, though it was a little different for me.

I’d been the one to kill him.

It could have been Dante, but increasingly, I had the feeling he’d only shot Seamus in the face to absolve me of the responsibility for his death.

“Your father was a bad man masquerading as someone good,” she said softly, the words waterlogged with timeless sorrow. “I had a chance once to choose a good man in a bad life, and I chose wrongly. I am happy for my daughter that she is not so afraid as I was.”

“Coraggio,” I murmured. “Dante makes me feel brave.”

“As he should,” she declared. “Now, I can sleep well knowing my daughters have found good men.”

I laughed. “Maybe ‘good’ is a loose interpretation. I think Alexander, Daniel, and Dante have all been considered villains at some point in their lives.”

“There is peace in the balance,” she said, and I could picture her as Osteria Lombardi rolling pasta dough as she doled out sage advice, at once domestic and eternal, every Italian Mama and their wisdom embodied in her single form. “I think with Dante, you will find your balance too.”

“Ti amo, Mama,” I murmured, cradling the phone as if it was her cheek. “Thank you for always believing in me even when I gave you reason not to.”

“I did not do as I should have and protected you when you were a girl.” Her voice was thick with tears, with a regret that would never die no matter how many times I told her I didn’t blame her. “The least I can do is support you now,lottatrice, and know that you will always make your mama proud.”

My tear ducts stung with tears, but I pressed my index fingers to both to stem the flow. Apparently, falling in love turned me into an unstoppable crying machine.

“Does he know about Christopher?” she asked tentatively.